Former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo on Saturday announced a run for mayor of New York City, an attempt to come back from a sexual harassment scandal that forced him to resign more than three years earlier.
Cuomo, 77, served as governor from 2011 to 2021, guiding the state through the worst, deadliest months of the Covid-19 crisis. But he was forced to resign in August of his final year as governor when an investigation commissioned by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, found he had sexually harassed at least 11 women during his time in office.
The former governor, a Democrat, is aiming to unseat incumbent the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, who has been grappling with criminal corruption charges that the US justice department is seeking to have lifted – pending a judicial sign-off – at the behest of Donald Trump’s second presidential administration.
In a campaign video announcing his mayoral candidacy, Cuomo verbally painted the so-called Big Apple as a city in crisis.
“The first to solving a problem is having the strength, having the courage, to recognize it, and we know that today our New York City is in trouble,” he said, pointing to empty stores fronts, graffiti, grime, an influx of migrants that has taxed municipal infrastructure, and violent crime in some instances carried out by people who are mentally ill and lack access to treatment.
“The city just feels threatening, out of control,” Cuomo said in his more than 17-minute announcement video. “These conditions exist not as an act of God, but rather as an act of our political leaders, or more precisely the lack of intelligent action by our political leaders.”
The city faces a ranked-choice Democratic primary in April now dominated by two political figures with tarnished reputations, both betting that voters will overlook claims against them as politically motivated – or, in Cuomo’s case, that sexual harassment allegations which he vigorously denied have lost their power to derail political careers several years since the dawn of the #MeToo era.
“How can you have a report that says 11 cases [of sexual harassment], and then it goes through law enforcement and they find no cases?” Cuomo said at a South Bronx church in March 2022, calling the report “a fraud”.
A former staffer, Charlotte Bennett, later dropped her sexual harassment lawsuit against Cuomo, shortly before she was set to give her deposition in the case.
A former Cuomo top aide who claims Cuomo made unwanted sexual advances towards her in 2000 told the New York Post that “women’s rights” will suffer if he is elected NYC’s next mayor.
“Women haven’t done enough to toughen laws to protect women from such immoral, unethical and what should be illegal behavior by men in positions of power, such as Cuomo,” Karen Hinton said Saturday, adding that the mayoral election “should be an opportunity ... to give women a strong, powerful voice” in city government that it “won’t get it if Adams or Cuomo is elected”.
In his statement, Cuomo briefly addressed the end of his governorship, which included claims that he had allowed Covid-19 to fatally tear through state nursing homes and then attempted to cover it up.
“Did I always do everything right in my years of government service? Of course not,” he said. “Would I do some things differently knowing what I know now? Certainly. Did I make mistakes? Some painfully. Definitely. And I believe I learned from them and that I am a better person for. And I hope to show you that every day.”
He added: “I will fight Washington and Albany to make sure we get our fair share of funding, and to protect the rights and values that New Yorkers hold dear: that we believe that any discrimination by race, color or creed is anti-American.”
Adams, a Democratic star when elected in 2021, has seen his support dwindle amid a swirl of scandals that ensnared some of his closest confidantes.
Four deputy mayors recently resigned after it was claimed that the justice department’s request to drop its criminal indictment against Adams amounted to a “quid pro quo” with the Trump administration leaning on the mayor to help with federal deportation efforts.
In a crowded field of mayoral candidates, Cuomo benefits from high name recognition, with 32% of those polled picking him as their favorite candidate. Other candidates – including former city comptroller Scott Stringer, incumbent city comptroller Brad Lander, state senator Jessica Ramos and Adams – are at 10% or less.
There’s a dynastic component to Cuomo’s entry into the race. His father, Mario Cuomo, also served as New York governor, but he failed to win a bid for New York City mayor in 1977.
Since stepping down as governor, the younger Cuomo has maintained his public profile, visiting Black churches and Jewish community groups. Both are constituencies where Adams and Cuomo are bound to seek key voter support.
“Leading in practically every public poll so far, even before announcing his candidacy, Cuomo appears poised to prove that he has managed to overcome scandals that may have felled other politicians after his yearslong dedication to staying in politics and a series of legal victories that he has framed as vindication,” the journal City and State recently opined.
