Candidates •
John Cashmore,
Brooklyn Borough President • Stanley W. Church, Mayor of
New Rochelle • Peter J. Crotty, former President of the
Buffalo City Council • Edward H. Foley Jr., Undersecretary of the Treasury •
W. Averell Harriman, Director of the
Mutual Security Agency and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce (1946–48) • Donald W. Kramer, Mayor of
Binghamton •
Robert F. Wagner Jr.,
Manhattan Borough President Convention The Democratic State Convention was held at the
Commodore Hotel in Manhattan on August 28. A welcoming speech was delivered by Mayor
Vincent Impellitteri. Before the candidates were announced, presidential candidate
Adlai Stevenson II addressed the delegates. John Cashmore was nominated on the first ballot. He overcame five avowed candidates, including Manhattan Borough President
Robert F. Wagner Jr., who had been the favorite for the seat only weeks before. Cashmore also rejected a last-minute proposal by party chairman Paul E. Fitzpatrick that he and the other leading candidates would withdraw in an effort to draft
W. Averell Harriman into the race. Harriman had recently been an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for president and had publicly stated he would not run for Senator. However, Fitzpatrick believed that the Liberal Party, which openly preferred Harriman or Wagner, would refuse to support Cashmore. Cashmore, certain of his chances even without Liberal support, declined. After it became clear that Cashmore had a majority on the first ballot, Wagner moved to make his nomination unanimous, and county delegations began to switch to him en masse. Before switches, the first ballot stood as follows: Cashmore had solid support from his native
Brooklyn,
Queens,
the Bronx and the
Capital District. Wagner's support came from
Manhattan,
Long Island, and
Buffalo. Cashmore also took twelve crucial votes in Wagner's native Manhattan, delivered to him by renegade West Side leader Robert B. Blaikie. Westchester, which was expected to be solidly for its native son Stanley Church, had not yet voted before it became clear Cashmore would win; the county voted for Cashmore instead, beginning the stampede. Cashmore made an acceptance speech in which he assailed Senator Ives for playing to the reactionary base of the Republican Party despite his publicly avowed progressivism. ==Liberal nomination==