Andrew Cuomo is fighting for his political life in NYC race : NPR

Andrew Cuomo on the campaign trail last month in New York.

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NEW YORK — When former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo talks about Zohran Mamdani’s lack of experience, it’s impossible to ignore the outrage that fuels Cuomo as he fights to end his life in the political wilderness.

“He’s dangerously unqualified,” Cuomo said Saturday during an appearance in Queens. “When you’re mayor of New York City, it’s a big job. You’re responsible for eight and a half million lives. Mayor of New York shouldn’t be your first job.”

It wouldn’t be a first job for Mamdani, who turned 34 last month. He was once a rapper who performed under the name Mr. Cardamom, a gig that Cuomo regularly mocks. But Mamdani has been an elected member of the New York State Legislature since 2020.

Yet the difference between the resumes of the two leading mayoral candidates is significant.

Cuomo, 67, led the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Clinton in the late 1990s. In 2006, he was elected attorney general of New York state and served as governor for a decade starting in 2011.

Cuomo was often controversial — clashing with Democrats in Albany and Washington, D.C., almost as often as he sparred with Republicans — but he also built a reputation as a leader who took on big issues and took on large-scale projects.

“He governed pragmatically, focused on solving problems rather than engaging in ideological or partisan warfare,” said former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in his support of Cuomo.

“And he showed he could accomplish big things, including the redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport, the opening of the 2nd Avenue Subway and the creation of Moynihan Station — all long-stalled projects that he revived and completed,” Bloomberg said.

Cuomo’s long career at the top of the Democratic Party elite — his father was Democratic icon Mario Cuomo — peaked in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. As governor, his hopeful online webcasts attracted a national audience.

Andrew Cuomo, then-Governor of New York, spoke during a press conference at Grand Central Terminal in New York, United States, Thursday, May 27, 2021.

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The fall of Cuomo and his candidacy for mayor of New York

But questions began to surface about his administration’s handling of elderly nursing home residents during the pandemic. Cuomo has also faced a growing number of accusations of sexual misconduct involving women, including some who worked under his authority.

Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing, but in August 2021 he announced he would resign as governor: “Given the circumstances, the best way for me to help now is to step aside and let the government start governing again,” Cuomo said.

It was a stunning fall, and during the mayor’s race, Mamdani criticized Cuomo for this part of his record. “What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity,” Mamdani said during a town hall debate. “And what you don’t have in integrity, you can never make up for in experience.”

Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has positioned himself as the progressive in this race, a symbol of change. He would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, and he has promised numerous left-wing policies — including a rent freeze and free bus service — aimed at improving prices in the city.

But Cuomo himself has a long list of progressive achievements, including criminal justice reforms and victories for same-sex rights, which have won him unwavering support on the left. In 2011, he pushed through the New York legislature a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. In 2013, Cuomo championed the SAFE Act, which was then one of the strictest gun control laws in the United States.

Cuomo also launched a statewide initiative to reduce the size of New York’s prison system, which now houses about half the number of inmates. Cuomo later campaigned for “cashless bail,” a policy he signed into law in 2019.

“Experience matters and Congressman Mamdani does not have the same experience as Cuomo,” said JC Polanco, a political analyst and professor at Mount Saint Vincent University in the Bronx.

But Polanco said that in modern populist politics, on both the left and the right, a thorough resume doesn’t carry as much influence with voters. “Experience doesn’t count as much,” he said. “A group of Democrats say it doesn’t matter.”

Cuomo himself acknowledged that Mamdani’s hopeful social media posts — which often go viral on platforms like TikTok and Instagram — appear to have captured voters’ imaginations in a way that his more old-school campaign failed to do.

Mamdani handily beat Cuomo in the Democratic Party primary. Polls show Mamdani leading the general election by a double-digit margin for weeks.

Now an independent candidate, and with time passing, Cuomo has also struggled to talk about his accomplishments, in part because he has lurched aggressively to the right. On the campaign trail in recent days, Cuomo has described himself not as a progressive, but as a pro-business, pro-law-and-order centrist Democrat.

“He’s a socialist,” Cuomo said of Mamdani, during a stop at a Queens mall. “Democrats don’t believe in socialism, they’re not anti-business, they’re not anti-wealth, they’re not anti-jobs. And they’re not anti-public safety and they’re not anti-NYPD. They want safe communities.”