NY’s Ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo Eyes Race For City Hall

By FrumNews.com 

Cuomo running for NYC Mayor? New York’s disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo is eying a bid to be New York City’s mayor next year, potentially taking a shot at taking the office from Mayor Eric Adams. Reportedly, he has reached out to the union leaders and other political buffs in NYC to see if a run is feasible.

In his heyday, the three-term governor was seen as a potential presidential candidate and a darling in democratic circles, with an approval rating high as the COVID-19 pandemic raged in New York. But as his favorability hit highs, Cuomo’s seat on the top of the New York political scene ended swiftly with his disastrous nursing home policies and harassment allegations, which led to his close allies abandoning the once-powerful governor during his impeachment inquiry and subsequent resignation.

In early 2021, an investigation conducted by NY Attorney General Letitia James concluded that the Cuomo administration undercounted COVID-19-related deaths at nursing homes by as much as 50%. Other investigations brought to light other terrible practices during the pandemic.

While in office, Andrew Cuomo and his lieutenant governor and successor, Kathy Hochul, “redlined” and targeted New York’s Frum communities by adding special restrictions, regulations, and punishments many months after the pandemic reached its peak and just weeks after tens of thousands of New Yorkers protested, rioted and looted, without any social distancing due to COVID-19 in Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan. He also blamed the frum community at every opportunity for the rising rates of COVID-19, even when they were the same as the rest of the City.

Two years later, Cuomo is looking at a comeback, according to a report in the New York Daily News. Reportedly, Cuomo has been laying the groundwork for a potential run for mayor, to see if a run is feasible and build a coalition that might bring him all the way to Gracie’s mansion.

Multiple labor sources told the Daily News that Cuomo has been in frequent contact with union leaders recently to discuss what he [Cuomo] views as failures on both the city and state levels. According to Cuomo, these issues could reflect poorly on both Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul. Cuomo floated the possibility of a primary run with Union leaders, though it remains unclear under what circumstances that might happen.

One source described Cuomo as making a “direct” pitch, albeit one with an “if.”

Sources say that if Mayor Adams doesn’t run in 2025, Cuomo will most likely jump into the race. If Adams does run for reelection, it is less likely Cuomo will run, but he hasn’t ruled it out yet.

After his resignation, Cuomo stayed low and avoided the spotlight and the press. That strategy shifted in the past months with him speaking publicly about the pro-Hamas campus protests in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, against congestion pricing and bail reform (both of which he advocated for and signed into law when he was the governor) and other socialist issues that he is now taking a full 180-degree turn, at least ‘rhetorically’.

“He’s just circling around the wounded prey to see who he’s going to take out,” a source told the Daily News. “He’s looking for the opportunity to reinsert himself into public office, back into everyone’s lives.”

Whether or not Cuomo runs in the 2025 race for City Hall, his lust for power in the state has not shifted. He still wants a seat in New York politics.

***

Up until the start of COVID-19, former Governor Cuomo was a friend and ally to our community, but apparently, the pandemic revealed people’s true intentions.

A Boro Park Mechaneches that spoke with FrumNews.com said: If the NYC mayoral democratic primary is head to head between Adams and Cuomo, the frum vote will be going with Eric Adams since he has a proven track-record and strong leadership helping the frum community, Not just physically…but as well by Ruchnius Mayor Adams strongly supports our Yeshivas, not because he has to-but because he gets it and wants to. In fact the entire anti-Yeshiva movement and Gezeirahs against Yiddishe Chinuch all began under the Cuomo administration and by Cuomo appointees in Albany, NY.

One Flatbush reader told FrumNews.com that Mayor Adams “is far from perfect, and there’s a lot he can improve for the Frum neighborhoods, specifically regarding limiting the number of planned city-funded homeless shelters currently being built near Flatbush (both north and east of Flatbush), which will make crime skyrocket even more on the north/east outskirts of Flatbush.”

“But Mayor Adams is a good person at heart. He cares about his Jewish constituents, supports Eretz Yisroel, and, most importantly, understands our Kehilla’s needs. We just need him to do more for the safety and security of the Klal which is of great importance.”

“Cuomo, on the other hand, what he did to our community, and the way he did it, The Frum voters will not forgive, and we will not forget.”

Here King Cuomo, I had your plan properly visualized so people can understand how you’re going after the Jewish community with a malevolent vengeance: pic.twitter.com/mlTgVrjbFD

— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) October 15, 2020