Disgraced Former Governor Andrew Cuomo Is Running for Mayor

He’s back. Or so he thinks.

On Saturday, disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he’s running for mayor, three years since he resigned due to a scathing investigation into reports that he sexually harassed at least 11 women. What a contest: New York voters get to decide which set of scandals they prefer, the sexual predations of Cuomo or Mayor Eric Adams’s indictments for corruption.

Of course, we will have more choices than that, thanks to New York City’s ranked-choice voting system, which lets voters pick their top five candidates, in ranked order. Also, Cuomo is not invincible. Although in recent polls he leads the pack of candidates, that may say more about name recognition, and Adams’s unpopularity, than his inherent advantages. But he does have an inside track to New York’s rich and powerful—a super PAC is committed to raising at least $15 million for him—and that is going to make it more crucial that progressive New Yorkers unite behind a contender, or two.

Brad Lander, the city’s progressive comptroller is currently second behind Cuomo; Scott Stringer, the former comptroller follows. Progressives including State Senators Jessica Ramos, Zellnor Myrie, and democratic socialist Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani are also in the race. And then there’s Adams, who says he’s going nowhere. Donald Trump gave him an assist there, by instructing the Southern District of New York to drop its charges against the mayor of swagger.

In the video announcing his candidacy, Cuomo promised to stand up to Donald Trump. But he also sounded Trumpian notes about a “migrant influx” and “random violence.”

The former governor has much in common with Trump, particularly his bullying managerial style and his disrespect, at best, for women. “During his decade as governor, he has often strutted his thuggish paternalism while his top aides disparaged those who challenged him,” New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister wrote in March 2021. He has spent a staggering $25 million in New York taxpayer funds to fight his many accusers, some of whom have withdrawn their own lawsuits because Cuomo can easily outspend them. Lindsay Boylan, the first Cuomo accuser, did not sue him, but says she’s spent $1.5 million in legal fees because she’s been subpoenaed in other cases. “The physical and mental costs are incalculable,” she wrote in Vanity Fair.

Cuomo worked with Republicans and conservative Democrats to maintain GOP control of the legislature for years. He appointed the judge who approved congressional maps that handed the House of Representatives to Republicans in 2024 as well. And while he at first seemed to have a masterful response to the pandemic, he was found to have made crucial errors when it came to nursing home residents, requiring homes to accept Covid-19-positive patients when New York’s hospitals couldn’t handle them, and then to understate their death toll.

With the primary coming quickly in June, Cuomo is making a relatively late entrance into the race, given that so many other challengers to Adams have emerged. Jasmine Gripper, codirector of the New York Working Families Party, explained that it is intentional “because he wants to shorten the window for us to remind voters of all those scandals.”

The WFP and other progressive groups have launched a #HellNoCuomo campaign. They are also working with the existing progressive candidates, not to get anyone out of the race but to have a conscious, overt campaign of cooperation, since voters can choose up to five candidates. “We didn’t adapt quickly enough to ranked-choice voting [in 2021],” Gripper admits. “We’re talking to progressives about teaming up—and making sure nobody ranks Cuomo or Adams” in their top tier. A coalition known as DREAMNYC—“Don’t Rank Eric Andrew for Mayor”—is pushing the same strategy.

Back in 2021, Cuomo blamed Attorney General Letitia James for his troubles, since she investigated both the nursing home allegations and the sexual harassment complaints. He called her findings “politically motivated” and claimed he was being penalized for changing “mores” and accusers who misunderstood his style of “New York loving” for harassment. New York what?

“Did I make mistakes, some painfully? Definitely, and I believe I learned from them and that I am a better person for it and I hope to show that every day,” Cuomo says in his campaign announcement video. His detractors don’t believe him.

That video, complete with a repetitive, plunking Ken Burns piano soundtrack, highlights his work fighting the spread of Covid-19, which was not necessarily the best move, given the nursing home scandal. He also paints himself as tough on crime and ready to resist liberals who want to tighten the reins on police. “We must now return to fighting crime,” he says of the city that has seen crime rates drop. But never mind the data: “The city just feels threatening, out of control, and in crisis,” he declares. But maybe that’s because he just moved back here from Westchester.

Gripper notes that Cuomo’s administration reduced the number of psychiatric beds in the city, contributing to the crisis of homeless mentally ill New Yorkers he decries. He also neglected the MTA, making subway conditions worse.

Cuomo will hurt Adams with his support from the Black community, where his ties are long-standing. Former state comptroller Carl McCall, once a rival, endorsed Cuomo last week. “We don’t need a Mr. Nice Guy,” said Representative Ritchie Torres, the Bronx Afro-Latino Democrat (and a former Bernie Sanders surrogate) who now backs Cuomo. “We need a Mr. Tough Guy,” he told The New York Times.

Many New York women, experienced with Cuomo’s particularly macho form of toughness, will likely disagree.

The #HellNoCuomo coalition rallied outside the Carpenters Union hall, where Cuomo officially kicked off his campaign. Some union members reportedly showed up without knowing it was a Cuomo event, but he could get significant union support. Sadly, New York unions often bet on who they think will win, not who they truly think will help their members.

“Andrew Cuomo has spent the past four years tormenting the women he harassed in our court system, all on taxpayers’ dime. Twenty-five million taxpayer dollars later, he now wants to assume power he clearly doesn’t deserve,” Erika Vladimir, cofounder of Sexual Harassment Working Group, told the crowd. We’ll see if New York’s unions take that seriously.