By The indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams may lead to a famous name tossing his hat into the ring during the next election to lead The Big Apple.
According to a new report, former Governor Andrew Cuomo is considering entering the already competitive race for mayor of New York City. Until recently, Cuomo had indicated to insiders that he was hesitant to run against Adams, particularly because they both draw significant support from a predominantly moderate and Black Democratic voter base.
With Adams facing jail time, that’s all changed, writes Politico.
But the Democrat’s calculus has shifted amid Adams’ deepening legal troubles, which crescendoed with the unsealing of a five-count criminal indictment that alleged the mayor received favors and campaign contributions from the Turkish government in exchange for official actions.
“I think he’s going to run,” said Chris Coffey, a former adviser to ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Yang’s 2021 mayoral campaign. “He was probably going to run no matter what, and a weakened, or out-of-the-race Eric Adams is a better bet for him.”
Cuomo has reached out over the last year to New York business and labor leaders about a run for mayor.
“He has previously said he has no plans to make plans, and that hasn’t changed,” said Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi.
His political team has laid the groundwork by trying to give Cuomo an aura of inevitability, positing he would be a sure winner in a 90-day, nonpartisan special election if Adams were to leave office — though the competition would actually be stiff, and Cuomo has to contend with baggage of his own.
In 2021, Cuomo was forced to resign after accusations of sexual harassment. The New York Times at the time wrote, “The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, 63, a three-term Democrat, came a week after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded that the governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, by engaging in unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments. The 165-page report also found that Mr. Cuomo and his aides unlawfully retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public and fostered a toxic work environment.
The report’s findings put increased pressure on Mr. Cuomo to resign, with even President Biden, a longtime friend, advising him to do so. It spurred the State Assembly — Mr. Cuomo’s last political bulwark in an Albany increasingly arrayed against him — to take steps toward impeachment. And it left Mr. Cuomo with few, if any, allies to fight on with him.”
Earlier in the year, Cuomo raised some eyebrows when he defended Donald Trump on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Cuomo said that the New York District Attorney should never have brought the case against the former president because it reeks of politicization.
Cuomo’s went after the case, which resulted in Trump’s conviction on 34 counts, by arguing that a large swath of people in the Empire State don’t view it as a fair case.
“The trials in New York, New Yorkers said – 66% said the justice system is politicized. And there’s nobody in New York who likes Trump,” he said. “And still, 66% said the justice system is politicized. That’s why I think he’s not paying the same price for these verdicts because they believe it is political.”
“The Attorney General’s case in New York, frankly, should have never been brought and if his name was not Donald Trump, and he if he wasn’t running for president, I’m the former AG in New York, I’m telling you that case would have never been brought, and that’s what is offensive to people,” Cuomo continued.
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