Out of his party's running for mayor, former New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo is reportedly going to announce his independent campaign to be the next mayor of New York City this week – albeit with a caveat.
He wants all of the potential spoilers to vow to step out of the race.
Cuomo has already lost the Democrat primary to Mamdani in a low turnout election, but he hopes an independent general election run can net him the votes to overcome the far-left Democrats in the city who would turn out for Mamdani.
The disclaimer Cuomo reportedly will bring following his campaign announcement is he and the other challengers to Democrat mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani should all step out of the race by mid-September if polls are not showing they have a path to victory over the avowed democratic socialist Mamdani, the New York Post reported Sunday.
In order to do that, Cuomo wants incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent after being ostracized from the Democratic Party over a Biden-era investigation and his cozying up to President Donald Trump, and Republican Curtis Sliwa to join him in vowing to drop out to create a 1-on-1 matchup with Mamdani – potentially consolidating the anti-Mamdani vote in the city.
While the power of the incumbency would historically tend to work in Adams' favor, New York City is a Democrat stranglehold that does not tend to vote outside that party's deep-blue line.
A Slingshot Strategies poll has Cuomo as the leading candidate to challenge Mamdani still, according to the Post:
- Mamdani 35%
- Cuomo 25%
- Sliwa 14%
- Adams 11%
Cuomo was forced to resign his governorship amid a sexual misconduct scandal in 2021.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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