The city Campaign Finance Board voted during a Friday meeting to award City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ mayoral campaign with $2.4 million in public matching funds — money that will give her bid the ability to air TV ads in the final weeks before the June 24 primary.
At the same time, the CFB dealt another blow to front-runner Andrew Cuomo by withholding an additional $675,000 from his campaign, citing its continued “reason to believe” that the campaign illegally coordinated with a super PAC supporting it. The CFB has now withheld nearly $1.3 million in matching funds from Cuomo, after withholding $622,000 from it earlier this month, over its preliminary finding of improper coordination between his campaign and the PAC — known as “Fix the City.”
Speaker Adams’ campaign took a victory lap over the board’s Friday decision, attributing her unlocking millions in matching funds to the “energy and enthusiasm” behind her candidacy.
“Adrienne is in it for us,” said Adams’ spokesperson, Lupe Todd-Medina, in a statement. “She is the candidate with the record and vision for an affordable, prosperous and safe New York City for all – and you can expect to see our campaign aggressively continue to make the case for Adrienne in the coming days.”
The speaker has now raised over $2.7 million in private and public funds combined. And she will have over $2.2 million in the bank, according to CFB records.
“With these funds, the campaign anticipates an aggressive, on-the-ground and over-the-airwaves blitz in the final stretch as momentum continues to build for Adrienne’s effective leadership,” Todd-Medina said.
Speaker Adams received matching funds after one of her competitors, Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, encouraged his supporters to donate to her campaign so she could meet the necessary threshold ahead of the fundraising deadline last week. Mamdani has maxed out his own fundraising, and the two candidates—who are both backed by the New York Working Families Party—are aligned against Cuomo.
During Friday’s meeting, CFB member Richard Davis read a statement explaining the board’s decision to withhold even more matching funds from Cuomo’s campaign. He said Fix the City reported spending another $675,000 on continuing to air its May 4 ad, which led to the board’s initial decision earlier this month, that was “not independent of the campaign.”
“The board continued an investigation into this matter and based on the findings of this investigation thus far, continues to find reason to believe that the expenditure was not independent of the Cuomo campaign,” Davis said. “The board will continue to investigate the issue of improper coordination.”
When the CFB withheld the initial sum from Cuomo on May 12, Davis said it found that Cuomo’s campaign may have violated campaign finance rules by engaging in a practice known as “redboxing,” which involves making “strategic information or data” publicly available to entities it “knew or should have known” would use it. In this case, the board believes Cuomo’s campaign made video clips and other information available on its website for groups like Fix the City to use in TV ads in violation of board rules.
Davis said the $1.3 billion it’s docking from Cuomo will still count toward his campaign’s $8.3 million spending limit.
In response, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi insisted Friday’s ruling is a “continuation” of its “unfounded position” and that the campaign is in “full compliance” with city campaign finance law and rules.
“Everything on our website was reviewed and approved by our legal team in advance of publication,” Azzopardi said. “We have submitted documentation to the board that we believe demonstrates that this was not a violation of the regulations, and we look forward to addressing any additional questions they have. This is not a final determination.”
The latest hiccup with Cuomo’s fundraising is part of a series of missteps in his dealings with the city’s campaign finance system. He was initially denied a matching funds payment in April due to widespread issues with the documentation that his campaign submitted to the board, which have since been corrected.
Despite the board’s Friday decision, it still awarded Cuomo a new $1.7 million disbursement. That comes on top of the roughly $5.4 billion Cuomo has already amassed in private and public funds — bringing his total amount raised to over $7.1 million.
Mamdani, who is in second place to Cuomo and appears to be catching up to him in the polls, seized on the news to show that the former governor is not the competitent manager he portrays himself to be.
“The so-called ‘competence candidate’ has once again illegally conspired with his Super PAC — costing him another $675K in matching funds,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Andrew Cuomo breaks the law, mishandles money, and bends the knee to billionaires so much you’d think he’s running to be Donald Trump, not mayor of New York City.”
