She hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of winning this primary.
However, that's often not the point. If you are progressive (conservative) there is a strong incentive to challenge incumbents on your own side because any impact you have on the ideas discussed is likely to work in your favor; and indeed it's possible the incumbent agrees with you on those issues but just wants political cover to acquiesce. So I'm not really troubled if Cuomo happens to discover a more progressive streak or makes some concessions even though he's going to pulverize her come polling day.
I think it would be accurate to say that Nixon has run an unusually strong campaign and done an unusually good job of calling attention to real issues, even knowing she has no chance of winning and isn't a serious candidate by that standard.
[Note: I am not a resident of NY State and can't legally vote in the state I live in.]
I mean Joe Crowley would have probably been 40 points ahead if that race had been polled. I realize it's not the same, but state polls in midterm primaries must have an enormous margin of error.
TLDR:
- Pollsters often use party allegiance to sanity check their results, but that's irrelevant in a primary
- No one really pays attention to a primary early on (unlike presidential campaigns, which start earlier and earlier every cycle), so early polling is not representative of final voting
- Pollsters have to guesstimate how many voters of a certain type will show up at the polls, but nonpresidential primaries are super low turnout historically especially in noncompetitive areas, and some disgruntled voters for insurgent campaigns can upset this prediction
- Pollsters have a hard time reaching young people and minorities, who are usually not on landlines and are less likely pick up numbers from strangers
I'm not sure what you mean. Isn't the whole problem that winning elections is heavily dependent on money?
So even you concede that it's not totally dependent. Boiling elections down to one problem is a gross oversimplification. Yeah you need money, but you also need a platform people want to vote for. You need good faith with your electorate.
What good is cash if you've alienated your base? What good is cash if you've already got 32x more than your opponent (Cuomo's $16MM to Nixon's $500k)[0]?
Right now, Cuomo's at a greater risk losing progressive votes than running out of money. The memories of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez v Joe Crowley are still fresh in everyone's mind. Money didn't help Crowley there...
0 - https://nypost.com/2018/09/05/cuomo-spent-8-million-in-three...
Many fewer people vote in the primary, but perhaps those people are harder to reach, or perhaps who shows up depends heavily on money (or perhaps something else).
Also, I observe that politicians want money for more than their elections. They provide funds from their treasure chest to other politicians and groups. I wonder how much that use of money affects their fundraising and money's influence on them. (I think it seems like a source of corruption, and that money donated for the election should be spent on it or returned.)
So running too left can win you the primary but lose the general.
Cuomo is trying to move left but not too left to leave him vulnerable to a state challenge