By Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — Gov. David Paterson is expected to drop his election bid at a 3 p.m. press conference in Midtown.
The governor has faced pressure to step aside from the race for months as record-low poll numbers rolled in, and that pressure reached the breaking point this week when the New York Times reported his office had intervened in a domestic violence case involving one of his top aides.
"It’s done, there’s no rumor, he's announcing it," State Sen. Bill Perkins of Harlem told DNAinfo on Friday about word that Paterson would announce he was dropping his campaign.
"He had a weak campaign, and this latest incident just crippled it, so what’s the point?" said Perkins, who holds Paterson's former senate seat.
Paterson was not expected to resign from office at the press conference, but front page editorials in the New York Post and the Daily News called on him to do just that. Both had headlines that said, "Time to go."
"Not seeking re-election simply doesn’t cut it," Chris Cox, a Republican candidate for Senate, said in a statement. "The governor has engaged in serious misconduct and should not remain in office."
If Paterson were to step aside, Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch would assume the office. He would be the second consecutive New York governor to take over that way — Paterson replaced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer after he resigned following a prostitution scandal.
"He should resign, let Ravitch take over and let [Attorney General Andrew] Cuomo run for governor, as he’s going to anyway," said Harold Sullivan, political science chair at CUNY's John Jay College, in a phone interview.
Sullivan said he believed that Ravitch would make a good "caretaker" governor and would be able to handle the state's budget crisis reasonably well.
The Paterson scandal heated up this week after an article in the New York Times said the governor spoke on the phone to a woman who was seeking an order of protection against a high-ranking member of his staff, David Johnson. The woman did not appear in court the next day, creating the appearance that the governor tampered with the case.
An official from the New York State Troopers also visited the woman, even though the case falls into the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department.
Cuomo, Paterson's putative rival in the Democratic primary, has been asked by the governor to investigate the incident.
The appearance of the governor trying to influence a potential domestic violence victim caused another high-ranking member of the Paterson administration, Public Safety Deputy Secretary Denise O'Donnell, to resign in protest.
"These actions are unacceptable regardless of their intent," O'Donnell said in a statement.
"It's very sad," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said of Paterson's situation at a press conference about the snowstorm. "It’s not good for the state to have a government not function the way we need it to in these tough economic times."
Phone calls and e-mails to the governor's campaign office were not returned.
The governor said on Thursday that he was seeking advice regarding his campaign, which just got officially underway less than a week ago.
"I am not suspending my campaign, but I am talking to a number of elected officials around the state...to hear their opinions," Paterson said in a hastily arranged press conference at a Midtown Hilton Thursday night. "I have an open mind about this thing, I want the Democrats to win in November."
