It takes some guesswork to determine why certain businesses and wealthy people have poured money into the super PAC supporting Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral campaign. Some, like Vornado CEO Steven Roth and million-dollar-donor DoorDash, have high-stakes dealings with city government, while dozens of other real estate firms and financiers may simply support Cuomo’s centrist policies or hope to ingratiate themselves with the front-runner.
But there is little mystery why the New York Apartment Association, a landlord lobbying group, announced Thursday it plans to spend $2.5 million to support Cuomo before the June 24 Democratic primary. Cuomo’s chief rivals, led by Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, have all pledged to freeze rents on stabilized units if elected, while the ex-governor has dismissed those calls as irresponsible.
“It’s become a two-person race,” NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos told Crain’s on Friday. “The Mamdani campaign is pledging to freeze the rent, which to us is going to decimate this housing stock that has been widely reported is in distress.”
The big outlay, which NYAA will fund through its “Housing for All” super PAC, will pay for English- and Spanish-language advertisements supporting Cuomo on television and radio. It represents the single largest commitment by any outside spender in this year’s mayoral race, as Politico first reported.
NYAA has funded its PAC with a $3 million donation and had already paid $2.3 million for pro-Cuomo ads by June 5, state records show. The group also reported spending $329,500 on materials supporting City Council incumbents Julie Menin, Crystal Hudson and Kevin Riley, plus council candidates Rachel Storch and Ty Hankerson. It will pay for ads opposing one council incumbent: Chris Marte, a Manhattan lawmaker known for resisting new development.
NYAA was formed last year by the merger of the groups Community Housing Improvement Program and the Rent Stabilization Association. The landlord group’s involvement in the mayoral race has become an instant campaign issue. Mamdani, the charismatic socialist polling second behind Cuomo, called a press conference Friday morning outside NYAA’s Lower Manhattan office to condemn their donation.
“I’ve been proud to be the candidate from the beginning of this race saying I would freeze the rent for these landlords’ tenants,” Mamdani said Friday. “That’s why they’re coming in for Andrew Cuomo.”
Mamdani has won the adulation of young and progressive voters by pledging to halt any rent hikes in the city’s 1 million regulated apartments every year he is in office, using the mayor’s ability to appoint all nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board. Following his lead, other candidates such as City Comptroller Brad Lander, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie have said they would support freezing rents this year but stopped short of committing to future-year freezes, saying they would defer to annual data on landlords’ maintenance costs.
Cuomo, by contrast, released a housing plan that dismissed rent-freezes as a “politically convenient posture,” noting that landlords would be unable to maintain their buildings without rent increases that reflect their rising costs. Property owners citywide say they face a looming financial crisis as older buildings containing regulated units lose their value, exacerbated by a 2019 law that limits owners’ ability to raise rents after vacancies and renovations.
Cuomo, as governor, famously signed that law, the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act. But he has expressed some contrition for his role: Cuomo told NYAA’s members in April that he had little say on the bill since the state Legislature had the votes to pass it, a person familiar with the remarks said. Cuomo added that he had not foreseen the sweeping impact of the law and thought it should be reevaluated — matching comments he reportedly made in March to the Real Estate Board of New York.
Landlord groups like NYAA argue Mamdani’s proposal would compromise the integrity of the Rent Guidelines Board, which is legally independent and supposed to base its decisions on data rather than mayoral fiat. Mamdani and his supporters counter that former Mayor Bill de Blasio presided over three years of rent freezes in his eight-year term.
Fix the City, the separate pro-Cuomo committee created by his allies, has raised a combined $12 million as of Thursday. The latest donors include Roberta Kaplan, an attorney who controversially counseled Cuomo after the harassment allegations against him (Kaplan gave $10,000); former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin (who gave $25,000) and billionaire Ken Langone, who gave another $50,000 Thursday on top of an identical donation he gave in March.
