Shortly after launching her New York gubernatorial campaign in March, Cynthia Nixon proudly declared that she had received more small-dollar contributions in her first day as a candidate than Gov. Andrew Cuomo had since taking office in 2011. That fact was framed with a little creative accounting, but it fit neatly with the Bernie Sanders-esque image Nixon was cultivating as a progressive outsider trying to take down Cuomo, an establishment favorite who the New York Times had dubbed “a Master of the $50,000 Fund-Raiser” a few months earlier.
In the three months since, Cuomo’s friends found a not-so-subtle way to help push back against the criticism. Campaign finance reports released on Tuesday showed that a number of people related to Cuomo’s staff—including some with considerable means—cut small-dollar checks to the governor. One individual made 69 individual donations in $1, $3 and $5 increments, for a grand total of $77. This was apparently a way to bring down Cuomo’s average contribution and bring up the percentage of contributions that came from small donors. It didn’t take long for a few industrious reporters to spot the big names accompanying some of the smallest figures:
Asked about the donor who gave 69 different times, who reportedly shares an address with a Cuomo staffer, a spokeswoman for the governor’s campaign told the New York Times: “We appreciate his enthusiasm. Going forward, we’ll put measures in place to count contributions like this differently.”
Of course, the flip side of the small-donor equation is that Cuomo has a lot of very big donors, and thus, a massive cash advantage on Nixon. The governor has long been a favorite of business interests in the state—his previous donors include Donald Trump and David Koch—and the new small-donor focus has done little to dent his existing appeal with the big ones. He reported raising roughly $6 million this year and has about $31 million in the bank. Nixon reported raising $1.6 million since she her campaign launch, including $500,000 in the last month, but nonetheless ended the reporting period with just $660,000 on hand.
