The Democratic primary campaign featured State Attorney GeneralRobert Abrams, former U.S. Congresswoman and 1984 vice presidential candidateGeraldine Ferraro, Reverend Al Sharpton, and New York City Comptroller and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman. Congressman Robert J. Mrazek was also an early candidate, but withdrew from the race after being named in the House banking scandal. Abrams was considered the initial front-runner. Ferraro emphasized her career as a teacher, prosecutor, congresswoman, and mother, and positioned herself as being tough on crime. She soon took the lead in the polls, additionally capitalizing on her name recognition from 1984. However, she drew attacks from the media and her opponents over her husband John Zaccaro's finances and business relationships. Initially, Ferraro used the attacks in attempt to galvanize the feminist vote, but her lead began to dwindle under the criticism, and she released additional tax returns in an attempt to defray the attacks. Holtzman ran a negative ad accusing Ferraro and Zaccaro of taking more than $300,000 in rent in the 1980s from a pornographer with purported ties to organized crime.
Results
In the primary, Abrams won by less than one percentage point, winning 37 percent of the vote to Ferraro's 36 percent. Ferraro did not concede the election for two weeks.
General election
Campaign
After Abrams emerged as the nominee, the Democrats remained divided. In particular, Abrams spent much of the remainder of the campaign trying to get Ferraro's endorsement. Ferraro, enraged and bitter after the nature of the primary, ignored Abrams and accepted Bill Clinton's request to campaign for his presidential bid instead. She was eventually persuaded by state party leaders into giving an unenthusiastic endorsement with just three days to go before the general election, in exchange for an apology by Abrams for the tone of the primary. Abrams was also accused of engaging in ethnically charged attacks against the Italian ancestry of both Ferraro and D'Amato. Ahead of the primary, Ferraro sought to defend herself against accusations that she received financial support from organized crime in her 1978 congressional campaign, claiming that "If I were not Italian American, this whole thing would never have been brought up." In October, Abrams was again accused of anti-Italian political attacks after calling D'Amato a "fascist" at a campaign event and alleging that he had engaged in the "big lie techniques" of Nazi propaganda officers. At a Columbus Day parade the following day, D'Amato accused Abrams of engaging in ethnic insults on his Italian ancestry, and in a subsequent campaign ad featured images of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini to depict the word "fascist" as an anti-Italian slur. Abrams narrowly lost the general election, partially as a result of these controversies.
