Challenge: Nelson Rockefeller loses re-election as NY governor

Nelson Rockefeller won all his races for NY governor by at least 6 points. How can he lose?

He won with less than a majority in 1966. Get the Liberal Candidate (FDR Jr) to drop out in favor of the Democratic nominee, Frank O'Connor. Maybe bump up the Conservative Party vote a little.
 
He won with less than a majority in 1966. Get the Liberal Candidate (FDR Jr) to drop out in favor of the Democratic nominee, Frank O'Connor. Maybe bump up the Conservative Party vote a little.

I noticed that was the first election after he suffered the marital-related problems that cost him the 1964 Republican nomination. Could you move that forward to, say, 1966, and throw in some Lewinsky scandal analogue in? Rocky was pretty formidable electorally - he had the support of construction unions, he was very green, he was a moderate (to the point he lost the Conservative nomination in 1966 and 1970).
 
Is it clear that FDR, Jr. hurt O'Connor worse than Rockefeller in 1966? According to Richard Norton Smith's *On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller*, Rocky himself had his doubts: "Whatever his earlier motivations regarding the Roosevelt insurgency, Nelson now decided it was robbing him of upstate Republicans (dubious) and urban Jews (much more plausible). He began running TV spots equating a vote for Roosevelt with a vote for O'Connor." https://books.google.com/books?id=yjuOAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT710 In the end, "Key to Rockefeller's win were Jewish voters, who, overwhelmingly Democratic but put off by the prospect of an O'Connor win, abandoned Roosevelt to support Rockefeller. Their switch enabled the incumbent, against all odds, to carry Manhattan..." https://books.google.com/books?id=yjuOAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT711
 

zookeeper

Banned
Robert Kennedy does not run for president in 1968 but runs for governor in 1970.
John Lindsey s tenure as mayor is more sucesful and he challenges Rrockefeller.
 
Would Rockefeller successfully winning the Republican nomination, but losing the general election very badly, in 1964 hurt him two years later? Especially if the reason he won the nomination was that his divorce scandal gets delayed until 1965 when it all breaks?
 
Would Rockefeller successfully winning the Republican nomination, but losing the general election very badly, in 1964 hurt him two years later? Especially if the reason he won the nomination was that his divorce scandal gets delayed until 1965 when it all breaks?

Perhaps he could that. I was thinking that maybe though you could push it in 1966, say, just after the Republican primary. Then give him a very good opponent and then you maybe have the makings of a Rockefeller defeat.
 
I've read that the consensus in 1966 was that if RFK wanted Rocky defeated he would have been but Kennedy didn't want a rival for power in New York Democratic politics.
 
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