Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo seems to be relying on assist from President Donald Trump within the New York mayoral election. Cuomo is doing this whilst he additionally claims he’s the candidate most able to defending New York Metropolis from the president.
I argued in June that the NYC Mayoral race was by far a very powerful election in America in 2025.
Zohran Mamdani’s crushing (and surprising) 56-44 ranked-choice win over Cuomo within the main raised the stakes even increased.
The presence of an outright Democratic socialist in Mamdani, his forthright opposition to genocide in Palestine, and the walloping he placed on the Democratic institution make this race much more revealing of future prospects than the 2025 gubernatorial elections I coated Monday.
These races, in Virginia and New Jersey, pit lavishly-funded centrist nationwide safety state woman boss Democrats towards a pair of Republicans with nearly no nationwide significance.
However, again to New York, Politico received the inside track:
Andrew Cuomo’s relying on President Donald Trump and high Republicans to inform the social gathering devoted to vote for Cuomo for mayor in the event that they need to cease Zohran Mamdani, and to not vote for GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa.
“We are able to reduce (the Sliwa) vote, as a result of he’ll by no means be a severe candidate,” Cuomo informed the group at a Hamptons fundraiser Saturday, in response to audio obtained by Playbook. “And Trump himself, in addition to high Republicans, will say the objective is to cease Mamdani. And also you’ll be losing your vote on Sliwa. So I be ok with that.”
Publicly, Cuomo has shunned the concept of getting any assist from Trump. Cuomo stated he’d decline an endorsement, and denied a New York Instances report that he’d spoken with the president in regards to the race.
However Cuomo appeared longing for the president’s assist behind closed doorways, chatting with the extra Trump-friendly crowd gathered at media mogul Jimmy Finkelstein’s residence in Southampton. One other co-host, former New York Metropolis Council President Andrew Stein, briefed Trump final month on how Cuomo could be aggressive within the normal election, in response to the Instances.
An attendee requested Cuomo immediately if he or his staff was in dialog with the White Home about how Trump may affect the race. Cuomo didn’t immediately deny it this time.
“Let’s put it this fashion: I knew the president very properly,” Cuomo stated. “I imagine there’s a giant piece of him that truly needs redemption in New York. He feels that he was rejected by New York. We voted for Hillary Clinton. Invoice de Blasio took his identify off issues. So I imagine there shall be alternatives to really cooperate with him. I additionally imagine that he’s not going to need to battle with me in New York if he can keep away from it.”
The New York Instances has extra element on the Cuomo-Trump discussions that Cuomo denies:
President Trump might have moved out of New York Metropolis, however he has privately mentioned whether or not to intercede in its fractious race for mayor to attempt to cease Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, in response to eight folks briefed on the discussions.
In current weeks, Mr. Trump has quizzed a Republican congressman and New York businessmen about who within the crowded discipline of candidates, which incorporates Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, has the most effective probability of beating Mr. Mamdani, the leftist front-runner.
The president has been briefed by Mark Penn, a pollster who has labored for Invoice and Hillary Clinton, and Andrew Stein, a former New York Metropolis Council president and decades-long pal of Mr. Trump, on a variety of polling that confirmed Mr. Cuomo might nonetheless be aggressive as an impartial candidate. Each males have pushed Mr. Cuomo as the most effective candidate regardless of his loss within the Democratic main, together with in a current Wall Road Journal op-ed. Considered one of Mr. Penn’s companies did intensive work for a pro-Cuomo tremendous PAC within the main.
And in a beforehand undisclosed name in current weeks, Mr. Trump spoke in regards to the race immediately with Mr. Cuomo, an outdated affiliate and foil, in response to three folks briefed on the decision, who weren’t approved to debate it.…It’s unclear what exactly Mr. Trump and Mr. Cuomo mentioned, or who initiated the decision. Mr. Cuomo has publicly denounced Mr. Trump, and the Justice Division had opened an investigation into Mr. Cuomo after Home Republicans accused him of mendacity to Congress about his dealing with of the Covid pandemic. Their dialog got here across the time that the previous governor was privately discussing with supporters in New York whether or not to proceed along with his marketing campaign, and publicly pushing Mr. Adams and different rivals such because the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, to drop out.
After this text was printed, Mr. Trump was requested by reporters at an occasion within the Oval Workplace if he had spoken with Mr. Cuomo. “I haven’t, no I haven’t,” he stated.…Mr. Trump has aired a few of his views publicly. In early July, he repeated baseless claims that Mr. Mamdani immigrated to america illegally and threatened to arrest him if he blocked immigration arrests in New York Metropolis. “I’m not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York,” he stated.
Mr. Mamdani could be among the many most left-leaning mayors the town has seen in a long time, however he has stated he isn’t a communist.
A couple of weeks later, and simply days after Mr. Penn’s polling presentation to the president, Mr. Trump informed reporters he thought Mr. Cuomo ought to keep within the race. “He’s operating towards a communist,” he stated. “I’d assume that he would have a very good shot of successful.”
CNN had extra on Cuomo’s denial and likewise his claims that he could be the most effective New York mayor to cope with Trump:
“That’s false,” Cuomo informed reporters at a press convention in Manhattan.
However the former New York governor additionally pressed his case, each on the press convention and at a closed-door gathering a day earlier, that he could be higher suited than Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani to cope with the Republican president, a local New Yorker carefully attuned to his hometown’s politics but in addition somebody who’s broadly disliked by the town’s Democrats.
“My data provides me a capability to be in a formidable place as an opponent for the president but in addition, on the identical time, I’d attempt to work with the president the place we might,” Cuomo informed reporters.…Cuomo’s tone adjustment on how he would deal with Trump if elected mayor was additionally on show throughout a gathering with the town’s enterprise leaders on Wednesday, in response to two folks in attendance who spoke to CNN on situation of anonymity to debate the closed-door assembly.
The assembly, which was organized by the Partnership for New York, a nonprofit group which represents the town’s company pursuits, was attended by roughly 50 enterprise executives gathered at an workplace in Rockefeller Middle.
Whereas addressing them, Cuomo described his relationship with Trump as a “dysfunctional marriage,” telling the group he was not in search of a battle with the president.
A key a part of Cuomo’s technique: He must court docket enterprise leaders and high-powered donors who concern Mamdani’s potential mayoralty and his proposal to tax the town’s wealthiest residents.
However regardless of a slight tilt to the suitable within the 2024 presidential election, New Yorkers nonetheless strongly disfavor Trump. The prospect of Cuomo searching for his assist in November’s election – or accepting his assist in pushing out or suppressing the assist of Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa or incumbent Mayor Eric Adams – might doubtlessly drive supporters away from him even when they’re uncomfortable with Mamdani.…“No one has had extra contentious relationships with President Trump than I’ve.” Cuomo informed reporters. “However on the identical time he might be very, very useful to New York Metropolis.”
He argued a Mamdani victory would assist the president and Republicans who argue Democrats have moved too far to the left. And he instructed Trump would take into account a federal takeover of New York Metropolis have been Mamdani to win.
“I feel it might be like Los Angeles on steroids,” Cuomo stated in reference to Trump’s current deployment of the Nationwide Guard to that metropolis and high-visibility immigration raids. “I feel the President wish to have management of New York Metropolis. Why does he need management of New York Metropolis? As a result of he’s from New York Metropolis.”
One other NYT piece, printed earlier than their report on the alleged Cuomo-Trump dialog confirmed Cuomo softening his opposition to Trump earlier than an viewers of “enterprise leaders”:
Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has positioned himself as the one candidate within the New York Metropolis mayor’s race who can forcefully go toe-to-toe with President Trump. However in a closed-door assembly on Wednesday with a few of the metropolis’s greatest enterprise leaders, Mr. Cuomo instructed he may undertake a extra conciliatory technique.
As he made a case for his candidacy, Mr. Cuomo stated he was not “personally” in search of a battle with the president and in contrast their yearslong relationship to a “dysfunctional marriage.”
“I feel he needs to be accepted by New York Metropolis, and I feel there’s a possibility there,” Mr. Cuomo stated, in response to 4 individuals who shared accounts of the personal assembly with 50 company executives gathered at Rockefeller Middle.
He added: “I do know, personally, he doesn’t need to battle with me. Personally, I don’t need to battle with him, proper? So I don’t assume he’s going to be wanting to create a battle with us.”
Mr. Cuomo additionally made the case that Mr. Trump cared about his hometown and needed to “discover a approach to be a hero in New York Metropolis.” Mr. Trump knew, he stated, that confronting Mr. Cuomo would result in a “nasty, ugly, drawn-out battle.”
Mamdani pounced:
“We’re standing in entrance of Federal Plaza, the very web site the place New Yorkers are being stolen—whether or not from their households, their mates, or from the town that they name residence,” Mamdani stated at a information convention Thursday. “It’s at this very web site that we perceive the price of this information: that former Governor Andrew Cuomo has been conspiring with President Trump in regards to the destiny of this metropolis, about the way forward for this metropolis, in regards to the information of this race.”
“It’s data that could be a betrayal of every part that we stand for as New Yorkers,” he added.
…Mamdani… stated throughout Thursday’s tackle that “it’s time for us to clarify that what this metropolis deserves is a mayor who, when he sees Donald Trump attacking the folks of this metropolis, will get up and battle again towards that imaginative and prescient, who is not going to get on the cellphone with the architect of that imaginative and prescient to discuss a race that we already know ought to be a referendum on easy methods to make the costliest metropolis in america of America inexpensive, not a query of how we are able to set up one more ambassador for Washington, D.C., in Metropolis Corridor.”
“The job of mayor is to not audition to be the jester for a wannabe king. It’s to be the individual that stands up for the values of this metropolis, for the material of this metropolis, and for the folks of this metropolis. And that’s what I’m operating to do. I imagine The New York Instances over President Trump and Andrew Cuomo. And we’ve seen as of this morning that they stand by their reporting.”
Polling from final week exhibits why the drowning Andrew Cuomo could be reaching for a life raft from Trump:
A Siena Institute ballot printed Tuesday discovered 44 % of registered New York Metropolis backing Mamdani adopted by 25 % for former Governor Andrew Cuomo, 12 % for Republican Social gathering nominee Curtis Sliwa and solely seven % for Mayor Eric Adams. Damaged down by social gathering, Mamdani additionally receives the assist of 53 % of Democratic voters in comparison with 32 % for Andrew Cuomo and three % for Adams, who received the Democratic nomination simply 4 years in the past. Notably, 68 % of Republican voters are supporting Sliwa. The ballot surveyed 317 registered voters in New York Metropolis as half of a bigger statewide voter pattern from August 4 to 7.
Siena additionally seemed on the candidates’s favorability scores each within the metropolis and statewide. 46 % of metropolis voters stated that they had a good opinion of Mamdani in comparison with 32 % unfavorable. Statewide, these figures shift dramatically with 28 % of voters viewing him favorably to 37 % unfavorable. For Andrew Cuomo, 54 % of metropolis voters view him unfavorably whereas 61 % of voters statewide additionally maintain a destructive view of the previous governor. Adams additionally acquired low marks from metropolis voters with 58 % holding an unfavorable opinion of him in comparison with 30 % who considered him favorably.
The Ettingermentum Publication argues that Cuomo’s marketing campaign for Mayor of New York is “the type of humiliation that solely occurs as soon as each few generations”:
There are a variety of moments in current historical past that ought to have marked the top of the political profession of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
If he have been sensible, he would have retired for good after he was compelled to resign in shame below risk of impeachment in 2021. If he had any disgrace, he would have by no means proven his face in public once more after his tried political comeback in New York Metropolis resulted in a surprising landslide defeat to a once-unknown socialist challenger. However somewhat than use both of those moments to avoid wasting face and stroll into oblivion with even only a shred of dignity intact, he’s selecting to finish his public life in probably the most humiliating, pathetic method doable. Nonetheless unable to grasp that no means no, Andrew Cuomo is now again within the race for mayor as a passenger within the clown automotive of anti-Zohran Mamdani candidates.
There’s not a lot to say about his prospects for November. Whereas some polling exhibits the previous governor inside hanging distance of Mamdani within the occasion that each different candidate apart from them leaves the race, there are not any indications that it will occur. As issues stand, the previous governor is in a distant second place, main the remainder of the non-Mamdani discipline however behind his once-and-future opponent by as a lot as 20 factors citywide. It’s a nasty scenario that’s much more seemingly than to not worsen over the approaching months. Simply because it did throughout the main, Mamdani’s assist within the normal election has solely elevated as extra voters have gotten to know him. Skeptical nationwide Democrats are starting to fall in line, most dramatically so with Barack Obama’s tacit declaration of assist for his marketing campaign this week. Though he’s nonetheless within the technique of denying it, Cuomo’s political life is properly on monitor to finish in a completely pointless and someway much more embarrassing rerun of the crushing rejection he noticed this June.
What we’re seeing play out in actual time is greater than only a merely dangerous marketing campaign. It’s a uncommon type of failure, one completely pathetic and mortifying each in apply and in idea. Even earlier than it resulted in an unimaginably devastating defeat, this stage of Cuomo’s political profession was already deeply embarrassing for him. He had spent over a decade on the high of the political world, so safe and his prospects that politicians of each events commonly joked about his inevitable presidency. At one level in 2020, there was a draft effort to make him the nominee after Biden had already received the first. 5 years later, he was barely campaigning in a metropolis he had not lived in for a job his personal ex-staffers stated he all the time thought-about to be for “lesser males.” Even when he really did glide to victory, it might have been an embarrassing step down. That he outright misplaced within the main on high of all of this was one factor. That he’ll virtually definitely lose as soon as once more of his personal accord, all whereas desperately attempting to ape his opponent’s methods on the best way, is one thing really historic—the type of humiliation that solely occurs as soon as each few generations.
Whereas no really progressive Democrat has but emerged within the 2028 Presidential race, there’s a minimum of one centrist who’s overtly talking of coming to phrases with Trump.
I’m speaking about Rahm Emanuel whose current Wall Road Journal interview exhibits him aspiring to be the Joe Lieberman of 2028:
All through our 90-minute dialog, he ranges many criticisms towards Mr. Trump and his administration. However in contrast to different formidable Democrats, Mr. Emanuel speaks of the president in a method that doesn’t sound demented. “Lots of people have determined,” he says, “and I’m not criticizing them for it”—I assume he’s speaking primarily about California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker—“however they’ve determined they’re going to be on that finish of the sector, defining themselves towards Trump.” He gestures to at least one finish of the convention desk: “They’re going to battle Trump.”
Then he waves to the opposite aspect of the desk. “I’m on this finish, about easy methods to battle for America.” Is the Democratic Social gathering prepared for a much less feral politics? He thinks Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s victory in June’s New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial main—she is a former member of the reasonable Blue Canine Coalition—suggests the social gathering rank and file might have grown weary of wall-to-wall anti-Trump mania. “After 2026,” he says, referring to the midterm elections, “my objective is to personal all the true property on this different aspect. And I’ll be keen to say issues which may be unconventional within the social gathering, and possibly I’ll appeal to new folks to the social gathering. That’s my guess.”
Emanuel has been making an attempt to distinction himself with Mamdani for months now.
pic.twitter.com/CB7eB0p811
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 1, 2025
Emanuel is an outlier amongst former Barack Obama insiders nevertheless.
The previous POTUS himself reached out early to Mamdani in a June cellphone name following the first:
Former President Barack Obama, the final Democrat to captivate the social gathering’s base, received on the cellphone. In a prolonged name in June, Mr. Obama congratulated Mr. Mamdani, provided him recommendation about governing and mentioned the significance of giving folks hope in a darkish time, in response to folks with data of the dialog.
Others in Mr. Obama’s orbit have additionally proven a eager curiosity in Mr. Mamdani and his marketing campaign. Jon Favreau, who served as Mr. Obama’s speechwriter, and Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser, have been in communication with the Democratic strategist Morris Katz, amongst Mr. Mamdani’s closest aides.
David Axelrod, who served as Mr. Obama’s chief marketing campaign strategist and senior adviser, was additionally curious. Final month, he stopped by Mr. Mamdani’s marketing campaign headquarters, then within the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan, to fulfill the candidate and his workers, and see issues for himself.
“What I discovered after I went over to that workplace was a well-recognized spirit that I hadn’t seen shortly of simply decided, upbeat idealism,” Mr. Axelrod informed me. “You could not agree with each reply he’s giving, or each thought he has, however he’s definitely asking the suitable questions, which is how can we make the nation work for working folks?” He stated Mr. Mamdani’s capability to encourage younger Individuals, who really feel financial uncertainty acutely, was crucial and one thing the social gathering at giant wanted to reckon with.
Mr. Axelrod was launched to Mr. Mamdani by Patrick Gaspard, one other Obama insider. Mr. Gaspard — Mr. Obama’s 2008 nationwide political director, and later the U.S. ambassador to South Africa — has been serving as a casual adviser to Mr. Mamdani.
The curiosity from the carefully guarded world of Mr. Obama and people round him is the clearest signal but that Mr. Mamdani is prone to be embraced by the Democratic mainstream, whether or not the social gathering’s leaders and donors prefer it or not. It comes at a time of dueling visions amongst voters, Democratic politicians and donors over the way forward for the social gathering.
Obamaworld’s curiosity in Mamdani appears to point they received’t be backing their colleague Rahm Emanuel within the 2028 main.
What stays to be seen is whether or not Mamdani’s ally New York congressional Consultant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will leverage his success to launch a 2028 Presidential marketing campaign of her personal.
