They tried to squash him. Now they want to be with him.
The key players from Andrew Cuomo's campaign are lining up to woo the socialist they scorned and scathed as they begin to jockey for influence inside a City Hall that looks more and more likely to be led by a democratic socialist.
Leaders of Tusk Strategies — the political consulting firm whose top executives played key roles in the former governor's mayoral campaign — are warming up to Zohran Mamdani.
The softening comes after Cuomo's primary campaign spent its final weeks firing off vicious attacks against the democratic socialist, his record and his stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
On Sunday, Bradley Tusk, the founder of the firm, penned an op-ed that poured cold water on the hopes of straggling Cuomo supporters who dream of Cuomo jumping back in the race.
'If you love New York City and want to see it thrive, even if Mamdani's views and politics are not your own (they're certainly not mine), let's do what we can to help him succeed,' Tusk argued in a piece that contended Mamdani's general election victory is inevitable. The piece neglected to mention his company's ties to Cuomo's campaign.
Tusk CEO Chris Coffey also had some kind words for the 33-year-old Assemblymember: '.@ZohranKMamdani ran one hell of an effort,' he wrote on X. 'Hope the folks working for him in whatever fashion are getting to really enjoy this. Not sure how they could have done too much better.'
And he's in touch with the campaign as well, according to two people familiar with the outreach who were granted anonymity to speak freely about internal strategy.
'I'm proud of my work for Andrew Cuomo,' Coffey said in a statement. 'I've also told Zohran's team publicly & privately that he ran a near perfect race. If that's Politico worthy, so be it.'
Tusk is a corporate lobbying firm with clients who oppose Mamdani's hard-left agenda.
Coffey performed extensive unpaid work for the Cuomo campaign. His Tusk colleague Shontell Smith was also paid by the campaign to serve as its political director, and their firm paid for two polls showing Cuomo with a decisive lead early on.
Tusk Strategies was also behind a 501(c)(4) called 'Restore Sanity' — whose literature mirrored Cuomo-style talking points, including a photo of the remodeled LaGuardia Airport, which he oversaw while governor. Coffey and Smith were walled off from working on the effort, which did not reference a specific candidate.
The Tusk turnaround is part of a growing exodus of key players inside Cuomo's campaign who have turned on their heel on the former governor before Cuomo decides if he wants to run again in the general election and well before all the votes have been counted.
Reaction to Mamdani's win from real estate, finance and the lobbyists who influence the government on their behalf was deemed a 'meltdown.' Hedge fund executive Bill Ackman, for one, wrote on X he is casting about for another candidate.
Mamdani world noticed the private sector panic has given way to curiosity. Calls have come in from business leaders in recent days to the state lawmaker's orbit, though Mamdani spokesperson Andrew Epstein would not say who has been on the phone.
'There has been outreach from leading industries and business leaders in New York City,' Epstein said. 'Despite some of the comments made last week, there does seem to be good-faith interest and dialogue. Zohran will not compromise on his commitments to making this city affordable to working people and the agenda we laid out in this campaign. He's absolutely willing to talk to any New York about areas of shared interest.'
Less than three days after Cuomo's Election Day defeat last week, two unions central to his campaign's strategy and GOTV efforts — Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and 32BJ SEIU — announced they were endorsing Mamdani in the general. (A Cuomo spokesperson says the campaign appreciated the unions' support during the primary). The New York State Nurses Association also endorsed Mamdani.
Kathy Wylde, the outgoing CEO of Partnership for New York City, is also expected to arrange a meeting between business leaders and Mamdani in July after business leaders largely threw their support behind Cuomo in the primary, Bloomberg first reported.
And less than 12 hours after polls closed, Neal Kwatra, who was a senior advisor to the Cuomo campaign, had kind words for Mamdani — and harsh ones for Democratic establishment many felt Cuomo was running to preserve.
'His victory will herald a new era of generational challenges to sclerotic Democratic leadership all over the country,' Kwatra said on X in a series of posts praising the candidate he had just worked against. 'Congratulations to one of the best political athletes I've ever seen play the game- Mamba vibes.' — Jason Beeferman and Nick Reisman
From the Capitol
LABOR AND BIZ: Gov. Kathy Hochul's move to pay off the Covid-era unemployment insurance debt is yielding political gains ahead of her reelection bid next year.
The under-the-radar issue united labor and business groups — and Hochul won praise from both when she agreed to include some $7 billion in the state budget to pay down the debt.
The Democratic governor today rallied with the influential Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, a key union that last week endorsed Mamdani's mayoral bid. HTC had pressed for the debt to be paid off over concerns it kept jobless benefits artificially low.
The union's president, Rich Maroko, called the move 'the most impactful labor legislation in years.'
Hochul had been reluctant to dip into the state's rainy day fund to pay off the debt, which accrued during the pandemic as jobless claims spiked. Employers were hit with a tax hike and were shouldering the state's effort to pay down the money owed.
A combination of labor and business pressure convinced Hochul to include the money in the state budget, which was approved more than a month past its April 1 due date.
This morning with HTC, Hochul fully embraced the end of the debt and wrapped the move into her bigger affordability theme she's been hitting this year.
'These are really tough times for our people,' she said. 'That we could do something like this, it sends a message that we care about the high cost of living.' — Nick Reisman
HOCHUL ANSWERS ON GILLIBRAND: Hochul was asked to respond to recent false claims from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that Mamdani made 'references to global jihad' on the campaign trail.
'No one should be subjected to any comments that slur their ethnicity, their religious beliefs, and we condemn that anywhere it rears its head in the state of New York,' the governor said today after a reporter asked her to comment on 'the racism [Mamdani] is already facing, including from NY's own Kirsten Gillibrand?'
Hochul's response did not name Gillibrand or directly address her comments.
Evan Lukaske, a spokesperson for Gillibrand said the senator 'misspoke' when she used the term 'global jihad' during a Thursday interview with WNYC's Brian Lehrer. Lukaske said Gillibrand was intending to reference Mamdani's refusal to condemn the phrase 'Globalize the Intifada.'
Mamdani said in an MSNBC interview that comments like Gillibrand's represent 'a language of darkness and a language of exclusion.' — Jason Beeferman
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
NOT READY TO ENDORSE, BUT: Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, an institutionalist Bronx Democrat, was not ready to endorse Zohran Mamdani's mayoral bid, per Fox5's Morgan McKay.
But Heastie — who signaled he's awaiting the final results of ranked-choice voting on Tuesday, a tally that Mamdani will win — believes voters were more motivated by the Queens lawmaker's message, and not the socialism.
'They didn't vote for him because he's a democratic socialist,' Heastie told reporters. 'They just voted for him because of his message that their material circumstances would be improved if housing and child care were made available to all rather than treated as market products.'
Mamdani's brief tenure in Heastie's large Democratic conference hasn't produced a long list of accomplishments. Like any legislative body, the Assembly is a place that values longevity and the likely Democratic mayoral nominee wasn't there long enough to build up many wins beyond several bills.
The speaker and the New York City Democratic Socialists of America have had plenty of run-ins in recent years. Heastie's comments today, though, are a signal key Democrats acknowledge the scale of what Mamdani has accomplished — and an indication of what the future might hold. — Nick Reisman
DITTO FOR THIS KEY HOUSE MEMBER: Rep. Ritchie Torres was one of Cuomo's first endorsers in Congress — and part of the batch of electeds who backed him this year despite calling for his resignation in 2021. But the Bronx Democrat said today that the former governor doesn't have his support for an independent general election bid.
'My endorsement of the governor only applies to the Democratic primary,' Torres told 'CNN News Central.'
Like Heastie and many other Democratic Party leaders, Torres isn't endorsing Mamdani quite yet either.
Torres and Mamdani have talked as part of the presumptive Democratic nominee's outreach, the House member said.
'I think we have profound differences of opinion,' said Torres, a fierce defender of Israel, referencing Mamdani's refusal to denounce the phrase 'globalize the intifada.' 'But again, if he becomes mayor — and he's likely to become mayor — the mayor needs the New York City congressional delegation, the New York City congressional delegation needs the mayor. And so, it's in the interest of both sides to have a working relationship.' — Emily Ngo
IN OTHER NEWS
— MAMDANI SOFTENS STANCE: Mamdani initially supported calls to ban the admissions test for specialized NYC high schools, but has since pledged not to modify it. (POLITICO Pro)
— UFT PREZ OUSTS CRITICS: Critics of city teachers union president Michael Mulgrew say they were taken off the payroll. (New York Post)
— ASIAN VOTERS PLAYED BIG ROLE: A wave of Asian voters came out to vote for Mamdani, propelling his primary win. (THE CITY)
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38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Israelis hope for potential economic 'peace dividend' after war with Iran
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Israel's risk premium, the cost of insuring government debt against default, has declined sharply, sparking talk of interest rate cuts as soon as August. The relaxation of credit default swap levels means markets are no longer pricing in the risk that Israel could lose its investment grade credit rating, something that had been unthinkable before the Gaza war. Gil Dotan of the IBI Investment House said investors are anticipating "new opportunities that may arise with Israel's neighbours". Underlying the optimism for the economy is what some analysts see as a reshaped Middle East that could ultimately lead to more peace deals with longtime enemies, such as Syria. In 2020 the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain established official diplomatic relations with Israel, later joined by Morocco, under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords. Hopes have been raised for the prospect of more countries joining. 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Atlantic
an hour ago
- Atlantic
New Yorkers May Soon Be Grocery Guinea Pigs
New York City—where takeout is a food group and ovens are for storing clothes —may soon get into the grocery business. If he wins the general election this November, Zohran Mamdani, the new Democratic nominee for mayor, has said he will build a network of municipally owned, affordable grocery stores, one in each of the city's five boroughs. According to Mamdani, the city could help pay for the stores' rent and operating costs by taxing the wealthy, and the stores won't seek to turn a profit, enabling them to sell food at wholesale cost. In the vision Mamdani laid out in a campaign video, the stores' mission would be combating 'price gouging' by offering lower prices than corporate grocery stores. If Mamdani is able to pull this off—a huge if, given the economic considerations, as critics are quick to point out—it will be the first time in American history that a city of New York's size has commanded its own grocery stores. 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Without a supermarket, residents have to either drive out of town for food or rely on convenience stores and dollar stores, which don't stock many healthy options. In 2018, the town of Baldwin, Florida (current population 1,366), lost its only grocery when the local IGA closed. It became a food desert: The next-closest supermarket was 10 miles away—not a simple trip for older adults who don't drive or for people without a car. The mayor proposed a municipally owned store, which opened the next year. In Kansas, the cities of St. Paul (population 603) and Erie (population 1,019) started their own grocery stores in 2008 and 2021, respectively. St. Paul had not had a supermarket since 1985. The fates of these stores and their hometowns have varied. Baldwin Market became a lifeline for many residents, particularly during the pandemic. But it struggled to break even and closed in 2024. Now the town largely relies on a handful of convenience stores and a Dollar General as it awaits the rumored opening of a new private grocery. Erie Market similarly struggled to balance its books. Operations were a challenge; the store sometimes stocked expired food, and its refrigerated section lost power after a thunderstorm. Last year, the city leased it to a private owner, who has yet to reopen the store. By contrast, St. Paul Supermarket has operated as a fully municipally owned grocery since 2013 (before that, it was funded by a community-development group) and shows no signs of closing. Its success has been attributed to community buy-in. Locals were motivated by the desire to preserve their city, fearing that the lack of a grocery store would drive away current residents and scare off potential new ones. 'It's a retention strategy, but it's also a recruitment strategy,' Rial Carver, the program leader at Kansas State University's Rural Grocery Initiative, told me. The primary goal of a municipally owned store is to get food to people who need it. But the city will have to decide which food to stock and, inevitably, will face questions about how those choices influence the diet or health of potential customers. (Imagine the criticism a Mamdani administration might face for subsidizing Cheetos—or, for that matter, organic, gluten-free cheese puffs.) Theoretically, getting people better access to any sort of food can have health benefits, Craig Willingham, the managing director of CUNY's Urban Food Policy Institute, told me. But so few examples of successful municipal grocery stores exist that there is virtually no research on their health effects. Research on the health impact of opening a privately owned grocery in a food desert has had mixed results. 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With so little background information to go on, there's no telling how Mamdani's experiment will play out in a big city—or whether it will even get off the ground. New York differs from the sites of other municipal-grocery experiments not only in its size and density but also in its general abundance of grocery stores. Proximity isn't the major reason people can't get food, healthy or otherwise, Allcott said—cost is. From 2013 to 2023, the amount of money New Yorkers spent on groceries rose nearly 66 percent —far higher than the national average. The city's poverty rate—a metric based on the price of a minimal diet—is nearly twice that of the national average; from 2020 to 2023, one in three New Yorkers used food pantries. In Chelsea, a Manhattan neighborhood that is known for its luxury high-rises and is also home to a large housing project, some residents would rather take the train into New Jersey to buy groceries than shop at the expensive local supermarkets, Willingham said. Grocery stores are tough business. Profit margins are as slim as 1 to 3 percent, and prices are largely determined by suppliers, who tend to privilege volume. A single grocer (or the small network that Mamdani envisions) won't get as good a deal as a large chain. And running a store is hard, Carver told me: A manager needs to be nimble and adjust to customer demands, skills that municipal bodies are not exactly known for. In New York, at least, there's reason to expect that public groceries wouldn't actually be cheaper. Mamdani (whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment) has acknowledged that New York's city government might not be cut out for stocking shelves. If the pilot plan doesn't work, he said on the podcast Plain English last week, he won't try to scale it up. Yet he believes that it's worth trying. 'This is a proposal of reasonable policy experimentation,' he said. National grocery costs are expected to increase 2.2 percent this year, according to the USDA. Price hikes will hit poor Americans even harder if Congress passes President Donald Trump's megabill, which includes cuts to federal food-assistance programs such as SNAP. Among such threats to food affordability, the mere possibility of change could justify a trial of something new. Other large cities, too, are signing up as guinea pigs: Madison, Wisconsin, is in the process of opening a municipally owned store. Last year, Atlanta addressed food insecurity among public-school students and their families by opening a free grocery store—it functions like a food pantry but is stocked like a supermarket—funded by a public-private partnership. Its impact on health hasn't yet been studied, but demand is high. 'We do slots for appointments, and they're immediately gone,' Chelsea Montgomery, the adviser to operations of Atlanta Public Schools, told me. Mamdani's proposal is hardly the first unorthodox policy experiment New York has considered. The city took a chance on congestion pricing to reduce traffic and fund public transit, on universal pre-K to guarantee access to early childhood education, and on supervised injection sites to curb the overdose crisis. All have achieved their objectives. Perhaps, in a decade, millions of New Yorkers will get their organic, gluten-free cheese puffs on the cheap at a city-owned market. Or perhaps the whole project will go the way of the city's failed attempt to end poverty by offering cash in exchange for efforts to build healthy habits. The point of experimentation is to find out.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Rev. Al Sharpton calls on Andrew Cuomo to drop out of NYC mayoral race: ‘Look at what is best for the city'
Rev. Al Sharpton called on Andrew Cuomo to drop out of the race for New York City mayor — urging the ex-gov to 'look at what is best for the city.' 'I think, in the best interest of the legacy of Andrew Cuomo, that he ought to let them have the one-on-one race,' Sharpton said Wednesday on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.' 3 Al Sharpton called on Andrew Cuomo to drop out of the NYC mayoral race Wednesday. Lev Radin/Shutterstock 3 Sharpton urged Cuomo to 'look at what is best for the city.' Matthew McDermott 'He can endorse one or the other, and let them have a battle over what is best for New York.' Sharpton added that he had reached out to Cuomo's people to try to get him to abandon his bid. Calls to Cuomo's camp were not returned. The call comes just a day after the full primary results came in, showing socialist Zohran Mamdani trounced Cuomo by 12 points in just three rounds of ranked-choice voting. Days earlier, Sharpton hosted Mamdani at his National Action Network HQ, giving the Democratic nominee a chance to make his pitch to black voters, and seemingly endorsed some of the assemblyman's campaign vows, such as freezing the rent. 3 Zohran Mamdani trounced Cuomo by 12 points in just three rounds of ranked-choice voting. AP The influential Sharpton shopped short of formally endorsing Mamdani. Cuomo has flip-flopped on his run for governor, but he will still be on the ballot on an independent line come November along with Mamdani and GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa, as well as two others on independent lines, Eric Adams and Jim Walden.
