Cynthia Nixon Is Running for Governor of New York on a 'Fix the Subways' Platform 

After a bit of teasing, former Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon officially announced her run for governor of New York on Monday, formally pitting herself in the Democratic primary against Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is bad.

Nixon announced her bid on Twitter on Monday with a dramatic two-minute campaign video where Nixon describes her New York bona fides and the vast inequality plaguing the state.

“Something has to change,” she says in the video. “We want our government to work again, on healthcare, ending mass incarceration, fixing our broken subway. We are sick of politicians who care more about headlines and power than they do about us. It can’t just be business as usual anymore.”

“I love New York,” she intones as strings swell. “I’ve never wanted to live anywhere else.”

As the New York Times notes, Nixon, who has never held political office, faces steep odds in unseating Cuomo, who is seeking a third term as governor and has already amassed a $30 million campaign war chest. “I’m not nervous about whoever runs,” Cuomo told reporters last week. “There’ll be people who run. That’s called elections, and that’s fine.”

And yet, even the slightest indication that he might have a serious challenger in the Democratic primary appears to have sent Cuomo and his team into a bit of a tailspin. From the Times:

The governor dismissed her as a second-tier celebrity. He suggested she was just a stalking horse for Mayor Bill de Blasio. His campaign invited big donors to a new round of fund-raisers. He held an event with former Vice President Al Gore.

He received endorsements from key Latino leaders and Elton John. The state Democratic Party, which he controls, announced a new gun-control push and booked a $100,000 ad for him. He even lay on the ground in Zuccotti Park for an anti-gun “die-in” alongside a national teacher union leader.

And while Cuomo’s team claims the flurry of activity was just coincidentally planned around the same time Nixon made her intentions more well known, one adviser to Cuomo clumsily told the Times that the governor’s reaction to Nixon is “akin to a person who aggressively treats the early symptoms of a cold—from taking Theraflu to increasing fluids—in order to avoid the nuisance of actually getting sick.”

Interestingly, Nixon appears to be the first major New York candidate to run on a “fix the subways” platform, dedicating an entire section of her campaign site to the cause (“Unlike Governor Cuomo, Cynthia Nixon rides the subway every day.” Yikes!).

We’re still a healthy six months away from the New York Democratic primary, so expect a LOT more Andrew Cuomo acting a-fool before then.