The prospects of Republicans holding the governorship in the Empire State have never looked especially bright, but they took a turn for the worse yesterday when former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld dropped out of the race.
Republicans held their convention late last week and Weld posted a disappointing showing. He got 38.8 percent of the delegate vote to 61.2 percent for former state Assembly Minority Leader John Faso. Although Weld had enough delegate support to move on to the primary, he said at a press conference yesterday, "I do think there's a time to look beyond your aspirations for the bigger picture. This is not a time for a contested primary." He also endorsed Faso and won praise from the state GOP leadership for bowing out of the race.
Polls showed Weld trailing Faso, but neither candidate is very well known and there is a significant undecided vote, meaning that the nomination was up for grabs. A Quinnipiac University poll (May 8-14 of 357 Republican primary voters) had Faso ahead of Weld, 30 percent to 21 percent. Their respective
Subscribe Today
Our subscribers have first access to individual race pages for each House, Senate and Governors race, which will include race ratings (each race is rated on a seven-point scale) and a narrative analysis pertaining to that race.