Mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo, who served as New York’s 56th governor starting in 2011 until his resignation in 2021 over allegations of sexual harassment, is entering the final stretch of the Democratic primary race to Gracie Mansion with one last pitch to voters: An argument that in the Trump era, New York cannot afford to take a chance on 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani.
At a campaign event in Harlem on Wednesday morning — where former Governor David Paterson and head of the Manhattan Democrats Keith Wright threw their support behind Cuomo, joining other establishment Democrats in their endorsement of the formerly-disgraced-former-governor — Cuomo said that President Donald Trump has “declared war” on New York City. And, that he’s the only candidate prepared to fight back.
Throughout the length of the primary race, Cuomo has touted his achievements as governor, including the reconstruction of LaGuardia Airport, the construction of Moynihan Train Hall, and the completion of the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge — named after the 52nd governor of New York and Cuomo’s father. Though plenty of political opponents have accused him of benefiting from political nepotism throughout the years, Cuomo has used his upbringing in New York politics as proof that he’s as prepared for City Hall as one can be.
Cuomo noted at Wednesday’s event that he, Paterson, and Wright grew up with fathers in New York politics, all of whom taught their sons the craft of governing. For the current Democratic frontrunner by most estimates, being a beneficiary of the Cuomo Democratic political dynasty at a time of overwhelming upheaval coming from the United States’ right wing is a serious advantage.
“They taught us that respect, that politics, government, is not just something you pick up,” Cuomo said. “It’s an art form, you have to learn it, you have to practice it. It’s something that you have to really immerse yourself in for years. And that’s what the three of us did by their example.”
Cuomo argued that he has become an expert in the art of politics, preparing him for the role of mayor. Compared to bridges and airports, the task of increasing the city’s affordable housing — a cornerstone issue in the 2025 campaign — is nothing, Cuomo said.
Cuomo then made a dig at his less politically-experienced opponents in the primary race. Mamdani, who is Cuomo’s main competition and who pulled ahead in a poll released Wednesday night, is 33 and would bring to City Hall four years of experience in the New York State Assembly.
“You now have people looking at politics and they say, ‘Well I can be governor, I can be an assemblyman, I can be this.’ Yeah, the old expression: You don’t know what you don’t know,” Cuomo said. “It always looks easy when you don’t know what it is you’re talking about. There is nothing easy about governing New York City. There’s nothing easy about governing New York State, I promise you that. Experience matters, and knowledge matters.”
Cuomo’s campaign and the candidate himself have hit Mamdani over his level of political experience numerous times. Mamdani has countered that while he lacks Cuomo’s experience in Albany, he also lacks his baggage — particularly allegations of sexual harassment that drove him out of Albany in 2021 and accusations that his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic led to thousands of deaths in New York nursing homes.
To Cuomo, the election of a less-experienced politician to the city’s highest office is not only foolish, it’s dangerous. New York City, Cuomo said, “is in trouble,” in no small part due to Trump’s targeting of immigrants and government programs providing heavy assistance to New York City. With Trump’s deployment this week of 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 active duty marines to quell protests and assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Cuomo predicts that Trump wants to do the same in New York.
Though Mayor Eric Adams said earlier this week that he doesn’t “forsee” Trump sending federal troops to New York to dispel the city’s ongoing protests, both Cuomo and Mamdani released plans for how they would deal with the situation as mayor if Trump tried the same in the Big Apple. At Wednesday’s event, Cuomo noted his prior experience dealing with Trump as evidence that he’s the best candidate to stand up to the president. He recounted a phone call he had with Trump in 2020 when the president was deploying federal troops to cities across the country amid protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
“I said, ‘Listen, you may play that game in Chicago, in Cleveland, in St. Louis, but that’s not going to play here in New York. We don’t need your federal troops here in New York … we are totally capable of taking care of our own backyard,'” Cuomo said. “And you know what he did? He backed off. You know why? He wants no piece of New York.”
A less experienced leader for the city, Cuomo argued, would not know how to handle Trump’s strongman tactics.
“We do have trouble, and there is a lot to do. But the good news is, we know how to do it. The good news is, we have dealt with a lot worse. We dealt with 9/11, that destroyed all of downtown, petrified the entire city, people were moving out. We dealt with Superstorm Sandy … we dealt with COVID,” Cuomo said. “We can do this, because we are New Yorkers, we are tough, and New Yorkers are smart.”
Speaking to reporters after the event, Cuomo denied any wrongdoing related to his sexual harassment allegations and made an analogy to the profession of journalism to illustrate his point about the necessity of experience.
“There’s an art form, there’s a science to it. Same way with government, you have to understand what you’re doing,” Cuomo said. “We’ve spent our lifetime learning how different facets of the government work.”
On Thursday, two days before the start of early voting in the mayoral primary, Cuomo’s campaign released a television ad almost entirely centered around Mamdani’s inexperience and the threat posed to the city by Trump. Though Cuomo frequently avoids using Mamdani’s name on the campaign trail, even when making clear reference to the assemblymember, the ad refers to Mamdani directly as a “33-year-old dangerously inexperienced legislator.”
