Andrew Cuomo Launches Comeback Bid For New York City Mayor

NEW YORK — Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is joining the crowded race to unseat New York City Mayor Eric Adams — catapulting himself into a high-stakes return to public life following a scandal-plagued downfall.

The moderate Democrat, a household name in New York politics for decades, made the announcement in a 17-minute video Saturday morning, citing the deep anxiety among New Yorkers over the direction of the city and sustained concerns with crime. He blamed the “failed Democratic leadership” for those problems.

“The first step toward solving a problem is having the strength, having the courage, to recognize it and we know that today our New York City is in trouble,” Cuomo said. “The city just feels threatening, out of control and in crisis. These conditions exist not as an act of God, but rather as an act of our political leaders — or more precisely, the lack of intelligent action by many of our political leaders.”

Moments earlier before his video launched Saturday afternoon, he told a POLITICO reporter he would focus on “the future of the City of New York and how do we get out of this crisis” as he entered a candidate screening by influential labor union 32BJ SEIU — which represents building service workers.

In his launch video, Cuomo said he would work with the Trump administration — but vowed as mayor to also fight the president, as well as his former colleagues in Albany, when required.

“I have worked with President Trump in many different situations, and I hope President Trump remembers his hometown and works with us to make it better,” he said. “But make no mistake: I will stand up and fight for New York.”

He’s expected to hold a rally with supporters on Sunday.

The famously combative Cuomo joins the race with high name recognition, top-spot poll numbers, a record of accomplishments and a slick campaign operation intended to show early strength with fewer than four months until the Democratic primary. He also brings a lot of baggage, which has registered in early polls and which his rivals will seek to capitalize on as they scramble to match his advantages.

The former governor resigned in 2021 after a report released by Attorney General Leitita James found he sexually harassed 11 women. His leadership during Covid — the handling of which made him a national celebrity — came under a cloud after his administration ordered that nursing homes not turn away ill patients. State officials were later found to have undercounted the number of long-term care facility residents who died during the initial weeks of the pandemic.

Cuomo has vehemently denied any wrongdoing on both counts, and argued the scandals were induced by his many political enemies in New York and Washington. The lesser-known candidates for mayor — a muddled field without a break-out candidate — will stoke these vulnerabilities as they work to peel off Cuomo’s broad support.

The former governor acknowledged the controversies that ended his decade-long reign as governor. Without going into detail, Cuomo said he erred and would have done some things differently.

“Did I always do everything right in my years of government service? Of course not,” he said in the video. “Would I do some things differently knowing what I know now? Certainly. Did I make mistakes? Some painfully? Definitely.”

The lengthy announcement also included an unspooling of policy pronouncements — detailing for the first time how he would govern the city. He wants greater e-bike safety, an expansion of affordable housing and job training investment. And he pledged to fight anti-Semitism.

His long anticipated entrance into the race is the latest blow to Adams’ already slim chances of winning a second term, given their overlapping base of working-class, Black and Orthodox Jewish voters.

The mayor is mired in crisis, still fighting a federal corruption case even after President Donald Trump’s Justice Department sought to drop charges against him. What he’d hoped would be a clean dismissal turned into a political quagmire, with the acting federal prosecutor in Manhattan resigning over what she alleged was a quid pro quo for the mayor’s cooperation on the White House’s deportation plans. Adams’ attorney has denied that allegation and is looking to get the case dropped, and the mayor is resisting calls for his resignation.

Adams’ precarious position, evidenced by his campaign’s near failure to launch, provides Cuomo with what he perceives is an open lane in a sprint to the June 24 election. The race will focus on chaos at City Hall, voters’ frustrations with disorder in the streets and on the subways and Democrats’ desire for a tough executive to stand up to Trump.

Cuomo can boast of a formidable fundraising operation and has in place a team of longtime advisers that includes Charlie King and Jennifer Bayer Michaels — a campaign apparatus that has been poised to launch for months. He’s already secured endorsements from Rep. Ritchie Torres, a high-profile Democrat who’s likely to challenge Cuomo’s Albany successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul. And he is expected to get the nod of the city’s carpenter’s union.

But the former governor’s recent ties to the city he wants to lead are tenuous.

A Queens native, Cuomo has spent most of the last two decades living in suburban Westchester County or the state capital of Albany. He only moved to the city recently, registering to vote last year at a Manhattan address according to Board of Elections records.

He’s joining a large field that includes a democratic Socialist, two center-left career politicians who have won citywide office and a pair of younger senators who represent diverse districts in Queens and Brooklyn. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is likely to get into the race next week, according to people familiar with her thinking, after announcing she set up a campaign committee on Wednesday. She was spotted entering the 32BJ SEIU screening, but declined to answer a reporter’s questions.

Cuomo is already leveraging his reputation for being an effective leader as voters continue to raise concerns over crime and chaos, and he’s likely to present himself as a Democratic antidote to Trump. Torres, for instance, said the city needs “Mr. Tough Guy” to counter the famously aggressive president.

His record as governor — orchestrating the legalization of same-sex marriage and pushing for gleaming development projects like the construction of the Moynihan Train Hall and overhauling La Guardia Airport — will almost certainly factor into his platform.

Like Trump, Cuomo’s return to electoral office seemed improbable nearly four years ago when he left the governor’s mansion amid cascading scandals.

Still, the former governor’s allies believe he’s been vindicated in the years since he left office. One of the women who accused Cuomo of wrongdoing dropped her sexual harassment lawsuit against him and several prosecutors have declined to bring charges against him. A Justice Department inspector general last year determined the federal government’s probe of Cuomo’s nursing home policies launched under the first Trump administration was politically motivated.

An independent expenditure committee has spent six figures criticizing Cuomo’s Covid record and his history of running against Black Democrats, though the ads that have run so far on radio stations and streaming services have not put a dent in his lead standing in polls. Another anti-Cuomo group is also in formation.

One of Cuomo’s rivals, former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, circulated a memorandum last year highlighting Cuomo’s political weaknesses. (Stringer was also accused of sexual harassment, allegations he denied when they surfaced during his 2021 mayoral bid.)

Cuomo’s run is a gamble for the 67-year-old son of former Governor Mario Cuomo, and his allies have said he doesn’t want to join the list of failed campaigns of other scandal-scarred New York politicians like Eliot Spitzer or Anthony Weiner.

An astute campaigner, the former governor has not competed in a race with an outcome so uncertain. Given his frontrunner status, he will be attacked by everyone in the field in a media-saturated city. He’s never participated in a matching-funds campaign finance system with such low donation limits, and ranked choice voting is only in its second election cycle here, making it harder to game out.

If elected, he will have a prominent perch and — as John Lindsay once said — the second toughest job in American politics, with ready access to the national media. Cuomo would also oversee the largest domestic police force in the country, a budget that stands at $115 billion and a vast municipal bureaucracy. Despite its prestige, the office is also famously subservient to the whims of Albany — as Cuomo well knows. As governor, he regularly – at times gleefully – stymied the efforts of Mayor Bill de Blasio, creating a storied feud between the two men.

Still, the shrewd Cuomo would likely be able to marshal the resources of the mayor’s office and the media bullhorn to his advantage.

But first he has to win, and the path will include attacks from his right and left flanks.

While governor, Cuomo signed into law a controversial measure that limited when cash bail is required in criminal cases. The provision has been blamed — by Republicans, the influential New York Post and Mayor Adams — for increases in crime. Cuomo also won initial legislative approval for the Manhattan toll program known as congestion pricing, which Trump is now threatening to nix. The president has called the $9 toll “a terrible tax” on New Yorkers.

Left-leaning advocates will likely attack Cuomo over his fiscal moderation, skepticism of tax increases and oversight of the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“Andrew Cuomo is for himself and only himself, and is hoping New Yorkers will forget his disastrous record for our city of endless scandals, destroying the subway, and cutting basic services,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, one of Cuomo’s new Democratic opponents, said. “The good news is we will end the Adams-Cuomo nightmare of corruption and chaos, and finally send both to their retirement.”

Jason Beeferman contributed to this report.