Andrew Cuomo is making every move for his Mayoral run
Andrew Cuomo walked into a conference room inside the company’s Manhattan office in a suit and tie and talked for 30 minutes straight. “We are at a pivotal moment in the city’s history. The city goes through cycles, but this one is different. People are leaving,” he said at the private event, according to a source familiar with the meeting. “They are afraid.”
Officially, Cuomo is not running for mayor. Unofficially, he’s doing everything someone running for mayor would do. His allies went ahead with the vote; they are contacting potential employees; They are arranging the collection of signatures needed to get his name on the ballot. Perhaps most important and intriguing, however, is that Cuomo has had many months traveled all over the cityspeaking to Jewish groups and at Black churches, from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side, testing the ideas and messages he would use to launch one of his boldest comeback efforts in New York political history.
Bold because Cuomo left his last job, governor of the state for three terms, early and under fierce criticism. New York State Attorney General Letitia James release one Report 165 pages that she said substantiated complaints that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women. A separate controversy also surrounds whether Cuomo’s office manipulated reports of COVID deaths in New York and issued an order that increased the severity of the pandemic in nursing homes. . Cuomo has steadfastly denied all the allegations, then and since, attacking James’s investigation as politically motivated, and he and several of his top aides have pushed hard . at least 25 million USD with state taxpayer dollars to aggressively and continuously defend against both controversies. But in August 2021, he quit in disgrace.
And then Cuomo almost immediately began looking for a path to electoral redemption. In 2022, he nearly faced off against his replacement as governor, Kathy Hochul, before deciding it was too early to send his daughters into battle again, according to one of his top assistants.
However, three years later, the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams, Have opened the door with his bid to resurrect Cuomo. Seven former top aides to the mayor have resigned and are under investigation; Adams himself was indicted last September and faces federal trial in April. Recently opinion poll shows Adams as one of the least popular candidates and Cuomo has beaten him in a potential Democratic primary matchup this June.
Assuming he runs, that is. Cuomo’s longtime spokesman, Azzopardi is rich, has used the word “soon” for months whenever he was asked whether the former governor would challenge Adams, and for now he sticks to the company line. Other New York political insiders who have spoken to Cuomo aren’t so coy: “He’s running,” one told me emphatically. To appear on the Democratic primary ballot, candidates need to collect However, there were 7,500 signatures between February 25 and April 3. Still, there are many good reasons for Cuomo to delay entering the race as long as possible — some of which carry strategic and some emotional.
Cuomo’s ideal path to City Hall would be a special election forcing Adams to resign by March 26, under the Charter of the City of New YorkBut that window is closing quickly. So the former governor’s camp now wants Adams to stay in the race, believing that would give more time for the incumbent’s support to collapse and reduce the scrutiny that would otherwise have possible for Cuomo—who, in a recent poll, registered one Disagreement rate is 44%. Waiting for a public announcement of the bid also gives Cuomo more time to refine his offer. Currently, it relies heavily on the “chaos” that is said to be engulfing the city, with the recent horrifying burning of a homeless woman in a subway car being a prime example. . Cuomo is also trying to find a way to walk the line between criticizing Adams personally — which could risk alienating some Black voters — and professionally, as someone who has failed failed as a city manager.
Another thing holding up the decision and final announcement, Cuomo’s allies say, is that he has not completely given up on running for governor in 2026. Defeating Hochul, his former lieutenant governor, and the reclaiming of the Albany throne would have a happy outcome. of the direct satisfaction of revenge that being mayor does not bring.
