Cynthia Nixon, the left-leaning “Sex and the City” actress turned education activist, lost her dream of becoming New York governor Thursday, trounced in the Democratic Party primary by the two-term incumbent.
Andrew Cuomo, 60, in office since 2011 and who commanded a huge war chest from powerful donors, batted aside her insurgent bid at 66-34 percent, US media projected not long after the polls closed.
The result puts him on course to win a third term as chief executive of America’s fourth most populous state, which leans heavily Democrat, in the general election on November 6.
The 52-year-old mother of three dived into the race in March, in a bid to become the first woman and first openly gay governor, demanding change and supporting a raft of left-of-center hot-button issues.
Neither Cuomo nor Nixon made any immediate public comment after US media called the race.
Lower down the ticket, the candidate Nixon endorsed as lieutenant governor, Jumaane Williams, a 42-year-old city councilman from Brooklyn, was narrowly ahead of incumbent Kathy Hochul in a race that was considered too close to call by US media.
“He is an experienced man and she is totally inexperienced,” explained Cuomo voter Jack Buchanan, 87, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
“We already have a totally inexperienced guy in the White House, so why put one in Albany?” he added in reference to the state capital and President Donald Trump, who is hugely unpopular in the city.
“I don’t think she’s qualified,” Nixon voter Jill Vexler told AFP in Union Square, confessing it had been “more of a sympathy vote.”
“I don’t think she has enough strategy to get the money to do what she wants to do, but I do like what she wants to do.”
Nixon had hoped to ride the crest of other upset victories by political first-timers in Democratic Party primaries for congressional seats in places like New York and Boston.
