Speed Reads

campaign trail

Cynthia Nixon: 'Vote for the homo, not the Cuomo'

New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon is ready to roast her opponent.

Nixon, speaking at the annual Legislative Correspondents Association dinner in Albany, New York, cracked jokes about herself and Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday night. "He won’t come to any event that has less than $25,000 a plate," said Nixon, poking fun at the fact that Cuomo was a no-show that night and has never spoken at the LCA event. She also compared and contrasted Cuomo with President Trump, and urged the governor to "come out as a Republican."

Most notable, however, was Nixon's reference to the 1977 mayoral race between Ed Koch and Cuomo's father, Mario. Koch accused his opponent of circulating flyers that read "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo." The younger Cuomo, who worked on his father's campaign, denied having anything to do with the flyers, but the controversy followed his family for several years. Nixon, who kicked off her campaign by embracing criticism calling her an "unqualified lesbian," offered her take on the Cuomo-Koch scandal: "Vote for the homo, not the Cuomo." Watch the full speech below. Summer Meza