Albany

Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins believes the Working Families Party's controversial decision to support Gov. Andrew Cuomo provides a clearer choice for voters seeking an alternative to both major parties this fall.

"I think the Greens now become the standard-bearer for progressives that want to dissent from Cuomo's conservative economic policies," Hawkins said at the Capitol on Wednesday.

A night-shift UPS worker from Syracuse who pulled almost 60,000 votes in 2010, Hawkins pointed to a recent Siena poll that showed a generic liberal candidate could win more than 20 percent in the fall, most of it taken from Cuomo's support.

"I'm a working Teamster with a name," Hawkins said.

As in his 2010 run, Hawkins offers voters a modern twist on the New Deal, complete with a jobs corps and single-payer health care, as well as sweeping public investment in clean energy.

Hawkins scoffed at the idea that the Working Families Party could count on Cuomo to help engineer a Democratic takeover of the state Senate — now controlled by a coalition of Republicans and five breakaway Democrats — or achieve any of the progressive party's legislative goals.

"They don't have any assurances," he said. "Once Cuomo got the nomination ... the next day he started walking it back. ... He has all the power now; the Working Families Party lost all their leverage."

Hawkins said he hoped WFP candidate Zephyr Teachout, who lost to Cuomo when delegates met Saturday night at the Desmond in Colonie, would go ahead with a primary challenge to Cuomo — not because she'd be likely to win, but because she could "warm up my debates with Cuomo in the fall."

Cuomo drew almost 156,000 votes on the Working Families line in 2010.

cseiler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5619 • @CaseySeiler