Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo lost the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman, by more than 12 percentage points.
Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Cuomo to Fight On in Mayor’s Race After Bruising Primary Loss to Mamdani

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced he would run as a third-party candidate against Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor.

by · NY Times

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has decided to run in the general election for mayor, urged on by supporters anxious that his withdrawal would nearly guarantee Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s victory and put New York City in the hands of the far left.

The decision by Mr. Cuomo, who had been questioning whether to run after his crushing Democratic primary defeat by Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman and a democratic socialist, was announced Monday afternoon in a 90-second video.

“I am truly sorry that I let you down. But as my grandfather used to say, when you get knocked down, learn the lesson and pick yourself back up and get in the game. And that is what I’m going to do,” Mr. Cuomo said. “The fight to save our city isn’t over.”

Mr. Cuomo has pledged that if the polls show that he is not the highest-ranked challenger to Mr. Mamdani by mid-September, he will drop out of the race, according to a letter he sent to supporters.

He will encourage Mr. Mamdani’s other challengers — Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent; Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee; and Jim Walden, an independent — to do the same. Mr. Walden hatched the plan recently, and former Gov. David A. Paterson endorsed the idea last week.

Mr. Cuomo was the prohibitive favorite for much of the Democratic primary for mayor, leading in most polls until the very end. A super PAC spent more than $22 million to promote his candidacy and launch a late-stage attack on Mr. Mamdani, once it became clear that he posed a threat to Mr. Cuomo.

Mr. Mamdani, who had been a relatively unknown assemblyman from Queens, was a distant second in most polls, but closed the gap after the race’s two debates, capitalizing on his engaging social media campaigns, an extensive ground effort by volunteers and a single-minded focus on affordability. He ultimately defeated Mr. Cuomo by more than 12 percentage points.

Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one in New York City, and the winner of the Democratic primary is usually a heavy favorite to win the general election.

The primary defeat seemed to temporarily humble Mr. Cuomo, who credited Mr. Mamdani with running a better race and openly questioned whether he still had a viable path to becoming mayor. His rededication to running as an independent on his “Fight and Deliver” ballot line was first reported by NewsNation, a news network where Mr. Cuomo’s brother, Chris Cuomo, hosts a show.

Mr. Cuomo’s defeat was attributed, at least partially, to a lackluster campaign in which he assumed an air of inevitability around his nomination. The former governor drove to events in his Dodge Charger, lived in an $8,000-per-month rental apartment in Sutton Place and avoided appearing onstage at forums with his primary opponents, pursuing a so-called Rose Garden strategy.

Even some of the governor’s supporters questioned whether he wanted the job.

Mr. Cuomo addressed some of those concerns in a letter to his supporters, acknowledging that he had “made mistakes” in the primary.

“All my life I’ve been known for pushing too hard, but this time I played it safe, believing in the polls that said our campaign was way ahead, and not giving New Yorkers the campaign they deserved,” he wrote in the letter.

“I was not aggressive enough in communicating my vision for a fairer, safer, more affordable New York, or in debunking and exposing Zohran Mamdani’s unrealistic proposals and divisive agenda. I promise you, I will not make that mistake again,” he added.

Mr. Cuomo pledged in the letter to “run a very different kind of campaign” than he did in the primary. “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,” he wrote.

His video on Monday also seemed like a nascent attempt to showcase that approach. Mr. Cuomo was shown walking on the Upper East Side in a casual, white short-sleeved shirt, shaking hands, taking selfies and speaking with New Yorkers. At one point, he carried an iconic symbol of the city, a Greek-styled blue-and-white coffee cup.

But Mr. Cuomo also mispronounced Mr. Mamdani’s name as “Mandani” — a habit that gave Mr. Mamdani a viral moment in the second debate when he chastised Mr. Cuomo onstage for repeatedly making the error.

Jeffrey Lerner, a spokesman for Mr. Mamdani, said that Mr. Cuomo’s renewed interest in the race, as well as the potential deal with other challengers, did not serve New York City’s interests.

“While Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams are tripping over themselves to cut backroom deals with billionaires and Republicans, Zohran Mamdani is focused on making this city more affordable for New Yorkers,” Mr. Lerner said in a statement. “That’s the choice this November.”

In the wake of his shocking defeat, much of the city’s Democratic establishment has abandoned Mr. Cuomo, with elected officials and unions defecting to endorse Mr. Mamdani.

Others, especially in the business and real estate communities, are more focused on trying to prevent Mr. Mamdani’s victory and would like to clear the field for either Mr. Adams or Mr. Cuomo.

“I’ve seen the math,” Mr. Walden said. “If the four of us split the vote in any form or combination, all we’re doing is electing this 33-year-old, paper-thin-résumé socialist, which will be terrible for New York.”

But Mr. Adams, who faced record low poll numbers even before he was indicted on federal corruption charges (which were later dropped by the Trump administration), and Mr. Sliwa have said they have no intention of dropping out of the race.

Mr. Adams is holding fund-raisers with unlikely allies for a Democratic mayor of New York City, including many Republicans. He has also sought to secure the support of the city’s business leaders. Before hiring a new campaign manager, Mr. Adams had the job candidate meet with the billionaire financiers Bill Ackman and Daniel S. Loeb, among other wealthy leaders.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday, the mayor said that he did not trust Mr. Cuomo to abide by any deal to drop out of the race, adding that voters have already made their rejection of him clear in the primary.

“Andrew is a double-digit loser in the primary,” Mr. Adams said, adding, “He had his opportunity.”

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said that Mr. Cuomo received more votes in this year’s primary during his second-place finish — roughly 440,000 votes — than Mr. Adams did in the 2021 primary and argued that Mr. Cuomo still had an opportunity to win. (Mr. Adams received about 404,000 votes when he won the primary in 2021.)

“This is a primary that the mayor didn’t participate in,” Mr. Azzopardi said, adding that Mr. Cuomo received “more votes three weeks ago than the mayor got four years ago, when he was at the height of his popularity and people actually wanted to give him a chance.”

Mr. Mamdani said Monday at a rally in Manhattan, where he received the endorsement of a union representing musicians, that Mr. Cuomo was having a difficult time accepting his loss.

“I think he’s struggling to come to terms with what Tuesday meant,” Mr. Mamdani said. “We spent an entire campaign being told that it was inevitable for Andrew Cuomo to be the next mayor, and he believed that himself.”

Mr. Mamdani said that the primary was a “repudiation of the politics” that Mr. Cuomo had practiced and that his own victory reflected a “hunger for a new kind of politics — a politics focused on working people.”

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