Andrew Cuomo is leading the Democratic primary race for mayor of New York City — but he may just be angling for a way to get back into politics so he can run for national office, analysts and political rivals say.
“I did hear that he is running for mayor so that he can run for president in 2028,” a former politician from Queens, who knows Cuomo well, told The Post.
Political strategist Hank Sheinkopf believes Cuomo likely has presidential ambitions, but was not sure that a mayoral win in New York would help the former governor.
“He’s always been ambitious so it wouldn’t surprise me,” Sheinkopf told The Post this week. “But what mayor of New York has ever been elected president of the United States?”
Rival candidate Scott Stringer, a former Manhattan borough president and New York City comptroller, speculated that Cuomo likely has an ulterior motive.
“Nobody really thinks he wants to … be mayor,” Stringer’s campaign said Wednesday.
But Cuomo’s campaign told The Post he is committed to the job he doesn’t yet have.
“Andrew Cuomo is fully focused on the mayor’s race and getting the city he loves back on the right track after 12 years of mismanagement,” said Cuomo rep Rich Azzopardi. “There’s much work to be done and New Yorkers know he has the experience and the record of results to do it.”
During a candidates’ forum organized by civil rights leader Al Sharpton last month, Cuomo brushed aside a questionabout whether he would promise to serve a full term if elected mayor.
“No. What if I die?” the 67-year-old replied. “Short of death, I commit.”
But it wouldn’t be the first time that Cuomo had changed his mind.
This week he rolled out a proposal to boost the city’s minimum wage to $20 by 2027 — after having struck down the move when he was governor of New York.
And after dismissing a proposal by former Mayor Bill de Blasio to institute a universal “pre-K” program in city schools in 2014, Cuomo has now promised to make the program “truly universal” if he is elected mayor.
Such measures are likely efforts to counter the rising poll numbers of socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani, Cuomo’s closest rival, Sheinkopf said.
The latest PIX 11/ Emerson College poll has Mamdani, a Queens state Assemblyman, trailing Cuomo for 10 rounds of ranked-choice voting before being eliminated with a nine-point spread, 54.4% to 45.6%.
“Mamdani has fresher ideas, and this may be a close race,” Sheinkopf said.
Political strategist Jamal Simmons said he doesn’t know if Cuomo would run for president, but it’s conceivable that the mayor’s office could be a stepping stone to a national run.
“In 2020, Cuomo was Donald Trump’s chief antagonist,” Simmons, a former communications director for Kamala Harris, said. “I imagine a lot of people will like the idea of him running for president because he’s a tough guy who might prevail against Trump.”
“In some ways, I didn’t need to do this at this point in my life,” Cuomo said at a candidate screening in March for the 504 Democratic Club, in audio obtained by Politico. “I don’t need a title. I don’t need any of this stuff. Matter of fact, governor versus mayor, I think governor’s a better title. But anyway, I want to make a difference.”
The 504 Democratic Club, which represents the disabled, ended up endorsing New York City Comptroller Brad Lander for mayor.
“Andrew Cuomo has proven time and time again he’s only in this for himself — he has zero interest in fighting for New York City’s working people or actually doing the job of mayor,” said Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Lander’s campaign. “New Yorkers won’t be fooled by his pathetic efforts at redemption — which will fail miserably, just like his entire life’s sad attempts to live up to his father’s legacy.”
But it’s his father’s legacy that is helping him with some constituencies. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo is still remembered fondly among Democratic organizations in Queens where the Cuomo family is from.
And at a recent Democratic County luncheon in the borough, candidate Cuomo was apparently greeted like a rock star.
“When he came into that room you’d think that Jesus had arrived,” said the former pol, who was at the event. “People were hugging and kissing him, and taking his picture. There must have been more than 500 people there.”
Cuomo resigned from the governor’s job in 2021 following numerous allegations of sexual harassment as well as criticisms that his administration had hidden thousands of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home patients.