The left in New York State is debating how to counter the conservative class agenda of Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo's governorship has pushed austerity for schools and public services and contract concessions on teachers and other public employees in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Cuomo's educational policies have advanced the corporate “reform” agenda of high-stakes testing of students, teachers, and schools in order to “fail” public schools, privatize them as charters, and undermine teachers' professional autonomy, job rights, and unions. How should the left relate to a Democratic Party with a popular voting base in the working class, a funding base in the super-rich, and a political leadership that frequently allies with Republican state leaders in New York on fiscal, economic, and educational policies? On the independent left, the Green Party is running candidates against the Cuomo ticket. On the Democratic Party left, the Working Families Party is debating whether to cross-endorse Cuomo again or to run against him, a question they will address in their convention the same weekend as the Left Forum. This panel will discuss Cuomo's conservative fiscal, economic, and educational policies, the efficacy of fusion politics with the multi-class Democratic Party vs. independent working class political action, the relationship of electoral campaigns to social movements, and what should be done by the New York left in 2014.