The Independent View: Possible Disruption of a Party Qualification System in NY

On September 9th, New York Democrats go to the primary polls and could change the political party qualification system.

The primary for Governor and Lt. Governor are separately selected in New York.

The Democratic primary for Governor is between:

- Cuomo, for his second term
- Fordham University Professor Zephyr Teachout
- Comedian/Activist Randy Credico

The Democratic primary for Lt. Governor is between:

- Kathy Hochul, former U.S. Rep. NY 26th Congressional District (Cuomo choice)
- Tim Wu, Professor of Law at Columbia Law School (Zephyr choice)

Gov. Cuomo’s political operatives are eying a “painful scenario’’ to dump Kathy Hochul, a moderate upstater, as the governor’s running mate for lieutenant governor amid growing signs that leftist law professor Tim Wu is picking up momentum in the Sept. 9 Democratic primary.

Such an action could be needed because a Wu victory would result in a Cuomo/Wu ticket on the Democratic line in the November election but potentially disastrous Cuomo/Hochul tickets on the Working Families, Independence, and Women’s Equality lines, where no primaries are slated.

Under the state Election Law, votes for a Cuomo/Hochul ticket in November would not be added to the tally for the Cuomo/Wu ticket, potentially costing Cuomo hundreds of thousands of votes.

In New York, to get a ballot line and your ballot position, is determined by the number of votes you get in the Governor/Lt. Governor General Election, with 50,000 votes as the minimum.

Cuomo would have until Sept. 16 under the election law to swap Wu for Hochul, using a technique that would allow the former Buffalo-area congresswoman and lawyer to be nominated instead for a judgeship, according to an expert on legislative election law.

“This is the painful scenario being reviewed by the Cuomo people, who realize that there is an outside possibility that Wu could win the primary,’’ said a source close to the Cuomo campaign.

Meanwhile, Cuomo campaign operatives, nervous about the Sept. 9 primary, privately concede that he would suffer considerable national political damage if Fordham University Professor Zephyr Teachout, the governor’s hard-charging “progressive’’ challenger and Wu’s running mate, gets more than about 30 percent of the vote after getting endorsed by the state’s second-largest public employee union.

“About 30 percent will be a huge embarrassment to Cuomo on the national scene and would reinforce the sense that progressives don’t like or trust him,’’ said a prominent Democratic activist.

Randy Credico is projected to get single digit votes.