Teachout: No Endorsement Before Oct. 28

After losing in the primary election for governor, political observers have waited to see who Zephyr Teachout will endorse in the general election. Teachout received 34 percent of the Democratic vote in her primary bid against Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and throwing her support behind one of the remaining gubernatorial candidates could sway a significant amount of voters in one candidate’s favor.

In a statement sent exclusively to City & State, Teachout said she will not endorse any candidate immediately, if at all, until Oct. 28th, because at the end of September she will launch a book tour/discussion on corruption for her forthcoming book, “Corruption in America.” She said in the next few weeks she would be exploring the best way to work on winning a Democratic majority in the state Senate, shoring up support for campaign finance reform and fighting for the issues on which she ran.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino’s conservative-leaning policies are not appealing to Teachout, who ran to the left of Cuomo, but she has continued to question Cuomo’s credibility as a Democrat and his premature shuttering of the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption.

Below is Teachout’s full statement to City & State:

There have been many questions about endorsements. I am not planning on making any endorsement in the Governor's race at this time, and will make a final decision about whether to endorse anyone, if at all, on October 28th. When reporters have asked, I've referred to the same wide range of issues that animated my campaign. Frankly, Governor Andrew Cuomo would have to make a series of major course corrections, in a credible way, for me to make an endorsement. My own focus will be elsewhere: on winning back a Democratic Senate, public financing of elections, and on all the other issues that animated my campaign. 

Zephyr