Run for governor uphill, actress says

ALBANY, N.Y. — Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon says she has a simple response to voters who question whether she has the experience necessary to run for governor of New York.

“You know me as an actor,” she said in an interview last week. “But I’m so much more than an actor.”

So far in her fledgling Democratic primary campaign against two-term incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Nixon has set out to prove just that. She has relentlessly attacked Cuomo as a political bully who has been unable to fix state government corruption, inequalities in education and New York City’s beleaguered subways. She’s also questioned Cuomo’s economic development programs and criticized the newly approved state budget as another product of Albany’s backroom deals.

“Cuomo has been in office eight years. Hardly anything has changed,” Nixon said. “If we want change, people like me, who have never run for office before, have to get involved.”

But Nixon acknowledges that her challenge to Cuomo will be an uphill fight. Cuomo, the son of the late Gov. Mario Cuomo, is a career politician and possible 2020 presidential contender with a war chest of more than $30 million. Polls show him with a wide lead.

“I wouldn’t say I’m daunted necessarily,” she said of the race. “It’s a real challenge and I don’t try to minimize that in my own mind.”

The 51-year-old New York native and Grammy, Emmy and Tony winner — best known for her portrayal of lawyer Miranda Hobbes on Sex and the City — has never held elected office. But she is a longtime political activist who has lobbied for better education funding, marriage equality and women’s rights, and she has campaigned for such politicians as former President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. If elected, the mother of three would be the state’s first openly gay governor.