Is it over? Is Andrew Cuomo the next mayor of New York City?
All signs point that way. Cuomo recently secured the endorsement of 1199 SEIU, the healthcare workers’ union and the largest in New York State. They joined the hotel workers’ union and the building workers’ union, 32BJ, to form a formidable labor coalition behind him. Cuomo is polling close to 40% (or beyond 40, depending on the poll) and there’s a very good chance that, on June 24, Cuomo will become the Democratic nominee. And if he wins that nomination, it’s hard to see how he loses the general election, even with Eric Adams competing as an independent.
If Cuomo, the former governor who resigned in disgrace in 2021, wins in June, it will be a startling comeback and also a victory that is, in every way, unprecedented. It’s not just that Cuomo will be the first ex-governor to become mayor of New York, a position that lacks the power of the governor’s mansion. It will be that Cuomo will have won while hardly campaigning at all.
This is bad because few journalists or ordinary people — forums are great places for members of the public to pepper candidates with questions — will have been able to force Cuomo to weigh in on particular issues or articulate a grander vision for the city. Not only has Cuomo not had to answer for his past sins but he hasn’t, absent a few speeches or press releases, made it terribly clear how he plans to run the enormous city agencies, fix homelessness, or even handle Rikers Island.
All we have to go on is Cuomo’s gubernatorial record — and that isn’t enough. Being mayor of New York is a very different job.
Consider that Cuomo barely talks to the media and makes scant public appearances. At best, he speaks at churches and takes a limited number of questions from reporters afterwards. He rarely sits for interviews. Unlike other candidates, it’s unclear what he does during the week. He rarely posts a schedule. He doesn’t appear at mayoral forums alongside his rivals.
No other front-running candidate, in modern times at least, behaved this way. Four years ago, Eric Adams and his rivals were seen frequently in public. So was Bill de Blasio, and the Democrats he had to overcome. Living New Yorkers haven’t witnessed a rose garden campaign of this variety — not in the last half century, at least.
Can Cuomo win dodging voters and the media? It’s plausible. His campaign has been far from flawless — a paperwork error cost him matching funds in April, and he was caught using ChatGPT to assemble his housing platform — but he’s still ahead. A super PAC has ensured he’s already on the airwaves. The only other candidate on TV, Zohran Mamdani, is a democratic socialist who is second in most polls but may not be able to assemble the broad coalition to knock Cuomo down.
The non-Cuomo, non-Mamdani candidates haven’t shown much movement in the polls. Brad Lander, the city comptroller, and Scott Stringer, the former comptroller, have stagnated. The candidate with the best chance to surge, perhaps, is Adrienne Adams, the city council speaker. But she entered the race relatively late, in March, and she needs to raise far more money and get on television.
Adams, of no relation to the beleaguered and formerly indicted mayor, has found some momentum of late, winning the endorsements of DC37, the union representing municipal workers, and Attorney General Letitia James. If the New York Times editorial board decides to endorse in the primary, she may be their top choice. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could back her as well.
But Adrienne Adams has much more work to do. She needs to break into Cuomo’s base of Black and Latino working-class Democrats and raise her name recognition significantly. She needs to convince white liberals to ditch Cuomo and back her.
Much will hinge on how much money she raises. If she can get on TV soon like Cuomo and Mamdani, she can begin to rise in the polls. She needs to be spending on parity with her top rivals. Otherwise, she’s finished.
For now, it’s Cuomo’s race to lose. He’s hiding and winning. He might be able to do this all the way through the primary. We’ll soon find out if this rose garden strategy — more of a bunker strategy — is truly successful.
Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.
