Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who got pummeled in the Democratic primary last month, announced Monday that he will actively run in the mayoral general election as an independent against Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams.
Cuomo made the revelation in a one-and-a-half-minute video posted online Monday afternoon. The video features him speaking directly to the camera in a park, wearing a short-sleeved white button-down shirt, intercut with clips of him interacting with New Yorkers on the streets.
After losing the primary to Mamdani — a democratic socialist Queens Assembly member — by nearly 13 points, Cuomo said that only 13% of New Yorkers voted in that contest and that “the general election is in November and I am in it to win it.” He took shots at the nominee, suggesting that he was all talk and little action.
“My opponent, Mr. Mamdani, offers slick slogans, but no real solutions,” Cuomo said. “We need a city with lower rents, safer streets, where buying your first home is once again possible, where child care won’t bankrupt you. That’s the New York City that we know. That’s the one that is still possible. You haven’t given up on it, and you deserve a mayor with the experience and ideas to make it happen again.”
However, Cuomo’s independent run will come with a challenge to the other candidates not named Zohran Mamdani: Whoever is not in the lead by mid-September should drop out and back the leading candidate. Another independent candidate, attorney Jim Walden, first floated the idea earlier this month.
Cuomo pledges change in campaign
After running most of the primary as the presumed leading candidate, Cuomo lost the contest to Mamdani by nearly 13 points in ranked-choice voting. Since conceding to Mamdani on Election Night, the former governor has kept a low profile, as he weighed whether or not to stay in the race.
In an email to supporters shared with amNewYork, Cuomo pledged to significantly change his strategy from the primary, which saw him running a campaign that limited public appearances and relied heavily on institutional support.
“In the next several months, I will run a very different kind of campaign,” he said. “I am putting together a new team, communications plan, strategy, and field operation. And most important, I will be out there, every day in every corner of this city, meeting you where you are to talk about the struggles you face, and the solutions to address them.”
The former governor also named Mamdani as a “serious threat” who will be “hostile to business and economic growth.” Mamdani has proposed funding his agenda by raising taxes on corporations and high-income earners.
Mamdani, during an unrelated Monday news conference, said Cuomo’s decision to continue running shows he is “struggling to come to terms” with what the election meant.
“We spent an entire campaign being told that it was inevitable for Andrew Cuomo to become the next mayor, and he believed that himself,” Mamdani told reporters. “What we saw was New Yorkers’ hunger for a new kind of politics, a politics focused on working people, a politics where far more New Yorkers than before could see themselves in it, in those same policies.”
The news comes as Cuomo has been battling with incumbent Mayor Adams, who is also running as an independent, over which of them should drop out of the race and support the other. They are also running against Republican Curtis Sliwa and Walden.
Both Adams and Sliwa have been adamant that they have no intention of dropping out, no matter who among them is leading in the fall.
The tiff is part of a center-right scramble to find a candidate who can defeat Mamdani — a democratic socialist — in November.
Mayor Adams, during an unrelated Monday press conference, slammed Cuomo’s proposal to use polling data to determine who should face off against Mamdani as unworkable.
“He’s saying that utilize polling to determine who should run against the Democratic primary winner,” Adams said. “Remember, polls showed him up 40 points…He lost by 13%. So if we’re going to use these methods of this determination that they have already proven inaccurate, why are we going to put the risk of New Yorkers by someone who has not kept his word? He has a consistent record of not keeping his word, why are we going to trust him now?”
Cuomo has continued to poll ahead of Adams in a series of recent surveys. A Monday Data for Progress poll, in which Mamdani leads with 40%, has Cuomo with an eight-point advantage over Adams.
But it is not entirely clear who Cuomo will draw support from, given that the institutional Democratic Party and union backers he relied on during the primary are leaving.
Many of those supporters have already defected to Mamdani. The state lawmaker has been endorsed by U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan/Bronx) and the bosses of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Democratic Parties; as well as labor unions, including 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council — all of whom stood with Cuomo in the primary.
Furthermore, Rev. Al Sharpton — a figure who holds significant sway over the city’s Black voters — urged Cuomo to drop out earlier this month, so that Adams can have a one-on-one race with Mamdani.
One of Cuomo’s chief financial backers during the primary, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, said that he will support Adams instead of the former governor.
