Hawkins says compared to the rest of the candidates, he is the only one running on a truly progressive platform - issues he said resonate with voters in the state. He categorized Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon, both Democrats, as centrists compared to him.

“We’re standing with the people on the issues they really care about … the difficulty is right now it’s all about the movie star versus the governor, and the rest of us are kind of mentioned as waiting in the wings,” said Hawkins. “But I feel good about it, because when we get to the fall, we’ll be on the progressive side, you’ll have two centrists … and you’ve got two conservatives. So we’ll have that whole lane open to us.”

Hawkins was at Watkins Glen State Park Saturday afternoon where he called on Cuomo to reconvene the state Legislature and have them take up a vote on a bill to halt garbage incineration in the Finger Lakes.

“Even though the state law says the way to deal with solid waste is first to reduce, reuse or recycle, far too often the state approves jumping directly to burning,” said Hawkins in a statement. “We need a policy of zero waste in New York.”

The current field of major candidates for New York governor includes the incumbent Cuomo, Democrat Cynthia Nixon, Republican Marc Molinaro, Libertarian Larry Sharpe and Hawkins.