Is Cynthia Nixon Really the One?

By Bruce N. Gyory

There has been an almost breathless tone attending the punditry on Cynthia Nixon’s primary challenge to Governor Andrew Cuomo.  Despite public polls showing Cuomo popular with Democrats particularly liberal and minority Democrats, leaving Nixon under 20 percent in a statewide primary matchup against Cuomo, many of these pundits are projecting a close race, believing that Nixon could win.

Let’s take a breath, before seriously handicapping the outcome of this primary, breaking down who votes in New York’s Statewide Democratic primaries, before exploring what voting patterns key blocs have traditionally followed.

First, turnouts in statewide primaries vary widely depending upon interest level.  Low primary turnouts statewide are 600,000 votes or less out of today’s 5.62 million registered Democrats statewide.  Moderate primary turnouts run at 750,000 to 900,000 voters.  Large primary turnouts, usually in presidential years, comfortably rise above 1 million voters.  The margins of victory are significantly impacted by turnout.

Women usually cast 56-58 percent of the primary vote, with the twin pillars being minority women from the urban cores and highly educated professional women from tonier urban and suburban communities, upstate as well as downstate.  Female primary voters have always been cross tugged by regional, racial, ethnic, religious and increasingly educational factors.  Consequently, this female majority rarely has voted as a unified bloc.

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Source: Empire Report New York