Internal Conflict in the State Democratic Party

The Republican Party’s demographic challenges in New York don’t mean it’s going to be smooth sailing for the state’s Democrats.

Internal divisions within the Democratic Party were on display during the 2014 elections and could also develop into a full-blown crisis if the party is not recognized and adequately addressed, argued Bruce Gyory, a political consultant.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s showdown with the more progressive Working Families Party was followed by surprisingly spirited challenges from Zephyr Teachout in the Democratic primary and from the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins in the general election.

Cuomo, a moderate, has also waged public battles with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has presented himself as a champion of the left. De Blasio, in turn, notably held off on endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, and has travelled the country to push his own progressive agenda.

“The Democrats don’t have a schism yet, but if this progressive-moderate fracture that we see in de Blasio’s rhetoric with Mrs. Clinton, that we saw in the Cuomo-Teachout primary, if that turns into a full-scale schism—defined as if the progressives win primaries, the moderates won’t support them, and if the moderates win primaries, the progressives won’t support them, which is what happened with the regular-reform divide in the 1950s and 1960s—Democrats have a problem,” Gyory said.

Nor are Democrats guaranteed to hold on to the three major statewide offices, even if seems that way. The state has a long history of the governor’s office swinging from one major party to the other, but over cycles of three to five terms. What’s more, Gyory said, the longer the Republicans are out of power, the further they’re likely to go in bridging the gap with independent and moderate voters.

“You lose enough and you get tired of losing,” he said. “That definitely helped Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton would never have got that leeway from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party if they hadn’t have been so horribly disappointed by getting their asses kicked by Reagan and even George Bush. They thought they could beat the first George Bush with Dukakis, and they were like, ‘Losing sucks!’ ”