RUTHFULLY YOURS

Mr. Wofford grew up on Buffalo’s gritty East Side, where his father held a union job at the local Chevrolet plant and his mother worked odd jobs. Leaving high school as a junior to attend Harvard on a scholarship, Mr. Wofford ended up working as a bankruptcy lawyer in Manhattan. Earlier this year he took a leave of absence from law firm Ropes & Gray, where he is a partner, to make his first foray into politics. Despite his underdog status, Mr. Wofford has attracted a stream of donations. He has more cash on hand than Ms. James and is blasting TV ads across the state in an 11th-hour bid to shock the political world.

A Wofford victory would be more than a storybook ending; it would also be a gut-punch to the legal strategy of the Trump “resistance.” Since President Trump took office, Albany has been the nucleus of a litigation campaign against the White House. Former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman—who resigned in May after the New Yorker reported he had physically abused women—had appointed himself the administration’s chief legal antagonist. In 2017 alone, Mr. Schneiderman took more than 100 legal or administrative actions against the administration and congressional Republicans.

Mr. Wofford’s Democratic opponent, Letitia James, would likely continue these crusades. “We are confronting nothing short of the biggest challenge to our democracy in the history of this country,” she said in a speech in May. The air of partisanship—and its potential to obscure local problems—rankles Mr. Wofford. “You don’t use the office for petty political pursuits,” he says. “New York needs a nonpartisan attorney general who is just going to do what benefits the people of New York.”

He jumps at the chance to discuss the scandals surrounding the “Buffalo Billion,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to revitalize Mr. Wofford’s hometown. The program lapsed into cronyism this summer when its leader, Alain Kaloyeros, was convicted of a bid-rigging scheme to funnel money to firms whose executives donated to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign. Mr. Wofford calls it an example of a “brazen, rigged political process.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs New York City’s beleaguered subways, “is yet another example of where the cost of corruption is just killing us,” Mr. Wofford says. “These career politicians want power over everything, but accountability over nothing.” He promises to probe the “revolving door” between the MTA and its contractors.

Mr. Wofford also pledges to scale back use of the Martin Act, a statute that Mr. Schneiderman and former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer used to go after companies like Exxon Mobil and insurance giant AIG. Mr. Wofford describes it as “taking businesses into a room and twisting their arm” for higher settlements. “You don’t just hammer whole industries because they’re unpopular,” Mr. Wofford insists. “We’ve got to stop making villains of entire industries . . . because we can’t just conjure up billion-dollar companies like California does.”

A case in point is Uber. New York City froze for a year new licenses for all ride-sharing companies, against the protests of both New York-based tech innovators and minority groups who say yellow cabs often had refused to pick them up. “The AG has responsibility for both corruption and civil-rights law,” Mr. Wofford explains. “We would probe both the discrimination and the city’s failure to address it, as well as the contribution of [yellow cab] fleet owners to the City Council members and mayor connected with the change.”

Supporters of Ms. James—a former city councilwoman who last year was elected to a second term as New York City public advocate—have criticized her opponent’s vote for Donald Trump. She also accuses him of a conflict of interest in his ability to handle the opioid crisis, as his firm has represented Purdue Pharma. Mr. Wofford calls it a “nonissue” given that he never personally represented the company, and retorts that Ms. James “can’t be independent of Andrew Cuomo.” Mr. Cuomo has endorsed Ms. James and features her in a campaign ad.

The bigger question for New Yorkers is whether they’re satisfied with the status quo. A blue blanket over Albany will set in stone the policies of Andrew Cuomo, Bill de Blasio and Eric Schneiderman. “If no one speaks for the other side of the aisle,” Mr. Wofford warns, “we are in a world of hurt.”

Mr. Gayou is an assistant editorial page writer at the Journal.