By Dan Murphy
As New York Democrats begin the last four days of circulating petitions to get on the ballot for local, state and federal offices, as of Monday April 4, there are no signs of any democratic petitions being ciruclated for former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo has speculated that he would challenge Governor Kathy Hochul in a democratic primary for Governor in June, but democratic petitions must be handed into Boards of Elections across the state at midnight Thursday, April 8.
One New York Democrat, former Governor Eliot Spitzer, did have volunteers and paid petition gatherers collect signatures for when he ran for Attorney General, and collected 45,000 signatures in four days. Nobody sees that happening in the case of Andrew Cuomo.
The next option for Cuomo would be to create his own party and run on that line. This would require collecting 45,000 signatures during the period of April 24-May 31.
And one indication that this may happen came from former NYS Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs. NY1 state house reporter Zack Fink Tweeted the following on April 4, “NEW: @JayJacobs28 has approached Democratic legislators in swing districts about forming a third party. The idea would be to allow those prepared to vote against Dems this fall vote for incumbents on a different line. A spox for Jacobs says the plan is in “a very early phase.”
Jacobs served as the NYS Democratic Chair under then Governor Andrew Cuomo, so political watchers are seeing Jacobs moves as a way to lay the ground for a third-party run by Cuomo.
Others find it ironic that Cuomo is preparing to run on a third-party line, after he led the effort to ‘cancel’ several third party lines in 2021. After changing the rules for third-parties to keep their ballot access, the SAM Party, Libertarian Party, Green Party and Independence parties all lost their automatic ballot status.
Only the Libertarian Party, with their candidate for Governor Larry Sharpe, are planning to collect the 45,000 signatures across the state to get back on the ballot.
