Rumors are swirling that ex-New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace three years ago, may run for mayor of New York City.
Cuomo has long told insiders he wouldn’t run for the position because he didn’t want to run against current NYC mayor Eric Adams, POLITICO reported. The two share a similar base of moderate, black Democrat voters.
But Adams was indicted this week, The Daily Wire reported, charged with bribery, fraud, and acting as a foreign agent. He faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
That indictment may have changed the game for Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 following allegations of sexual misconduct by nearly a dozen female staffers. But with Adams’s legal troubles, some insiders are suggesting Cuomo may run for mayor.
“I think he’s going to run,” Chris Coffey, a former adviser to ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Yang’s 2021 mayoral campaign, told POLITICO. “He was probably going to run no matter what, and a weakened, or out-of-the-race Eric Adams is a better bet for him.”
Cuomo also reached out to New York business and labor leaders last year to gauge interest in a potential mayoral run. But his spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, says that’s not going to happen.
“Governor Cuomo has spent a lifetime in public service fighting and delivering for the people of New York — that said, the speculation is premature as Governor Cuomo believes Mayor Adams is entitled to due process,” Azzopardi told The Daily Wire.
But, POLITICO reported, Cuomo’s political team is trying to create an aura of inevitability, even after the ex-governor testified before Congress about his disastrous COVID policies, The Daily Wire reported. Shortly before he testified, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a report that found Cuomo “edited” a state report that minimized the deaths that occurred in New York nursing homes during the pandemic, The Daily Wire reported.
“They [Cuomo and his then-staff] want to assert that that order is exactly the same as the federal CMS, which it is not,” Rep. Marc Molinaro said. “The state order says, ‘You shall take back individuals and you cannot deny them solely on the basis of COVID,’ which left them no option but to accept individuals that we knew would cause risk to the other patients.”
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“Andrew Cuomo was attempting to shift blame for what was a clear directive,” Molinaro continued. “When they identified and knew that the order was causing great loss, they subsequently cooked the books to suggest that the numbers of those who died in nursing homes were much less than we knew.”
His handling of COVID is not the only baggage Cuomo would carry in a mayoral election. He ultimately resigned after multiple female staffers, including former adviser Lindsey Boylan, accused him of sexual harassment. Boylan claimed in 2021 that Cuomo sexually harassed her “for years” and that “many saw it, and watched” and that she “could never anticipate what to expect: would I be grilled on my work (which was very good) or harassed about my looks.”
“Not knowing what to expect what’s the most upsetting part aside from knowing that no one would do a damn thing even when they saw it. No one. And I *know* I am not the only woman,” she continued. “I’m angry to be put in this situation at all. That because I am a woman, I can work hard my whole life to better myself and help others and yet still fall victim as countless women over generations have. Mostly silently. I hate that some men, like @NYGovCuomo abuse their power.”
Boylan is now speaking out about a potential Cuomo mayor candidacy, saying, “There is no fight I will not take on if this monster thinks he can slime himself into power once again.”
“It already is retraumatuzing (sic),” she said in a post on X. “Frankly it never stopped being traumatizing legally because he never stops abusing. But he didn’t just abuse his women staffers. New Yorkers, Andrew Cuomo abused you too. He abused you with his constant lies, bullying, and self-promotion. For years.”
There is no fight I will not take on if this monster thinks he can slime himself into power once again.
I would stand alone in front of millions of people. But luckily I do not have to. I have many good friends in the fight – millions of people I know and don’t know.
— Lindsey Boylan (@LindseyBoylan) September 27, 2024
