Are you ready for the return of Andrew Mark Cuomo to New York politics?
New York Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by the Feds for allegedly taking lots of bribes over many years from the Turks. He’ll be slapped soon with an expanded indictment and he’ll quit right before or right after. Then, Cuomo will grab the opening he’s been yearning for.
Andrew Cuomo, bitter over being forced to resign in the midst of his third term as New York governor over allegations of sexual impropriety, will run for Mayor of the City of New York.
Let me tell you, having dealt with Cuomo when he was governor and I was heading up a large New York TV news department, there is no shrewder, more calculating, savvier politician in the state. There’s also no bigger political asshole in the state.
Cuomo, the son of Holliswood, Queens and Mario and Matilda Cuomo, suckled on politics from birth, knows what issues concern New Yorkers. He’s been critical of the way crime is being dealt with, or not dealt with, in New York City. He says New York City’s been screwed over by Washington and Albany, having to cope with more than two-hundred thousand illegal immigrants.
He knows which constituencies in New York go to the polls. He’s been building up support in the African American community by speaking at churches on Sundays. He’s very anti antisemitism and he’s been courting Jewish voters as an outspoken and staunch ally of Israel.
Now, Cuomo is the anti-progressive. I say now because when he was governor he signed the cashless bail law. Oh, and there’s that small issue of thousands of elderly who died in New York nursing homes during COVID-19.
No matter how much he denies it, or tries to rewrite history, the fact is during COVID-19, his own health department forced nursing homes to take in thousands of elderly straight from hospitals where they were either exposed to the virus or carrying it themselves. They weren’t even allowed to test them for the virus. Thousands died, perhaps unnecessarily, and Cuomo and his cronies covered it up.
He just told a congressional committee he did nothing wrong. That’s par for the course. Cuomo has never believed he’s ever done anything wrong.
It’s also ironic Cuomo wants to be mayor. When he was governor, he constantly crapped all over Bill de Blasio. Sometimes it was well deserved. Other times it was comically embarrassing. But Cuomo didn’t care. If he didn’t like you he’d make your life a living hell. Just ask Andy Byford, the former President of the New York City Transit Authority, who fled back to Britain after butting heads with Cuomo.
So, Cuomo has all this political and personal baggage and he’s super hard to like.
Now for the but.
But who would you want to become mayor of America’s largest and most important city that has become a lawless, free-for-all metropolis.
Let’s see, would you want Zellnor Myrie as mayor? You say you don’t know much about him? You’re not alone. He’s been a New York State Senator since 2018, representing central Brooklyn. A recent poll showed 82% of registered Democrats didn’t know who he was. He has no executive experience.
What about New York City Comptroller Brad Lander? He too wants to be mayor. He’s another Brooklyn progressive with, at least, some executive experience. When he ran for comptroller, he was endorsed by Representative AOC, the Working Families Party and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Ya.
Jessica Ramos, yet another progressive state senator, is from Queens. She’s thinking about becoming the first female and first Latino mayor. She’s outspoken, having told AOC the congresswoman needs to spend more time tending to the business of the people in her district. She also refused to back Mets owner Steve Cohen in his bid for a casino across from Citifield. She defiantly said, “I have no problem telling a billionaire no.” She also has low citywide name recognition and has no campaign war chest.
Former NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer wants to give it another shot. He lost in 2021 amidst allegations he groped and pressured a former female associate into having sex when he ran for public advocate. He denied the allegations and sued the woman for defamation. Anyway, he lost the mayor’s race with just 5 percent of the vote even though he was endorsed by some city unions and the Working Families Party.
Are you getting the picture? The candidates lining up to pick over Adams’ political carcass are either avowed leftists or will kowtow to them. They have low name recognition or have been already rejected for mayor by the voters.
Cuomo has lots of negatives, that’s for sure. But he is more of a centrist than the others, with high name recognition, lots of executive experience as governor and with a war chest of around $8 million.
A Manhattan Institute poll from April found that almost 68% of 2025 likely mayoral voters feel the city is on the wrong track.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-voters-growing-discontent
So, after eight woke years of de Blasio and three unfocused years of Adams, I’m wagering, if not praying, New Yorkers won’t install a another rookie leftist lightweight in City Hall.
Keep listening to Al Sharpton to gauge when he’ll tell Adams it’s time to quit. When Adams goes, the guy who’ll run the city in the interim is Public Advocate and avowed socialist, Jumaane Williams. He may run for mayor too, BTW. Williams will set a date for an election. No primary, just a vote for mayor using New York’s convoluted rank choice voting setup.
It will be a special election crucial to the future of NYC.
Look, there’s no sugar coating it. Cuomo is the devil we know. But right now, maybe the devil we know is the devil we need to save New York from progressive, permissive hell.