Mayor Eric Adams on Monday said he does not “see” Andrew Cuomo running for mayor in 2025, following recent reports that the former governor is mulling a bid for the city’s top job as the incumbent mayor faces mounting woes from a federal investigation into his 2021 campaign.
Hizzoner made the comments during a radio interview on La Mega 97.9 FM on Nov. 27. He also insisted that he and Cuomo have a good relationship and communicate often.
“Andrew, the former governor, is a good communicator with the two of us, we talk often, I don’t see him running for mayor,” Adams said. “I think he’s looking at his next political move and there’s a lot of things he could look at. But I have to be ready to run New York and that is what I’m focussed on doing right now.”
The buzz about Cuomo potentially seeking New York City’s top job began circulating last week in news stories that cited anonymous sources close to the former governor’s inner circle, and a poll designed to assess voters’ perception of his time in office and the scandals that led him to resign in 2021.
The poll asks voters whether Cuomo or Adams “would do a better job of managing New York City,” according to screenshots of the poll posted on social media by journalist Ben Max. Additionally, it asks who voters would prefer in a Democratic primary matchup that has Cuomo running against other potential mayoral candidates — such as city Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — but not Adams.
Despite the survey question comparing their job performance, the former governor would not challenge Adams in a Democratic primary, according to a report from Politico New York citing three anonymous sources.
Cuomo’s longtime spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, said he does not know who commissioned the survey — although Slingshot Strategies founder and pollster Evan Roth Smith wrote on social media last week that he’s “highly confident” the former governor is polling his own mayoral bid.
Azzopardi, in an emailed statement, did not respond directly to Adams’ comments or the idea that Cuomo is weighing a run.
“The future is the future and he gets these questions often, which I think are fueled by the fact that many people are facing a crisis in confidence in government at many levels and now view the circumstances in which he left office as the political railroading that it was,” Azzopardi said.
While Cuomo is from Queens, he has not lived in the five boroughs in many years. He’s registered to vote in Westchester and would have to move back to the city to run for mayor.
Legal and political troubles for both
Cuomo stepped down from the governorship two years ago following nearly a dozen sexual abuse allegations, corroborated by an investigation and report from state Attorney General Letitia James, and claims that his office covered up the true number of COVID-19 deaths tied to nursing homes.
He also faces a fresh lawsuit from one of his previous sexual misconduct accusers — Brittany Commisso. She filed the action against Cuomo last week under the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that gave those who said they suffered sexual misconduct one year to file a suit against their alleged abusers even if the statute of limitations had expired.
Cuomo has consistently and fervently denied the allegations and Azopardi pointed out that the five criminal cases brought as a result of James’ report were all dropped by the local district attorneys in each jurisdiction.
“Ms. Commisso’s claims are provably false, which is why the Albany District Attorney dismissed the case two years ago after a thorough investigation,” Cuomo’s attorney Rita Glavin said in a statement responding to the Comisso suit. “Ms. Commisso’s transparent attempt at a cash grab will fail. We look forward to seeing her in court.”
For his part, Adams is in a politically weakened state amid the federal investigation — helmed by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York — looking into whether his campaign worked with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign contributions in exchange for political favors.
He is also facing a drop in his approval rating, according to a Marist College poll last week that found 54% of city residents disapprove of his performance as the city’s top executive and 72% believe his campaign did “something wrong” in its dealings with Turkey.
On top of that, Adams was also hit with his own sexual assault allegations in a lawsuit filed under the Adult Survivors Act last week. The alleged incident, which Adams fiercely denies, took place in 1993, when he was a transit cop.
But Adams’ comments that Cuomo wouldn’t run for mayor may have been motivated by several factors including his status as the city’s second African American mayor, said veteran political strategist Basil Smikle.
“From [the mayor’s] standpoint, why would the former governor do it?” said Smikle, who also leads Hunter College’s Public Policy Program. “[Adams is] a sitting mayor, the second African American ever to hold that spot in the city of New York, what’s the rationale?”
Were Cuomo to challenge Adams, Smikle surmised that the former governor would have to surmount major hurdles in order to best the current mayor in a head-to-head matchup.
“Even if Andrew Cuomo is thinking about it, he’s got to convince voters to get rid of a sitting mayor, and then hire him at the same time,” Smikle said. “And I think that those are, they’re not insurmountable hurdles, but they’re steep hurdles, given the circumstances. And so I think the mayor probably understands that and doesn’t feel threatened at all.”
