Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo is under pressure from the House’s top Democrat to confer about his political career.
Although Cuomo is widely expected to challenge New York City Mayor Eric Adam to become the Big Apple’s next leader, he has yet to declare his intentions less than four months from the primary election.
On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) prodded his New York colleague to discuss the mayoral race with him “sooner rather than later.”
“I haven’t had a conversation with Gov. Cuomo at this point. I do look forward to speaking with him sooner rather than later, if, in fact, he’s going to jump into the mayor’s race,” Jeffries said.
With a September 2024 federal indictment on corruption and fraud charges still fresh on voters’ minds, Adams is a vulnerable candidate this election cycle.
Accusations of a quid pro quo with the Trump administration have also cost the incumbent mayor support from several of his colleagues, such as former state Comptroller Carl McCall, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), and the Staten Island Democratic Party lineup behind Cuomo. The New York City District Council of Carpenters, a union that endorsed Adams four years ago, is also set to back Cuomo, per Politico, while public polls give the ex-governor a commanding lead over the incumbent mayor.
But Cuomo has his own political baggage that could beleaguer him on the campaign trail. In 2021, the Democrat resigned as New York governor after he was accused of sexually harassing multiple women. Last year, the Department of Justice concluded he had sexually harassed thirteen state employees. Both Torres and Jeffries called on Cuomo to resign amid the scandal.
The former governor also faced widespread backlash over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including his order to send elderly people with the virus into nursing homes, and a subsequent state audit that found his administration presented nursing home data that concealed the deaths of 4,100 senior citizens. A congressional report released last year likewise concluded Cuomo “knowingly and willfully made false statements” related to the nursing home deaths “on numerous occasions.”
And his former aide, Linda Sun, was arrested by federal authorities last September over allegations that she acted as an undisclosed foreign agent for China’s government.
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Making his entrance into the race sooner rather than later would give Cuomo more time to make his case to voters, which would likely help him make a more effective challenge to Adams.
“I think he’d be a candidate that a lot of people, as I’ve heard from the district that I represent, would be very interested in checking out,” Jeffries said Tuesday.
