Cynthia Nixon hits campaign trail

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) - Former "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon went to Brownsville, Brooklyn, for her first event in her campaign for governor to build on a video she released over Twitter identifying her main issues: health care, ending mass incarceration, and fixing the subways.

"I am not just an actor or a mother or a wife, I'm also a New Yorker," Nixon said. "And I'm running for governor because I love this state."

In a gift from the political gods, Nixon was waylaid by subway trouble on her way over to the event where she attacked Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a "fake Democrat" responsible for New York's vast income, educational, and racial inequality.

"Andrew Cuomo gave the Republican Party in New York the power to block almost all of our big Democratic legislative priorities," Nixon said.

Nixon is vying to be New York's first female and first openly gay governor. But her support for Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2013 led his then-opponent and Cuomo ally Christine Quinn to tell the New York Post: "Cynthia Nixon was opposed to having a qualified lesbian become mayor of New York City. Now she wants to be an unqualified lesbian to be the governor of New York."

"My being a lesbian or her being a lesbian, I think, has nothing to do with why we're running for office," Nixon said.

And she is going to spend the next six months trying to prove to voters she is qualified for the job. How does she plan to spend the next few months?

"Going around the state talking to people, hearing about their concerns," she said.

That will be the crucial test for Nixon—to see whether her unapologetically progressive message and refusal to take corporate donations will resonate with Democrats statewide. She'll need those Democrats to fund—and win—her race.

A recent poll has Democratic voters giving Cuomo a 66-to-19-percent lead over Nixon.

Mike Sacks is a general assignment reporter for Fox 5 News. Follow Mike on Twitter.