Cynthia Nixon: How the Sex and the City star entered New York politics

Actress faces uphill fight against experience and wealth of incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo

Even a matter of months ago, the prospect of Miranda from Sex and the City appearing on New York Democratic Primary ballot papers would have drawn a double-take from voters.

But, sure enough, actress Cynthia Nixon - famous the world over for her role as Ms Hobbes in the influential HBO comedy-drama - is challenging incumbent Andrew Cuomo for the party’s nomination for state governor.

While Mr Cuomo, seeking a third term, is a supremely practised politician and the son of Mario Cuomo, himself a three-time Big Apple governor, Ms Nixon, 52, has never previously run for office.

She has, however, been active in relation to a number of causes, including women’s rights, LGBT+ issues, healthcare and education and is now at the forefront of the same progressive insurgency that saw Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upset Democratic Caucus chair Joe Crowley to win the party primary in New York’s 14th congressional district in June.

Ms Nixon is also a native New Yorker, growing up on the Upper West Side, attending Hunter College High School and Columbia University’s Barnard College.

An actress from the age of 12, Cynthia Nixon first entered the political stage in 2011 when she campaigned for the legalisation of same-sex marriage in the state.

Previously identifying as bisexual, she had a long-term relationship with English professor Danny Mozes, with whom she had two children, but is now married to political activist Christine Marinoni, herself a former Department of Education adviser under mayor Bill de Blasio.

In the battle for gay marriage, she joined a number of organisations including Fight Back New York PAC, campaigning to remove politicians hostile to the cause from office, as well as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Human Rights Campaign.

Her children’s experiences in New York’s public schools prompted her to join the Alliance for Quality Education (AQA), for which she serves as a spokesperson, the organisation critical of Governor Cuomo’s latest budget.

“Governor Cuomo had a chance today to put the next generation of New Yorkers first,” she said in an AQA statement in January.

“Instead, he proposed yet another budget that will keep New York at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to educational equity and justice. Governor Cuomo claims he has provided record increases in education funding, but in reality, he has created a record spending gap between the wealthiest and poorest school districts.”

As a breast cancer survivor, she also has first-hand knowledge of the realities of women’s healthcare and has since campaigned on reproductive rights with Planned Parenthood. She wrote a highly personal essay for Time magazine in 2016 about her mother’s decision to have an abortion in her youth.

Since announcing her candidacy for the gubernatorial nomination in March, Ms Nixon has pushed for universal rent control, single-payer healthcare, new schools funding and the restoration of the city’s exhausted subway system.

Speaking out against her rival at a campaign rally on Saturday 8 September, she said Mr Cuomo had “governed like a Republican”.

“I voted for him eight years ago because I remembered his dad”, she said.

“And because I believed that he was a Democrat, the way he said he was. But what happened? Since he’s taken office, he seems to have forgotten that he’s a Democrat.”

The campaign has become dirty, with Mr Cuomo’s supporters branding Ms Nixon “unhinged” and issued a pamphlet accusing her of being ”silent on the rise of anti-Semitism”, a tactic Mr Cuomo was forced to publicly distance himself from.

With her politics grounded in personal experience, she cuts a committed figure but faces an uphill fight against the wealthy Cuomo machine, which has worked hard to portray him as a staunchly anti-Donald Trump candidate and enjoys the support of party establishment figures like Hillary Clinton and former vice president Joe Biden.

Even if she loses the Democratic vote, the Working Families Party has agreed to provide her with their slot on the November ballot, giving her a second chance to challenge Mr Cuomo.

Her unfortunate surname could continue to be a handicap in the American political arena, as could her choice of bagel – lox, cream cheese and capers on cinnamon, branded “Retch and the City” by The New York Post and a potential Ed Miliband bacon sandwich moment for the aspiring governor.

But, whatever happens, Ms Nixon told The Independent, “I’m not going anywhere.”