Whither the left in fight for control of NY Democratic Party?

ALBANY — A showdown for the direction of the Democratic Party in New York is brewing.

It’s potential reckoning for the state’s political left, with pragmatists and crusaders dueling for control of an influential minor party, which could affect the outcome of this year’s gubernatorial race and, perhaps, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s chances to be in the field for the 2020 presidential race.

“Whither the left?” is perhaps the key political question in the state in 2018, analysts say, as New York’s political apparatus braces for a series of political conventions next month.

In some ways, the fight for support in New York between Cuomo and the actress Cynthia Nixon echoes the 2016 national Democratic fight between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“I think it’s very clear the civil war within the Democratic Party has not been resolved,” said Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University. “Cynthia Nixon, I think she is that civil war personified. I think she is raising many issues that are important to progressive Democrats.”

Cuomo, son of liberal lion Mario Cuomo, touts a list of accomplishments for the left during his seven-plus years in office: Legalizing of same-sex marriage, expanding opportunities for “free” college tuition and imposing a $15-per-hour minimum wage downstate.

Yet Nixon calls him a “fake Democrat” and many on the left see Cuomo as a centrist who embraced more liberal policies when pressured to. They say he’s raised tens of millions of campaign dollars from real-estate developers and the super rich, failed on a promise to clean up political corruption and, worse, gone back on his word to end Republican control of the state Senate. His bruising style hasn’t helped.

“He does have an argument to make about being a progressive. Are they buying it? No,” said Jeanne Zaino, a political-science professor at Iona College. “Frankly, this is an issue that is bigger than Governor Cuomo.”

Zaino said the New York battle is the latest between party outsiders who are more liberal (think Barack Obama and Sanders) against establishment figures who are more pragmatic (Clinton, Cuomo), playing out on a state level. Even if Cuomo beats Nixon (he has a huge in lead polls now), his margin of victory could have a bearing on whether he’s seen as a viable presidential candidate for “a changing Democratic Party.”

State party leaders are trying to tamp down Nixon’s challenge. “We have a governor in place and it would be a waste, I think, of time and energy to focus on an intraparty battle,” Geoff Berman, executive director of the state Democratic Committee, recently told NY1. “I don’t think we need to worry about a new governor. We have a strong governor.”

Cuomo rolled into office in 2011 projecting himself as a centrist. He signed a property-tax cap, threatened 9,800 state workforce layoffs, froze state spending and initially refused to renew the “millionaires’ tax,” a surcharge on high earners.

He also didn’t act when a breakaway band of four Democrats decided in December 2012 to form a governing coalition with Republicans in the Senate, giving the GOP control despite losing a majority of seats a month earlier.

Fast forward to 2014. Cuomo vowed to work to win Democratic control of the Senate as part of an agreement to win the endorsement of the Working Families Party. Progressives say he didn’t follow through. That the Republicans still control the Senate, despite Democrats’ 32-31 advantage, is one of the left’s main criticisms of Cuomo.

A deal announced by Cuomo last week to bring the splinter Democrats back in line was seen as “just for show,” critics on the left said.

“People on the left are waking up to the reality that if we want to change the trajectory of New York, we need a different person in office,” said Jonathan Westin of New York Communities for Change. His group, together with Citizen Action, has endorsed Nixon and is pushing for the Working Families Party to follow suit — perhaps as quickly as when the party’s executive committee meets Saturday in Albany.