Some New York Democrats Are Desperate To Halt Andrew Cuomo’s Comeback March

NEW YORK — Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is barreling into the New York City mayoral race — and many Democratic leaders are worried they’re running out of time to stop him.

As Cuomo readies to announce his long-anticipated run, the city’s political class has increasingly turned to risky strategies and long-shot candidates in an effort to thwart what would be an epic political comeback from the former governor and his inner circle.

Over the last week, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams — the first Black woman to hold that leadership position — announced she filed paperwork ahead of a potential run that could erode Cuomo’s base of Black voters in her home district of Southeast Queens. The speaker’s campaign has been encouraged by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Cuomo foe whom some Democrats had hoped would challenge the former governor. Ed Skyler, a deputy mayor under Michael Bloomberg, is also keeping his options open and recently changed his Republican voter registration to independent.

And organized efforts are taking hold to try to halt any momentum for the presumed frontrunner in what would be a political resurrection for the ages.

A new anti-Cuomo super PAC recently formed and hired a Bill de Blasio, Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez staffer — Lauren Hitt — as it gears up to criticize his record and management skills. A separate PAC previously spent six figures disparaging Cuomo in TV, radio and digital ads — attacks that have had no impact on his standing in early polls.

Cuomo has been in the public eye for more than 40 years, since he ran his father’s 1982 campaign for New York governor. Over the decades, his sharp-elbowed style and penchant for punishing foes has left a long list of detractors in his wake — and those critics are loath to see him return to power. To counter that perception, Cuomo is expected to launch this weekend with a big group of supporters and has been trotting out early endorsements. His supporters have a PAC of their own as well.

Cuomo will bring an aggressive fundraising operation and high name recognition to a Democratic primary that has yet to produce a frontrunner. With the exception of the indicted incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, the candidates in the race are not as well known, but also carry less baggage than Cuomo.

“His numbers are really good right now, but he’s not in a debate,” said Basil Smikle, a former executive director of the state Democratic Committee under Cuomo. “He’s going to get attacked. The mayor still has support out there and we shouldn’t discount that.”

All together, it adds up to a deeply unpredictable primary for Cuomo, a cautious and mercurial politician who has never faced a political challenge quite like this one during his life-long career in the public spotlight. He’ll be pitted against a young, up-and-coming democratic socialist, two left-of-center party mainstays who have won citywide office and two young state senators of color. And that isn’t counting the deeply damaged but bombastic mayor and the very real possibility that the council speaker, who shares a surname with the mayor but isn’t related, will jump into the race.

Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi pointed to the former governor’s record — including the completion of major infrastructure projects, support for abortion rights and tighter gun laws. And he’s confident attacks from the left won’t work.

“New Yorkers aren’t stupid — they know Governor Cuomo’s record of raising wages for millions, building landmark infrastructure projects like LaGuardia Airport, the Second Avenue Subway and Moynihan Train Hall, passing the strongest gun violence prevention and paid family leave programs in the nation and codifying Roe vs. Wade in state law years before the Supreme Court overturned it, and that he led the state and the nation through the dark days of COVID,” he said. “That’s why attacks from anonymous extremist-DSA affiliated groups and politicians who have been in office for decades, yet no record of their own to run on have been — and will continue to be — completely ineffective.”

Cuomo resigned in 2021 after James’ office concluded he sexually harassed 11 women — allegations he has strenuously denied. Less than four years later, Cuomo has scored some legal wins, including the withdrawal of one of the sexual harassment suits against him and several prosecutors declining to charge him. Now he’s on the verge of a return to public office and has already received a spate of endorsements from allies Rep. Ritchie Torres and the New York City District Council of Carpenters. The nods are not consequential to the overall race, but are meant, in part, to demonstrate an aura of Cuomo’s early inevitability in the relatively short primary season.

Still, publicly available polling shows that while many voters hold a favorable view of the former governor, his negatives are just as high — numbers that are far worse than those of his little-known opponents. New York City’s rank-choice voting system would also create a dynamic in which Cuomo is ganged up on. His controversial Covid record and his moderate fiscal stances are vulnerabilities for both the right and left to exploit. And, with President Donald Trump back in the White House, Democratic foes are already drawing parallels to Cuomo, who critics have long alleged has autocratic tendencies.

“This race is still wide open,” said Lupe Todd-Medina, a Democratic consultant. “The polls coming out now are of name recognition, it’s not where voters are landing.”

Cuomo’s orbit of advisers disagrees with that assessment. The former governor, they have argued, is best positioned to address the sustained concerns voters have with crime and the sense the city has drifted following the pandemic. Cuomo has long prided himself on his managerial capabilities and oversight of crises like Hurricane Sandy. His initial handling of Covid made him a national political celebrity. And he will likely leverage his smashmouth political reputation to paint himself as an effective Trump foil.

“People are tired of homeless people attacking them in the streets, they’re tired of the chaos,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant. “If they like him personally or not, they’ll like that he can make the trains run on time.”

Cuomo’s team asserts the many controversies have subsided — and that some events since his resignation have vindicated the former governor. The Justice Department last year found that the first Trump administration’s probe of Cuomo’s nursing home policies was politically motivated — bolstering the former governor’s argument that the Covid controversy was merely a Republican talking point.

And yet detractors believe there’s ample room to undermine Cuomo’s reputation as an effective manager. A new independent expenditure committee, New Yorkers For Better Leadership, released a three-page “interested parties” memorandum laying out Cuomo’s record on Covid, his former administration’s order to nursing homes that they not turn away sick patients during the pandemic and his mass transit policies. The group has not ruled out running ads against Cuomo, but wants the memo to serve as a guide for his opponents as the race shifts into a new and uncertain phase. It is yet to disclose its donors, but will do so as required under New York law.

“In short, Governor Cuomo is not just a bad man, he was a bad governor,” the group wrote in its memo. “New Yorkers deserve better leadership, not more of the incompetence and chaos that got us here.”

Still, the criticism of Cuomo in the long lead up to his entrance into the race has not affected his first-place position in voter surveys. And his team asserts his Covid leadership can still be considered a strength.

Cuomo's team was dismissive of the effort and linked it to de Blasio, who had a storied feud with the ex-governor.

“This is the third sour grape effort from the de Blasio administration in exile that has been about as effective as the de Blasio administration,” said Azzopardi, the Cuomo spokesperson.