Gotham Gazette: November 4, 2018

4. Will minor parties keep/claim ballot lines?

...Between the Green Party and the WFP, it may come down to a matter of ballot placement, depending on which one fares better. The WFP has made a significant showing this year by backing several progressive upstarts in state Senate races and successfully deposing several incumbent Democrats, putting them squarely in the spotlight, while also initially backing Cynthia Nixon and Jumaane Williams for governor and lieutenant governor until they lost in the Democratic primaries. Hawkins has also shown a fare bit of success on the Green Party line, pulling in 184,419 votes in 2014 compared to 126,244 on the WFP line for Cuomo.

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Syracuse Post-Standard: November 4, 2018

Former Syracuse mayor Stephanie Miner (2 percent), who is making an independent bid for governor, and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins (2 percent) of Syracuse were struggling to break out of the pack days before the election, the poll found.

CNY Central (Sinclair: CBS, CW, NBC): November 4, 2018

The race’s minor party candidates — Green Party member Howie Hawkins, Libertarian Larry Sharpe and former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner — are supported by 7 percent of voters, with 7 percent still undecided, the poll found.

NY State of Politics: November 4, 2018

The poll found Cuomo leading Molinaro 49 percent to 36 percent.

But that’s a smaller gap than the 22 percentage point difference that existed between them in October, when Cuomo led 50 percent to 28 percent.

Seven percent of voters are still undecided. Cuomo is seeking a third term this year and the independent party candidates, Larry Sharpe, Howie Hawkins and Stephanie Miner, all received less than 5 percent of support in the poll.

NY Daily News: November 4, 2018

Cuomo now leads Molinaro 49% to 36% among likely voters, with three minor-party candidates totaling 7%, according to the Siena College poll released Sunday morning. Another 7% remain undecided....

Libertarian candidate Larry Sharpe has 3% of the vote, while Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins and former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner of the newly created Save America Movement party each have 2%, the poll found.

Albany Times Union: November 4, 2018

Howie Hawkins, a shipping company line worker from Syracuse, is making his third bid for governor on the Green Party line. He chides Gov. Andrew Cuomo for failing to clean up corruption, and favors replacing the Excelsior Scholarship with a true free-tuition program, implementing a single-payer health care in the state, and committing to a 100 percent clean energy plan by 2030.

WHAM-TV (Sinclair: ABC, Fox, CW): November 3, 2018

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and challengers Marc Molinaro and Howie Hawkins were in Western New York to rally their supporters Saturday. (WHAM photo)

Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins said he's the right pick to combat poverty in the state.

“What I want to do is restore taxation on the rich, have the state pay for its own funded mandates, and restore the revenue sharing they used to provide, so we can cut local property taxes and provide better services that are local,” said Hawkins.

News Growl: November 3, 2018

Howie Hawkins, Green Party candidate for Governor of New York, is appearing at three locations around the state today to talk about his vision for ending inequality in New York. His speech advocating for an equitable economy, first given in Syracuse this morning, is reprinted with his permission.

By Howie Hawkins

The mounting climate crisis is an existential threat that should concern us all. But millions of working-class New Yorkers are in crisis every day struggling to pay their bills and stay in their homes.

New York is the most unequal state in the nation. The top 1% took home 12% of all income in 1980. By 2015, the top 1% took home 33% of all income in the state and 41% of all income in the New York City.

Meanwhile, over these same four decades, inflation-adjusted wages declined while rent, property taxes, health dare, day care, and college costs increased far faster than the general rate of inflation. It’s a crisis right now for working people in New York.

For immediate release: November 3, 2018

Howie Hawkins, the Green candidate for Governor, said today that to reverse the growing inequality in New York, state policy needs to promote worker cooperatives and public enterprises that distribute income more equitably than capitalist firms.

The share of income going to the top 1% of the state has grown from 12% in 1980 to 33% in 2015. New York has the highest income inequality of any state in the nation.

A new study out this week from the think tank Third Way found that about two-thirds of the jobs in New York’s metropolitan regions don’t pay enough to support what is commonly considered a middle-class lifestyle.

Hawkins has called for public state bank with a division devoted to planning, financing, and advising worker cooperatives. He has also called for public enterprise in the fields of electric power and broadband. He wants to expand public housing in order to increase the supply of affordable housing and reduce rents in the broader market.

Though he has called for more progressive taxation, he said, “Tax and transfer programs can only partially mitigate income inequality. The purpose of taxation is to finance public services and infrastructure. If we really want to reduce economic inequality, we need a fairer distribution in the first place at work.”

Hawkins released the following statement explaining his approach to reducing income inequality in New York State.

For immediate release: November 3, 2018