NY-Gov: Rick Lazio Drops Out

Andrew Cuomo is going to have to win the New York gubernatorial race on the merits, instead of standing back while the ballot line split between Carl Paladino on the GOP line and Rick Lazio on the Conservative line does his work for him. Lazio has pulled the plug on his bid:

Rick Lazio announced that he is dropping out of the race for New York governor today, ending speculation that he might run on the Conservative Party line.

Lazio, who will reportedly be nominated for a judgeship in the Bronx tonight, said he is dropping out in a press conference today. In his remarks, he called his victorious primary opponent Carl Paladino “flawed,” City Hall News reports.

Remember that in New York, the only way to get your name off the ballot is to die or get nominated for a judgeship. Today was the deadline for such a nomination, and it looks like he found someone willing to nominate him. At any rate, Lazio’s name won’t appear on the ballot, which would have siphoned votes from Paladino even if he hadn’t actively campaigned. With Lazio having polled in the single digits (in those post-primary polls that bothered to mention him) and Cuomo polling over 50, this doesn’t seem to change the election’s trajectory much, but it does reinforce that Cuomo is going to have to work for this and not treat it as a coronation.

10 thoughts on “NY-Gov: Rick Lazio Drops Out”

  1. Lazio was never running to be the Conservative Party nominee, he was running to be the Republican nominee with CP backing for a little extra juice.  Once he lost the GOP primary, I took it as a given that he was done campaigning, whether or not his name remained on the ballot.  And without campaigning, his name on the ballot wouldn’t have helped Cuomo.

    Cuomo is going to win this anyway barring a spectacularly horrible campaign going forward.

  2. Right now Paladino has 2 Lt Gov tickets. GOP/Conservative line with Edwards and the Taxpayer Line with Ognibene.

    Under NY state law only votes for the same ticket can be combined and counted together for fusion purposes.

    If this is not fixed any votes Paladino gets on the Taxpayer Party Line can not be combined with the GOP/Conservative Party vote.

    I’m assuming this will be taken care fo shortly.

  3. His hardcore base was downstate, machine Republicans, and they’re probably more prone to vote Cuomo over Paladino anyway. That’s not to say I don’t think Cuomo has a real race on his hands – Paladino will have no qualms about dropping tens of millions into tearing him apart. Thus far, I think Cuomo’s attacks on Paladino have actually been rather soft.

    (My current projection, btw, has Cuomo up 58-42.)

  4. I’ll assume that legally there is still time for Mike Long and his buddies to swallow their pride and fill the Lazio vacancy with Paladino.

    It is fairly important for the Conservative Party — they need to get at least 50,000 votes for governor on their line in order to be considered a major party with automatic ballot access (remember, the Liberal Party lost their party status in 2002 when Andrew Cuomo withdrew from the race in favour of Carl McCall – but his name remained on the ballot in the fall and he got only 15,000 votes).

    Of course if Paladino is still mad at Long and all the nasty things he said, he could screw the Conservatives by refusing to take their nomination — that way his own Taxpayers Party could supplant the Conservatives as the go-to ballot line on the right in the future elections.

    But I’ll assume Paladino wants the nomination, and that the Conservatives will want to give it to him for their own survival….  

Comments are closed.