Voters await next week's primaries in suspense
Republican candidate Rick Lazio is running for New York State governor. (June 1, 2010) Credit: Howard Schnapp
Voters in next Tuesday's primaries get to decide some of the most unpredictable nomination fights in recent memory.
Democrats statewide will choose from five attorney-general candidates with whom most voters across the state still seem unfamiliar; Republicans will pick nominees for governor and for both U.S. Senate seats who will face uphill battles in November. Attack ads, mailings and recorded phone appeals are intensifying in the run-up this week, and polls show these races to be wide open to quick shifts - with only fractions of the electorate, as usual, even expected to show up.
The more volatile state battleground belongs to the Republicans. "We don't have a template for who's going to vote in a Republican primary," said Bruce Gyory, adjunct professor of political science at Albany State University, "because there has not been a seriously contested statewide contest since 1980." He defines such a contest as a competitive race in which the victor has a chance of winning the general election.
In 2006, 189,022 Republicans voted in their primary to pick an opponent for Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The day John Spencer won that GOP contest, 6 percent of 3.1 million New York Republicans voted. This year, a seasoned GOP operative predicts, turnout could hit perhaps 10 to 15 percent of a current 2.9 million enrolled Republicans, the number bolstered by a handful of congressional districts featuring hot U.S. House and state legislative primaries - including the widely watched race in Suffolk's 1st C.D.
Rick Lazio, designee of the Republican state committee, looks to win big downstate to offset potential strength for rival Carl Paladino in his home region of western New York.
For registered Democrats, the marquee multiway primary for an open AG post echoes the one four years ago when Eliot Spitzer - like his successor in the post, Andrew Cuomo - ran for governor. Last time, more than 755,000 Democrats voted in the AG contest. This time, even with an uptick in Democratic enrollment statewide, informal turnout projections among party players run between 600,000 and 700,000, or 10 to 12 percent.
And, to reflect the volatility, a Quinnipiac University poll last week found an amazing 77 percent of Democrats didn't know whom they'd vote for as attorney general.
Minor parties have contests, too. One key question: Will statewide Conservative candidacies align with the GOP?
Try to enjoy the suspense.
