NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan real estate executive Myers Mermel is entering the race for the Republican nomination for governor, further complicating the party’s effort to field a candidate against Democrat Andrew Cuomo just a week before the state GOP convention. Mermel, 47, told The Associated Press he plans to announce his candidacy on Monday. Mermel kicked off a bid...
NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan real estate executive Myers Mermel is entering the race for the Republican nomination for governor, further complicating the party’s effort to field a candidate against Democrat Andrew Cuomo just a week before the state GOP convention.
Mermel, 47, told The Associated Press he plans to announce his candidacy on Monday.
Mermel kicked off a bid for lieutenant governor in February. He said he decided to run for governor instead after concluding he didn’t want to appear on the same ticket with former Rep. Rick Lazio or Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, currently the leading GOP candidates.
“I started to consider the prospect of working for both of them, and I realized that neither of them could compete effectively against Andrew Cuomo,” Mermel told the AP. “The race has become a bitter face-off between the two candidates, and I’m in a position to unite the party.”
Asked last week about a rumored Mermel candidacy, Lazio said only that he was pleased the field would clear for his preferred lieutenant governor candidate, Chautauqua County Executive Greg Edwards.
Cuomo, the state attorney general, opened his campaign for governor Saturday. Polls show him with a wide lead over Lazio and Levy.
Mermel acknowledged he has almost no name recognition, but said he had begun to build a strong online grass roots presence in his lieutenant governor bid.
Mermel runs TenantWise, a commercial real estate investment and advisory company that matches companies to available properties.
Mermel said he’s financed his campaign out of his own pocket so far. He declined to say how he would raise money for the race and how much of his own money he would invest in it. “I’m still getting my ducks in a row on that,” he said.
Mermel’s entry is the latest chapter in a fractious buildup to the convention, which begins June 1.
Lazio, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000, has been in the race for over a year but has lagged badly in fundraising and voter enthusiasm.
Levy, a former Democrat, has the backing of state GOP chairman Ed Cox and a robust campaign bank account but faces several hurdles to the nomination because of his recent party switch.
A third candidate, Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino, lost significant momentum in the race after some of his e-mails containing racial and sexual slurs were published.
Delegates will designate an official nominee at the convention, but any Republican who wins 25 percent of the weighted vote can compete in the Sept. 14 primary. Mermel said he believed he could reach that threshold whether he wins the nomination outright or not.
Mermel was the state director for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign and shares Huckabee’s conservative views on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. But he said he wouldn’t emphasize those issues in the campaign, focusing his message on job creation and tax and spending cuts instead.
“Being a traditional Republican is not a popular stance in New York state. It’s unusual to find a social conservative here,” Mermel said.
Despite those views, Mermel acknowledged he was unlikely to win the endorsement of the state Conservative Party, which holds its convention May 28. Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long has already announced he is backing Lazio.
“My credentials are more conservative than Lazio’s. Conservatives are creating their own problems with that endorsement,” Mermel said.