Report: Stephanie Miner to run for NY governor as an independent

After more than a year of speculation that she might seek higher office, former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner will run for New York governor as an independent, The New York Times reported Monday morning.

“I cannot be a silent witness to what I think is a corrupt political culture that is hurting real people every day,” Miner told the Times in an interview announcing her run.

Miner, a Democrat, had been approached in the last year to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo or run for New York’s 24th Congressional District in the Democrats’ effort to unseat Rep. John Katko.

She announced last fall that she would not run for Congress, then said she was reconsidering it after Katko voted for the Republican tax bill in December, then ultimately said in January that she would not seek the House seat but was still eyeing the executive mansion. A bid looked more likely in the beginning of April after she tweeted that she had set up a new campaign committee aimed toward a statewide office.

According to the Times, Miner ultimately decided to take advantage of New York election laws allowing candidates to create their own political party by gathering signatures of supporters.

“Our political process is broken and we need to change it from outside the system,” Miner told the newspaper.

The Times reported that she called her candidacy a “rebuke of Andrew Cuomo’s policies and a rebuke of where we are as a state,” ticking off in an interview the fact that the former speaker of the State Assembly, the former leaders of the State Senate and Mr. Cuomo’s “right-hand guy,” Joseph Percoco, have all been convicted in federal corruption trials in recent years.

Miner was appointed by Gov. Cuomo in 2012 as co-chair of the New York State Democratic Committee. She left that position after a short time following disagreements with Cuomo’s policies.

“People are fleeing upstate because of a lack of opportunity and they’re fleeing downstate because of a lack of affordability,” Miner told the Times, adding, “if things were going so well in New York State, like the leaders in Albany are telling us, then why have one million people walked away from their families, their friends, their networks and said we have to go to other places to get opportunity?”

Miner plans to run under the banner of an upstart new group, the Serve America Movement, which calls itself SAM, formed by people disaffected by the existing party structure after the 2016 elections, according to the Times. She will be the group’s first candidate.

She admitted to the newspaper that she faces a steep path. An August 2017 Siena College poll found that while Miner had a high favorability rating in Syracuse, even the city’s Democrats preferred Cuomo for governor over Miner 47 percent to 38 percent.

Miner dismissed the idea that her candidacy may act as a spoiler, taking Democratic votes away from Cuomo, who is currently facing a primary from former HBO actress Cynthia Nixon, giving Republican candidate Marc Molinaro a better chance of winning.

“The status quo needs to be spoiled and ended,” she said.

Former Syracuse Common Council President Van B. Robinson issued a statement commenting on Miner's announcement.

I'm shocked and disheartened to see that Stephanie Miner is undertaking this fool's errand of a candidacy. As Democrats we have been fighting to un-do the damage caused by the Trump Republicans and right this country's moral ship. Miner running will do the exact opposite, and will only help the Republicans while dividing Democrats. Casting her lot with conservatives and Republicans, and turning her back on her party is unacceptable and can not be tolerated.