Gov. Andrew Cuomo won re-election to a second term by a 15 percent lead, easily beating his nearest opponent, Republican Rob Astorino.
Cuomo, speaking in midtown Manhattan, to chants of “four more years,” promised to deliver in his next term on a mostly progressive agenda, including enacting a number of items that were stalled in the State Senate over the past couple of years, like an abortion rights provision as part of a women’s rights agenda and public financing of political campaigns.
“We’re going to raise the minimum wage for working families, we’re going to pass the Women’s Equality Act, because discrimination and inequality against women stops in New York State,” Cuomo said, to cheers.
He also promised to continue to enact the Dream Act, to offer college aid to children of immigrants in the country illegally, hold down the state’s near highest in the nation property taxes, and to make New York’s education system the best in the nation.
The now two term governor received the biggest cheers, though, when he invited his father on stage, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who lost to Republican George Pataki twenty years ago.
Cuomo spent millions of dollars from his hefty campaign war chest on television ads that defined his GOP opponent negatively, and as an ultra-conservative, before Astorino could raise the money to introduce himself. Other ads portrayed the governor in a positive light.
Cuomo avoided a one on one debate with Astorino, and he reached out to women voters, even starting his own Women’s Equality Party. All of those actions defused any threats his challengers may have posed, and kept him at least 20 points ahead in the polls throughout the race.
