5 House Republicans say they will vote against GOP megabill over public land sales
A group of five House Republicans says it will vote against the GOP's tax and spending bill over provisions in the Senate version that would mandate the sale of land owned by the federal government.
'We support the OB3 passed by the House and generally accept changes to the bill that may be made by the Senate. However, we cannot accept the sale of federal lands that Senator [Mike] Lee seeks,' wrote GOP Reps. Ryan Zinke (Mont.), Mike Simpson (Idaho), Dan Newhouse (Wash.), Cliff Bentz (Ore.) and David Valadao (Calif.).
'If a provision to sell public lands is in the bill that reaches the House floor, we will be forced to vote no,' they added.
Zinke has publicly said he would not support the bill if it mandates the sale of public lands, but a group of five would be enough to actually prevent the bill from passing, since Republicans can only afford to lose three House votes if every Democrat remains opposed as expected.
'It is our hope that the Senate Parliamentarian strips any language from the bill regarding public lands sales, but we hope we can count on you once again to hear our concerns and work with Senate Leadership to remove the provision that will tank the entire Republican agenda,' the quintet said in their letter, which was addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Republicans are seeking to pass their bill through a process known as budget reconciliation, which allows some measures to pass through the Senate with a simple majority, evading the filibuster.
The parliamentarian, who acts as the Senate's referee on what can pass through reconciliation, has already rejected a proposal from Lee to sell off public lands. However, Lee has said he would try again to pass a narrower set of public land sales.
Text obtained by The Hill indicates that the revised plan would still sell of 1.2 million acres.
While controversial, the public land sales is far from the only intra-party fight facing the legislation. Members are also feuding over provisions related to the extent of cuts to Medicaid and climate friendly tax credits, as well as federal tax deductions for people who live in areas with high state and local taxes.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Newsweek
2 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Donald Trump Voters Are Losing Faith With Trump
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Once the cornerstone of his political strength, President Donald Trump's base is showing signs of erosion. The latest YouGov/Economist poll, conducted June 20-23 among 1,590 adults, shows that Trump's approval rating among those who voted for him in 2024 stands at 83 percent, while 14 percent disapprove, giving him a net approval rating of +69 points, down from +80 last month. The poll had a margin of error of +/-3.5 percentage points. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on Air Force One while in flight from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, on June 24, 2025. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on Air Force One while in flight from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, on June 24, 2025. Alex Brandon/AP Last month's poll was conducted before Trump carried out airstrikes against three key Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend. In retaliation, Iran fired missiles at a U.S. military base in Qatar on Monday. A ceasefire between Iran and Israel was agreed to the same day, though tensions remain high. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have since accused Iran of violating the ceasefire and threatened to strike Tehran in response—an accusation Tehran denies. The rapid escalation has spotlighted the risks of deeper U.S. military involvement in the Middle East and highlighted the evolving nature of American foreign policy under Trump, who once promised to protect "America's vital interests" without engaging in "endless wars" overseas. The strikes appear to have triggered a shift in public attitudes—even among Republicans—with polls showing signs of declining support for Trump's agenda. Additional data from the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted June 21–23 among 1,139 respondents, reinforces the trend: 84 percent of Republicans said they approve of the president's job performance, down from 90 percent last month. The latest poll had a margin of error of +/-3.2 percentage points. Political analysts say Trump's declining approval ratings are tied to a growing disconnect between his actions and voter priorities—particularly after his recent military intervention in Iran. Thomas Gift, founding director of the University College London Centre on U.S. Politics, told Newsweek Trump's decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities has unsettled many in the MAGA movement who expected him to avoid foreign entanglements. "Trump's recent actions in Iran have done little to reassure the MAGA base that he'll steer clear of another endless war in the Middle East," Gift said, noting that even former chief strategist Steve Bannon has warned the conflict could escalate into "U.S. boots on the ground." Gift added that a core tenet of Trump's 2024 message was that "'America First' meant staying out of foreign conflicts," but now "that promise is starting to ring hollow." Peter Loge, a political communications professor at George Washington University and former Obama advisor, told Newsweek Trump's approval ratings are falling for broader reasons as well. "Trump's numbers are down because that's how public opinion works," Loge said. "He is pursuing policies people don't like, while ignoring things people care about." He pointed to "thermostatic politics"—the idea that voters often react against the party in power, even when it does what they asked for—as a key factor. "Trump started in a weak position with a lot of soft support," Loge explained. "That he is getting less popular is unsurprising." Loge added that many of Trump's headline policies—such as sending troops into American cities or escalating military conflicts abroad—don't match what most voters are asking for. "Most voters mostly want things to work," he said. "They want to be able to afford gas and groceries, pay their medical bills, and know their kids have a shot at a good future." Instead, Trump's agenda—threatening Medicaid, risking inflation with tariffs, and engaging in costly foreign conflicts—"either ignores what most voters care about, or threatens to make those things worse." "President Trump likes people to pay attention to Donald Trump," Loge said. "Voters would rather pay attention to their families." It comes as polls show that a majority of Americans do not approve of U.S. airstrikes in Iran. The YouGov/Economist poll found just 29 percent think the U.S. should be carrying the strikes, while 46 percent said it should not. The Washington Post found modestly higher support for the U.S. military bombing Iran. In a poll, 25 percent of adults supported "the U.S. military launching airstrikes against Iran over its nuclear program," while 45 percent were opposed. The poll also found that 82 percent of Americans were either "somewhat" or "very" concerned about getting involved in a full-scale war with Iran. Analysis by pollster G. Elliott Morris showed that 21 percent of Americans said last week that they supported U.S. involvement in Iran, while 57 percent opposed. And it seems that Trump's decision to launch airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities has exposed deep divisions within the party. Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky called Trump's move unconstitutional. "This is not our war. Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution," Massie posted on X, formerly Twitter. Far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a Trump ally, struck a cautious tone after the bombing, posting on X: "Let us join together and pray for the safety of our U.S. troops and Americans in the Middle East." But just 30 minutes before the announcement of the airstrikes, Greene voiced frustration: "Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war... Israel is a nuclear armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer." Former Trump adviser and War Room podcast host Steve Bannon was even more direct in his criticism, blasting the president for publicly thanking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the operation. "It hasn't been lost... that he thanked Bibi Netanyahu, who I would think right now – at least the War Room's position is – [is] the last guy on Earth you should thank," Bannon said. Bannon, who has long opposed U.S. military involvement in Iran, questioned Trump's reliance on intelligence reportedly provided by Israel, rather than U.S. sources. "I don't think we've been dealing from the top of the deck," he said, and described Trump's post-strike remarks as "very open-ended," adding: "I'm not quite sure [it was] the talk that a lot of MAGA wanted to hear." While Bannon insisted that "the MAGA movement will back Trump," he noted growing discomfort with the president's increasingly hawkish posture, recalling that opposition to "forever wars" was a defining issue in Trump's 2016 campaign. "One of the core tenets is no forever wars," Bannon told an audience in Washington days before the strike. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, also appeared to diverge from the president. Trump recently criticized the intelligence community's assessment that Iran had not taken the political decision to build a nuclear bomb, saying they were "wrong." Gabbard has denied any serious disagreement. Charlie Kirk, a prominent right-wing influencer, warned ahead of the strikes that Trump risked alienating his base. "Trump voters, especially young people, supported [him] because he was the first president in my lifetime to not start a new war," he said. But after the strikes, Kirk appeared to soften, reposting a clip of Vice President JD Vance praising the pilots involved. "They dropped 30,000 pound bombs on a target the size of a washing machine... Whatever our politics, we should be proud," Vance said. Nonetheless, polls suggest that Trump's MAGA base is largely supportive of the strikes. A recent J.L. Partners poll showed that support for U.S. military action against Iran is strongest among Trump's most devoted base. Two-thirds of self-identified "MAGA Republicans" (65 percent) back U.S. strikes, far surpassing support among "Traditional Republicans" (51 percent). Most Republican voters also view Israel's war with Iran as a shared American cause, with 63 percent saying "Israel's war is America's war"—a figure that rises to 67 percent among MAGA Republicans. And a new Washington Post/George Mason University survey finds Republican support for a strike rising from 47 percent to 77 percent. For comparison, political independents moved 10 points in Trump's direction, and Democrats stayed put. For pollster G Elliott Morris, there is a simple explanation for this. "Many Republicans do not hold isolationism as a value above their partisanship," he wrote in a blog post. "When push comes to shove, party loyalty and following the leader override some abstract commitment to staying out of foreign conflicts. If Trump decides that the MAGA movement should abandon isolationism altogether and invade Iran, then a large chunk of the movement will follow suit. The speed and scale of the shift in Republican opinion after Trump's decision to bomb Iran is a textbook example of this." He continued: "Of course, partisanship is not just a Republican phenomenon, but Trump's gravitational pull on opinion is unlike the force wielded by any other politician." Aaron Evans, president of Winning Republican Strategies, summed up why Republicans support Trump's actions in Iran. "Americans know President Trump did exactly what he promised: he stopped Iran from getting nuclear weapons without dragging us into another endless war," Evans told Newsweek. "While Democrats rushed to scream 'World War III,' Trump exposed their weakness and lack of seriousness on foreign policy. He showed strength, poise, and strategic discipline—doing what others only talk about: keeping nukes out of the hands of a terror regime while securing peace through strength. The media can spin, but voters see the truth. President Trump acted with precision, avoided war, and protected American lives. He's a man of action, not talk—and that's exactly why his base remains strong." However, the most recent YouGov/Economist poll found that only 47 percent of Trump 2024 voters think the U.S. should take active part in world affairs, while 37 percent disagreed and 19 percent said they are not sure.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Republican field for 2026 Maine governor's race slow to take shape
Jun. 29—The Maine governor's race is still more than a year away, but already four high-profile Democratic candidates are vying to succeed Gov. Janet Mills, setting up what's expected to be a heavyweight primary. Among Republicans, though, there are a lot of names but no front-runners. And one of their more viable options — Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford — announced last week that he was unenrolling from the Republican party to run for governor as an independent. There is still plenty of time for more candidates to join the mix, but now that the state Legislature has adjourned, a lot of eyes have turned to the 2026 governor's race and whether Mainers will continue what has been more than a half-century tradition of not electing back-to-back governors from the same party. "On the Republican side, the people who have announced so far are kind of lesser-known or second-tier candidates," said Mark Brewer, a professor and chair of the political science department at the University of Maine. Brewer noted, however, that it's still early and he expects the field to grow. Among the prominent names that have been mentioned are: Rep. Laurel Libby, Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, former Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, and former U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin. Candidates have until March 16 to turn qualifying signatures in to the Maine Department of the Secretary of State ahead of primaries that are nearly a year away. The Democratic field started to take shape early and could be set. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows declared her candidacy in March followed by former Senate President Troy Jackson's announcement last month, and Hannah Pingree, a former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives who recently left a position in the Mills administration and is the daughter of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, declared earlier this month. Angus King III, a businessman, renewable energy entrepreneur and the son of U.S. Sen. Angus King, announced his bid in early May. Bennett's decision to run as an independent had long been rumored but it will certainly impact next year's race. The Republican field has been slower to build momentum. While seven people have filed campaign finance paperwork with the state to run, none are well-known and several have no experience holding elected office. "There are no big Republican names out there right now, but I would be stunned if we didn't have at least one high-profile Republican get into the race," Brewer said. A LOOK AT WHO'S IN Perhaps the most politically well-known Republican candidate so far is Sen. Jim Libby, R-Standish, a professor at Thomas College who is serving his sixth nonconsecutive term in the Legislature and who also ran in the Republican primary for governor in 2002. Other candidates include Bobby Charles, a Leeds resident and lawyer who served as an assistant secretary of state under President George W. Bush, Owen McCarthy, a medical technology entrepreneur from Gorham, and David Jones, a Falmouth real estate broker. Steven Sheppard of Bangor, Ken Capron of Portland and Robert Wessels of Norway have also filed paperwork with the state to run. Some other names that have been rumored as possible candidates include Laurel Libby, the Auburn representative who is a prolific fundraiser and who has been in the spotlight recently for her criticisms of Maine's policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports; Stewart, the current Senate minority leader from Presque Isle; Mason, a former Senate majority leader who also was a candidate in the Republican primary in 2018; and Poliquin, Maine's 2nd District congressman from 2015-19 and a former state treasurer. Libby said last week that she is "actively exploring a run for governor." She said she is confident in her donor base and fundraising potential and doesn't see a need to rush a decision. "There's still plenty of time," Libby said. Mason, who finished a distant second to Moody in the 2018 primary, also said he is thinking about getting in the race. "I ran for the job in 2018, so I think I would be lying if I said I didn't want the job," he said. "I'm looking to see how the field shakes out and, if I feel I can make a contribution and see a path to win, I might get in. I'm definitely interested." Stewart and Poliquin did not respond to messages asking if they are considering getting in the race. Brent Littlefield, who worked on past Poliquin campaigns and is also a longtime strategist for former Gov. Paul LePage — now a candidate for the U.S. House seat held by Rep. Jared Golden — said the Republican field for this year's race is likely to grow. Littlefield noted that LePage was relatively unknown outside of Waterville, where he served as mayor from 2004 to 2011, before winning statewide office in 2010, and said it's not necessarily a "big name" that will win. "Certainly, very few people outside of Waterville knew LePage in 2010, and he became governor of the state for eight years," Littlefield said. "The field is wide open. I think there may be additional candidates who enter, but no one should begin to guess at this point who might serve as the next governor." THE WAITING GAME Candidates may also be waiting to see what other possible contenders do. "I think a lot of Republicans who might be potentially interested are waiting to see what Laurel Libby does," Brewer said. "Is she going to get in? Is she not going to get in? If she does get in, does she clear the field? ... I think a lot of people are watching to see what she does." There were no contested primaries in the last governor's race in 2022, when Gov. Janet Mills was running for re-election and was challenged by LePage, who sought an unprecedented third nonconsecutive term and didn't face any primary opponents. Mills, a Democrat, cannot seek reelection next year because of term limits. Some want to see her challenge U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, but Mills has not announced any future political plans. Since there is no official start to campaign season, predicting when the field might be set is difficult. In the 2018 governor's race, Shawn Moody, an auto body entrepreneur who ran as an independent in 2010 and who became the Republican nominee, did not announce he was entering the race until November 2017, just a little over a month after Moody joined the party. Mills, who was attorney general at the time, announced her candidacy in July 2017. "It's not so much the Republicans are late (in announcing candidates), it's that the Democrats went early this cycle," Brewer said. McCarthy, one of the candidates who has declared as a Republican in the race already, acknowledged in a written statement that he doesn't have the name recognition or political experience of some of the Democrats who have gotten in the race, but he said that's not a bad thing. "If people are looking for more of the same from Augusta, they'll have plenty of options," he said. "But if they are looking for something different, someone with modest roots who understands their struggles, someone with an unmatched work ethic and grit and who will fight to build a better future for Maine's working families — then I'm their candidate." Copy the Story Link
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
The inside story of Andrew Cuomo's campaign collapse
Another conference call. This was what strategy looked like on Andrew Cuomo's mayoral campaign: A small circle of aides and advisers listening to longtime aide Melissa DeRosa, who denied working on his campaign in public but whom all involved knew was running things, as she pressed them about early voting numbers showing the Zohran Mamdani surge was real. Some felt scolded. They all felt frustrated. A few raised the same point they had been pleading for weeks and months: We need to get him out more. 'He's doing a lot,' DeRosa said. 'He's doing as much as he can.' The call less than two weeks before primary day, described to CNN by three of the people who participated, was one of many moments of a campaign that soared in its first few weeks, agonizingly ground down everyone involved, then finished with a spectacular flop. Cuomo ended up conceding to a person he had long dismissed as an upstart who talked a lot, someone as young as his daughters with a fraction of his government experience. Mamdani's historic expansion of the electorate, his tapping into the hunger for a leftward lurch and fresh voice, defied almost every poll and expert's expectation. A month before the June 24 election, one veteran progressive operative told CNN that Mamdani's decisive army of volunteers was composed of naifs 'who thought they could door-knock their way to the revolution.' But all but a few involved with the Cuomo campaign acknowledge, at least privately, how much they did wrong. The former governor came off constantly clueless about intricacies of the city and its politics. And despite what DeRosa said, he would call a few short appearances a full schedule and avoided interviews or unscripted interactions with voters, leaving him vulnerable to Mamdani's go-everywhere, talk-to-everyone strategy. CNN spoke to a dozen Cuomo aides and advisers, along with another dozen operatives and officials working in and around the race. Many were granted anonymity to discuss internal meetings and private conversations. They privately single out mistakes that should have been visible at the time and point fingers over who got what wrong how. 'You are not going to turn Andrew Cuomo into the new Andrew Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo is Andrew Cuomo. He's exactly the person he always was,' one adviser told CNN. 'He was not going to build alliances. Not clear he could anyway. He wasn't all of a sudden going to be warm and friendly. And his operation wasn't all of a sudden going to be warm and friendly.' Cuomo launched his campaign in March with huge advantages. He faced a splintered primary field and a short race to June 24. He could run on his experience with President Donald Trump, arguing in a Trumpian way that he alone could deal with the pressure that the second-term Republican and fellow Queens native was already exerting on New York. Operating within a city campaign finance system with spending caps, DeRosa wasn't the only longtime Cuomo aide pitching in expertise for free. Chris Coffey, who had managed Andrew Yang's 2021 mayoral campaign, had his firm pay for early polls while helping bring in key Orthodox Jewish support and landing Mike Bloomberg's endorsement, which the billionaire former mayor followed with over $8 million to the super PAC Fix the City. Fix the City would ultimately spend at least $22 million just through early June but was still blamed by the Cuomo campaign for not going more negative on Mamdani, who believed that would have elevated Mamdani. (Cuomo was convinced going after Mamdani more himself would have reinforced the sense of him as a bully.) Lording power over politicians and the press was the Cuomo way when he was governor. His close aides thought they could go right back to yelling and cursing and making demands of endorsers and reporters alike, who tended to respond by treating Cuomo as a menace and Mamdani as a fascination. One adviser regretfully compared how New Yorkers pick their mayor to testing, smelling, squeezing fruit at the store. 'You have to be able to touch it,' the adviser said. 'It's not going to happen from behind a glass box.' But Cuomo didn't want to do many events because he thought he'd be interrupted by protesters and hounded by reporters. He avoided interviews because he thought he'd just get asked about the scandals that chased him from the governor's office. He regularly canceled plans for both at the last minute. When Cuomo released a housing plan determined to have been written partly by AI, or when his campaign's mistakes led to problems with matching funds from the city campaign finance board, the coverage was vicious. He would not apologize for Covid-19 nursing home deaths or the accusations that he harassed women while governor. The people who didn't like him, Cuomo would tell people, were a 'lost cause.' Nothing he was going to say or do would matter. He certainly wasn't going to apologize or offer a 'sorry you feel that way.' Some blame themselves for not confronting him to do more to make amends. DeRosa, who most people involved thought was best positioned to reach Cuomo, does not. In fact, she told CNN, before asking to speak off the record, 'I didn't really work on the campaign.' Told about this response, several other aides said it encapsulated what they had gotten used to. Though DeRosa was not paid, everyone else who worked on the campaign told CNN she was calling shots on every major decision, the main conduit for the candidate's micromanaging, a key part of Cuomo's triumphs and failures for more than two decades, and a public figure in her own right who had once called Cuomo 'the Tom Brady of New York politics.' Multiple union leaders came away from conversations with Cuomo feeling like they had to endorse or he'd exact revenge in contract negotiations when he was inevitably mayor. State legislators, whose support Cuomo racked up mostly to be able to tout that he'd turned around the very people who'd called on him to resign, were rarely followed up with and largely waved off. In the final weeks, they were calling with warnings that Cuomo's campaign was invisible and that Mamdani's people seemed everywhere. 'He was surrounded by a lot of people who were probably protecting him,' said state Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who also runs the powerful Brooklyn Democratic Party and was given the honorary title of senior political adviser to the campaign. 'My definition of ground game was very different from theirs.' Bichotte Hermelyn said most of the conversations she had with Cuomo as she prepared to endorse him two weeks after he launched his campaign were listening to him talk about how he would beat incumbent Mayor Eric Adams in the fall. But already back then, she sent a message to Mamdani, her colleague in the Assembly, telling him he was doing phenomenally. By May 28, just under a month before the election, the race had changed. Mamdani had started to catch progressive interest and small-dollar contributions from his sunny message and videos promising a rent freeze, city-operated grocery stores and tax increases for millionaires. He had become Cuomo's chief rival, a three-term state assemblyman half Cuomo's age and a democratic socialist in the vein of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a longtime Cuomo foil. Cuomo held a rally at a union hall in midtown Manhattan to try to out-progressive the progressives by announcing his support for a $20 minimum wage, a way of reminding people that he had raised the minimum wage as governor. Some aides felt the walls closing in on them, even as public polls still had Cuomo well ahead. But still most were sticking with the strung-out stick-to-itiveness that had them repeating what they were hearing directly from him or DeRosa: the polls! the polls! the polls! is how more than one campaign aide described his validation for not changing anything. A few old friends and allies whom Cuomo would call for his famously marathon monologues tried to break through. Beating Mamdani's positions and issues was going to take positions and issues of his own, they said, not just drum-beating that he was the only competent manager around. He'd been secretary of housing and urban development – maybe talk about housing? He's passed gay marriage and strict gun control laws before almost anyone else — those might be worth mentioning more. His pinnacle of success and celebrity was being a hero of Covid-19 before investigations into the nursing home deaths, so much that there were whispers he might swap in for Joe Biden as the 2020 presidential nominee — what about some events with pandemic survivors or business owners he helped? Cuomo hemmed, hawed, made no changes. He hammered on public safety and a city in crisis, even as Mamdani's affordability talk was clearly catching on. He wouldn't stop sneering at the left. And he stayed on antisemitism, the issue he had identified as his own ever since the proud Italian had started his 'Never Again, NOW!' group last year, collecting checks and never doing much of substance to combat hatred for Jews or build up the support for Israel he said was so important. Some of his own aides suspected then that his focus on Mamdani's criticism of Israel wasn't working and perhaps backfiring. 'So much energy was expended around it — and for what?' said one campaign aide. 'We got lost on that on an issue that, while important for a lot of people, if they can't afford their rent, they're going to go with the guy talking about their rent.' The person playing Mamdani in Cuomo's debate prep sessions was another member of the inner circle: Rita Glavin, the attorney who has worked to undermine the accusations of the women who had come out against Cuomo while governor. Cuomo was less concerned with Glavin's acted-out responses than ideas he had, like holding up three fingers to show the three bills Mamdani had passed since getting elected to the Assembly in 2020: It means he didn't even do his job, Cuomo would say. A government guy, the lack of work product offended him. Don't do it, aides told him. Voters don't care. In the debate, Cuomo didn't do the fingers, but he did mock the three bills. Then later in the same debate, he did it again. Then he had the point put in the script of one of his last ads. His aides tried over and over to get Cuomo to say Mamdani's name correctly. Was it a mental block or passive-aggressive disrespect that made it come out 'Mandani' or 'Mandamni' every time? No luck. Looking back, Cuomo is proud that he didn't snap more given all the attempts to needle him. But when City Comptroller Brad Lander in their second debate asked him to answer a man whose father died in a nursing home during the pandemic, Cuomo responded defensively, mentioning that Lander was born in St. Louis and ticking through facts that he said exonerated him. No sympathy, even when saying the words that he was sorry the man's father had died. Aides watching were too resigned to be apoplectic. Mamdani's response telling Cuomo how to say his name was already going viral. The next day, Cuomo was working through more of his phone calls. 'What are people saying on Twitter?' he asked one of the people on the other end. New York's ranked-choice voting system in the primary lets voters list up to five candidates, prioritizing alliances between campaigns. Mamdani and Lander pushed their bases to rank the other candidate on their ballots. Cuomo didn't bother. He was enraged by the way Lander had made such a focus of torching him, making himself what the former governor would call a 'kamikaze pilot' against him. And Cuomo was wary that if Mamdani collapsed, his support could rush to Lander. Cuomo had been in the race for under two weeks when Shontell Smith, his political director, called the team of her friend and fellow mayoral candidate, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, and suggested both a non-aggression pact and a cross-endorsement deal. Myrie said no. In the second debate, longshot candidate Whitney Tilson said he would rank Cuomo No. 2. Cuomo did not return the offer. How, he figured, would he credibly say Mamdani didn't have the experience to be mayor while lining up with Tilson, who had spent no time in government? Two days after the first debate, state Sen. Jessica Ramos suddenly dropped out and backed Cuomo. Ramos, who had called for him to resign as governor and labeled him a 'corrupt bully' earlier in the campaign, ripped Mamdani during the debate as inexperienced beyond his flashy videos. Cuomo didn't say much nice about Ramos at their joint event. He didn't bring her on the trail with him or deploy her as a surrogate. When he went to vote on Tuesday, he didn't bother putting her on a ranked-choice ballot. He announced he had voted only for his own name and no others. She dropped out, Cuomo thought, so why would he say any of his supporters should rank her? 'This is such ingratitude,' Ramos told a friend after seeing that. 'This is so classless.' Cuomo's team tried once more in the final days to make a cross-endorsement deal with Scott Stringer, the former comptroller with an Upper West Side base. Stringer didn't take the deal and ended up getting just over 1% in the first round. Cuomo and his closest allies were combative to the end. When asked by CNN on Tuesday morning what Cuomo's schedule was for primary day beyond a brief appearance to vote, communications director Rich Azzopardi said he didn't know and that Cuomo was 'in his car.' As bad as things had gone, Cuomo largely hit or exceeded the Election Day numbers he thought were enough and probably would have been four years ago. He was running 6 points ahead of Eric Adams four years ago in the first round of ranked-choice voting. He dominated on the Upper East and West sides of Manhattan and working-class neighborhoods across the outer boroughs. Through 8 p.m. on primary night, Cuomo himself was feeling like it might work. Their model was proving out. Then the returns started arriving at 9 p.m. Mamdani hadn't just eaten into their base, as some aides and advisers had been warning to little avail, but now the model was useless. One top campaign source argued Mamdani changed how majority-Black districts would vote by turning out so many 'White gentrifiers.' 'Had we run a perfect campaign, I'm not sure the outcome would have been different,' Coffey, the volunteer top operative, told CNN. 'There are always things you wish could do differently, but Andrew, Melissa and the senior leadership team (me included) helped bring on board most big unions, biggest group of electeds, every business group, top-notch donors and supporters like Mike Bloomberg, mended fences with and turned out Hasidic Jews, helped every editorial board to be for us or against our opposition. We came up short. You have to respect Zohran's team and movement.' Cuomo has been making aides and advisers apoplectic (not to mention opposing candidates laugh) as he continues to say he did everything right, or at least that there was nothing he could have done differently. Several who served in senior positions on the campaign said to CNN that they didn't see any viable path for Cuomo without approaching the race totally differently. One adviser suggested the staff needs to change or be replaced but it was ultimately on Cuomo being willing to change himself. 'If he's not, then he shouldn't run,' the adviser said. But a few aides and advisers are urging him on. Asked whether the financial support exists to reload the pro-Cuomo super PAC in the fall, a person familiar with the group's operations said bluntly, 'The answer's yes.' His opponents would be Mamdani, who still elicits deep concerns from establishment and moderate Democrats; Adams, a former Democrat who is widely unpopular and had his corruption case dropped by Trump's Department of Justice; and Curtis Sliwa, a Republican seen as a marginal candidate. There will be no ranked-choice voting in November. Whoever wins a plurality will be mayor. Cuomo has been saying this race wasn't about his own redemption. Few believed that. Either way, redemption didn't happen when the primary votes came in. 'It hasn't happened yet,' a top campaign source corrected in an interview. 'There's still a general election.'
