Andrew Cuomo gets out on the streets of New York as he tries to take City Hall

CNN

2 days ago

Andrew Cuomo made his way across New York City's five boroughs over the weekend stopping into public housing cookouts in Harlem, pouring rum behind a bar in Brooklyn and walking in the Colombian Day Parade in Queens.
It's all part of a new campaign strategy for the independent candidate to get out and hear directly from New Yorkers about how anxious they are, how suffocating the cost of living in the city has become, and, according to him, how they believe he still has a shot to take City Hall despite a stunning 12-point loss to political newcomer Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary last month.
While residents of the Johnson Houses in East Harlem grilled burgers and hot dogs, part of an annual family day celebration across some public housing complexes around the city, Cuomo made his way around the courtyard smiling for selfies and shaking hands while peppering residents with a 'vote for me in November' along the way.
The mostly Black, older residents in the courtyard that day were quick to recognize him and reach out for a handshake.
'This guy who is running, what's his name? Mamdani. I'm not with that,' said a man who was sitting inside a car smoking a cigar. Cuomo moved in for a handshake and a picture.
'You were my governor, so you know I got you,' the man told him.
Cuomo shook his hand, replied with a 'thank you, brother' and walked away.
The reception was mostly warm besides an occasional detractor, including a man who pulled Cuomo in for a handshake, took out his phone for a selfie, and as the former three-term governor of New York smiled for the camera, told him, 'I can't wait to watch you lose again.'
Cuomo was unfazed.
'New Yorkers, God bless them. You know, they tell you exactly what's on their mind and what they're thinking, what they're feeling,' Cuomo told CNN on Saturday.
Cuomo has spent the last few weeks on a public self-reflection tour acknowledging the mistakes of his primary campaign, saying he misjudged just how many young and first-time voters would turn out in the election. He admits he didn't work hard enough to meet voters on the streets of the city, confessing he miscalculated just how central the affordability crisis and the cost of housing have become to New Yorkers.
'They are nervous, anxious, frustrated, angry,' Cuomo said, adding, 'They want to make sure you hear it, and that you understand it and that you feel what they're feeling, and that requires that direct communication.'
New York City's June Democratic primary made history across a range of categories: Mamdani, a three-term state assemblyman with little name recognition and brief government experience, managed to leapfrog over a crowded field of candidates, including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, to become the Democratic nominee.
The city's youngest voters, along with many New Yorkers who had never voted in primary elections, helped put Mamdani over the finish line in historic fashion. The 33-year-old, for his part, captured the electorate with a robust social media presence and a relentless focus on affordability. He promised a rent freeze for the city's rent-stabilized apartments; to make buses free; and to open supermarket stores in each borough that would be subsidized and operated by the city.
Cuomo has dismissed those ideas as overly simplistic and unrealistic. He told CNN while he agrees that more political involvement among the city's youngest residents is ultimately a good thing, he worries idealism might be getting the best of them.
'They have real issues, and I think it's important that we have a real conversation with them about the issues because I get the problems, but make sure the solutions aren't so simplistic,' Cuomo said.
The former governor, who resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations that he has denied, relaunched his campaign as a third-party candidate. He has since focused most of his attention on his base — sectors of Black New Yorkers and White working-class voters.
During Saturday's interview, Cuomo stopped short of saying his campaign has written off the city's younger residents.
When asked whether he would still try to appeal to young supporters, Cuomo said he wanted to make sure they understood the complexity of government. He suggested they had fallen captive to Mamdani's social media prowess and his digestible proposals, which he says are complicated to execute and risk leaving a generation of young people disappointed by a government he believes is likely to fail.
'People get turned off because somebody runs for office and says, you know, 'I have a magic wand,'' Cuomo said. ''I'm going to make everything more affordable. I'm going to make buses run fast. I'm going to wave a wand and all of that is going to happen,' and then nothing happens.'
Cuomo has said Mamdani's proposal to freeze the rent for the city's 1 million rent-stabilized tenants would not go far enough to solve the issue of affordable housing. He also says landlords whose bottom line would be impacted would have no incentive to fix apartments or keep them in good working condition.
Instead, Cuomo believes the city should focus on increasing the housing stock by building more of it. 'There is no easy answer that really addresses affordability without constructing more supply more affordable housing now,' Cuomo said.
His message to voters, he said, is that they should 'be smart.'
'It's not change for the sake of change, it's change for the sake of progress, and to make progress you actually have to know what you're doing, and the solutions have to be possible, feasible and effective,' he said.
Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for the Mamdani campaign, dismissed the criticism. 'No amount of disingenuous pandering can distract young New Yorkers from the truth: Zohran is going to tackle the affordability crisis that failed leaders like Andrew Cuomo caused,' Pekec said.
Cuomo has said Mamdani is a 'threat' and could be 'dangerous' to New York City, warning that his policies could bring about damage that would take more than a decade to fix.
But despite those concerns, Cuomo told CNN he would continue to live in New York City even if he loses in the general election.
'Third-generation Queens, where else could I go with this accent?' Cuomo said.
Despite acknowledging he had not lived in Queens in decades and that he actually spent most of his time in the suburbs of New York City and Albany while he was governor — and explaining that New Yorkers are fiercely protective over the definition of a New Yorker — Cuomo again told CNN he plans to stay.
'I would never leave New York,' he said.
In contrast with Mamdani's mostly positive campaign, Cuomo for now has continued to cast the city in a dark light, describing it as a place that is sometimes out of control. Public safety remains a central part of his message, along with proposals that include a plan to hire more police officers to tackle what he describes as a persistent crime problem.
'Crime is up and people feel that it's up, and it's combined with the homeless, mentally ill that are on the street and you're afraid that when you walk past them that they may attack you,' Cuomo said. 'So yes, we have a crime problem.'
New York City's crime rate picture is much more nuanced. While shootings and murders are down through the first half of 2025, sex crimes have remained stubbornly high. In a report released this month, the NYPD reported a decline year over year across six of the seven major crime categories.
Public safety is the area where Cuomo and Adams, who is also running for reelection as an independent, likely agree.
And for now, Adams is using the bully pulpit at City Hall to tout his accomplishments on public safety.
On Sunday, Adams stood next to New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to tout the department's work to get illegal guns off the street — more than 3,000 have been collected this year, bringing the total number of illegal firearms taken off city streets to more than 22,700 since the beginning of his administration, the mayor said Sunday.
'We have witnessed the lowest number of shootings and homicides in the recorded history,' Adams said Sunday. 'If guns are not on the street, they cannot be used to harm innocent people and we accomplished that.'
For now, Adams has made it clear he plans to stay in the race.
Cuomo, who has endorsed a proposal to back whichever Mamdani challenger is polling the highest in September, would not say whether his campaign is working to push Adams out of the race. He dismissed Adams' accusations that working to push out the incumbent, who is just the second Black mayor in the city's history, is disrespectful.
'I don't think this has anything to do with race,' Cuomo said. 'If you cannot win and you are just a spoiler then you're going to wind up electing Mamdani. If you believe what you say, which is that Mamdani would be a really negative force for the city, and you care about the city, then you do the right thing.'