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Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York has been renominated by the Democratic party after surviving a primary challenge that exceeded expectations from Zephyr Teachout, a leftwing insurgent candidate.
Cuomo, who is seeking a second term, will now face Rob Astorino, a little-known Republican county executive, in November’s general election.
The governor’s running mate, former congresswoman Kathy Hochul, also survived a contest with Teachout’s co-campaigner, Tim Wu, on Tuesday night to win the Democratic candidacy for lieutenant governor.
With 94% of precincts reporting, Cuomo had won 61.8% of the vote against 34.6% for Teachout, a 42-year-old law professor at Fordham University who spearheaded a liberal rebellion over Cuomo’s fiscal conservatism, his ties to big business and his decision to scrap an anti-corruption commission.
Teachout’s surprisingly strong performance was a blow to a governor who is widely discussed as a future presidential candidate. A poll of likely Democratic voters by Public Policy Polling conducted last week and released earlier on Tuesday had put her support at 26%.
Cuomo attempted to ignore the primary challenge. He barely campaigned, declined to engage in televised debates with Teachout and refused even to utter the names of his opponents until he had been declared the winner after 10pm on Tuesday night.
In a statement released after his victory, he said he wanted to “congratulate Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu on running a spirited campaign, engaging in the democratic process and having the courage to make their voices heard”.
Cuomo took the unusual step of not holding an election night event to celebrate his victory. Teachout was initially unable to concede defeat to him because he had not passed on a telephone number.
The governor attributed his win to “the progress we have made together over the last four years”, which he summarised as “restoring economic opportunity, replacing dysfunction with results, putting people before politics and re-establishing New York as a progressive leader for the nation”.
Speaking at a final campaign event at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen, Teachout said that she and Wu, a professor at Columbia University, had succeeded in confronting what she called the “massive and corrupt New York political machine”.
“The Democrats of this great state have spoken, and I will not be your next governor,” Teachout told supporters. “But the Democrats of this state have been heard. You have been heard.”
She declared a victory in having pushed Cuomo to dismantle a coalition in the New York state senate between Republicans and Independent Democrats, which had aided his economic agenda. The governor endorsed Democrats in an effort to secure the party a majority in the upper chamber.
Teachout also credited her campaign with persuading Cuomo to push for the public financing of elections. Speaking afterwards she emphasised that Cuomo had raised more than $35m for his re-election campaign, dwarfing the Teachout-Wu campaign chest of about $800,000.
Campaigning last weekend Cuomo, 56, insisted that his progressive credentials were impeccable. He stressed that, among other things his governorship had ushered in the legalisation of gay marriage, gun control laws and an increase in the minimum wage.
However he signalled in his statement on Tuesday night that he would not retreat from the economic agenda that has angered some on the leftwing of his party. He pledged that he would continue to cut taxes and push on with “innovative economic development strategies” that were dismissed as corporate handouts by his opponents.
Liberals declared that they had embarrassed Cuomo. “The governor is feeling some heat,” said Bertha Lewis, an adviser to Teachout and veteran campaigner. “We kicked some ass and we took his name. We’re here and we’re not going away.”
Stephanie Taylor, the co-founder of the progressive change campaign committee, said Teachout’s performance sent a message to Cuomo and other leaders elsewhere. “You will be held accountable if you run as a Democrat and govern as a Republican,” she said.
Teachout attracted the support of environmentalists after pledging to outlaw the hydrofracking of rural parts of the state. Cuomo has avoided taking a stance on the issue.
She also opposed the controversial Common Core education plan and promised to increase funding for public schools by abolishing Cuomo’s much-vaunted cap on property taxes.
Wu, an authority on internet neutrality who had promised to hold a public inquiry into the major cable companies, delivered such a scare to Cuomo that he was moved to recruit heavyweight allies such as Hillary Clinton to record robocalls to voters urging them to back Hochul.
With 94% of votes counted, the 42-year-old half-Taiwanese professor had 40.3%, while Hochul – whose past hardline stances on immigration had further angered liberal Democrats – had 59.7%. Wu won a significant victory in Manhattan.
Speaking at the campaign event, Wu said that he and Teachout had “gone the distance” against a vastly better resourced incumbent and higher-profile running mate. “There was a team of five us fighting a multimillion dollar machine,” said Wu. “I think we gave it a pretty good shot.”
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