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NYSUT for Andrew Cuomo. 1199/S.E.I.U. for Cuomo. PBA for Cuomo. 32-BJ for Mark Green. DC 37 for Charlie King. Communication Workers of America for the decamped Richard Brodsky. And the list goes on.

In this alphabet soup of endorsements for attorney general, which ones matter?

“They’re all important,” said Mark Benoit, a spokesman for Green. “But it’s really the ones that have a proven field capacity. If they’re really going to be with you, they’ll be knocking on doors and pulling people to the polls.”

For Green’s campaign, there are two influential endorsements, Benoit said. The first is 32-BJ, the local affiliate of the Service Employees Industrial Union—60,000 members (doormen, janitors, security guards and other building service workers) make it one of the largest union locals in New York City. The other important endorsement, Benoit said, is that of the Public Employees Federation, which has 54,000 members statewide and will help with petitioning.

Jerry Skurnik, a Democratic political consultant, agreed that 32-BJ is on the list of influential endorsements. Others, he said, are District Council (DC) 37, the city’s largest municipal public employees union; the New York State United Teachers, which is large and politically astute; and the Communications Workers, which is not large but is politically sophisticated.

King’s campaign has been bolstered by the support of DC-37 in the last two months. Sean Maloney, another Democratic hopeful, has also not garnered any major union support, though the openly gay candidate has been backed by scattered influential political clubs, including the Stonewall Democrats.

The most influential endorsement in the attorney general’s race, Skurnik said, is that of 1199/S.E.I.U., the health care workers union, which has 200,000 members in New York City and a track record of political activism.

“The fact that Andrew Cuomo has been endorsed by 1199, which is probably the most influential union in politics in the state, has been powerful to his campaign,” Skurnik said.

Union endorsements are particularly important in the attorney general’s race, Skurnik said, because it is a “down-ballot race,” below races for president and governor on the actual voting machine and in general voters’ attention.

For these races, candidates are looking for unions to “provide money and people....It’s harder to get big campaign contributions or volunteers for this race,” he said.

But there are also union endorsements that are important not because of their large membership, campaign money or political savvy but because of their symbolic meaning.

Political strategists aim for photo-ops with police officers and firemen, though those two groups have much smaller memberships than many other unions. This year, the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York has not endorsed a candidate, but the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) recently endorsed Cuomo.

In the 2001 mayor’s race, the PBA backed Green.

Some might have expected Republican candidate Jeanine Pirro to score the backing of the PBA, since law enforcement and construction unions sometimes support Republican candidates. With the PBA backing Cuomo, major union support may be beyond Pirro’s grasp, though she may collect some backing from local unions in Westchester, where she was the district attorney.

The Pirro campaign is keeping quiet on the topic.

But while Cuomo has been racking up this support as the longtime front-runner for the Democratic nomination in the attorney general’s race, unions insist a candidate’s ranking doesn’t matter when it comes to an endorsement.

“We like to look at the stance they’ve taken primarily on education issues, also labor and a host of other issues,” said Ron Davis, spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).

The UFT has not yet endorsed any attorney general candidate, though its parent union, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), has backed Cuomo. NYSUT is the largest union in the state—with 525,000 members (active and retired teachers) its membership is more than double 1199’s.

Jennifer Cunningham, executive vice president of the politics and legislation department of 1199/S.E.I.U. and a volunteer consultant to Cuomo’s campaign, echoed a common union argument for supporting, writing in an email that “he has a proven record of fighting for working families’ issues during his time in government and as HUD secretary.”

Many see Cuomo’s very early backing by 1199 as one of the main factors in making him the race’s longtime frontrunner.

But come Election Day what matters is the candidate, not the endorsements—even those of the major unions—said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political consultant who is advising Mark Green’s campaign.

“Endorsements don’t vote,” he said. “People do.”