Andrew Cuomo isn’t running for New York City mayor, at least not yet. But the candidates who are in the race are already running against him.
Those close to the former New York governor insist he hasn’t made any final decisions about entering the 2025 mayoral race, despite recently changing his residence to Manhattan and reports that his allies have been contacting potential donors. Some of the current mayoral hopefuls, however, aren’t wasting any time trying to define him anyway.
They include former city Comptroller Scott Stringer, whose campaign branded Cuomo a “selfish suburbanite only looking to rehabilitate his image.” Current Comptroller Brad Lander called him an “agent of corruption and chaos.” And in a video launching his campaign, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani singled out two politicians for criticism: Cuomo and current Mayor Eric Adams.
“Life in this city doesn’t need to be this hard, but politicians like Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo want it to be this way,” Mamdani said in the video. “They care about their donors. They care about themselves. They don’t care about you.”
Cuomo has near-universal name recognition in the five boroughs that would make him a serious contender for mayor, thanks to a decade in the governor’s office and a family history in New York City politics stretching back to the late 1970s. A New York Times/Siena College poll in late October showed him leading among a crowded pack of Democrats – including the embattled Adams — in a potential primary.
But he also has significant baggage — a bevy of sexual harassment allegations he denies and ongoing questions about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes — that preceded his resignation in 2021 and is sure to be central to next year’s mayoral race, should the former governor actually enter it.
The current mayoral challengers have been eager to provide New York City voters with a refresher.
“If [Cuomo] truly cared about New York City — where he hasn’t lived for decades — over his own personal revenge fantasies, he would focus instead on atoning for his many misdeeds, prepare his legal defense, pay for it himself instead of sticking taxpayers with a $25 million bill, and leave us all alone,” Lander said in a statement last week.
So far, Cuomo has largely avoided publicly commenting on the mayor’s race, including in an interview Monday with former Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis’ on 77 WABC — a conservative-leaning talk station owned by Catsimatidis’ company.
Cuomo, a Queens native, has not launched an official campaign committee, an essential early step that would let him raise money for a run. But behind the scenes, his actions and those of his allies have spurred plenty of talk. That includes changing his voting address to a Manhattan apartment earlier this year after spending much of the current century voting in Westchester County. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that his former top aide, Steven M. Cohen, has had “early discussions” with donors about funding an outside organization that could support the former governor.
In the past, Cuomo’s allies have indicated he’s disinclined to run against the incumbent, assuming Adams remains in the race. But the mayor is a vulnerable candidate: He is running for re-election despite abysmal polling numbers and an indictment for fraud and bribery charges related to his ties to Turkish officials
Two people close to Cuomo but not authorized to speak publicly said the ongoing uncertainty around Adams remains a complicating factor for the former governor.
Cuomo’s spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, has labeled the talk of a mayoral run “premature.” But he’s also been quick to highlight Cuomo’s accomplishments as governor, which includes codifying Roe v. Wade abortion rights into state law and completing major infrastructure projects like the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement and the Second Avenue Subway.
In a statement, Azzopardi dismissed the mayoral candidates’ criticism of Cuomo as “noise from fringe politicians.”
“Voters aren’t stupid and — while this is all premature — they see the current lack of leadership on every level that has made their lives worse off and directly led to the results of this past election,” he said. “If these candidates want to spend their time hyperventilating and papering over their own lack of accomplishments, go right ahead — most New Yorkers have never heard of them and their puffery is going to convince no one.”
In an interview with Gothamist, Mamdani, a Queens Democrat running from the left, said he’s taking a potential Cuomo candidacy “quite seriously.”
“[Cuomo] is intent on remaining a critical part of New York City politics, even while he has brought us to this moment of despair for so many New Yorkers,” Mamdani said. “So many of the crises we are facing today are ones that he created, ones that he sowed over many years of a government that mixed a commitment to incompetence with brutality.”
The primary election for the mayor’s race is set for June 24, 2025.