For Cuomo, Trump Is a Friend Without Benefits
Donald Trump’s apparent intervention in New York’s mayoral race is great news for the anti–Zohran Mamdani forces only if the president has an actionable plan for dragging Curtis Sliwa, the Republican, off the GOP ballot line. If he doesn’t — and knowing Trump, he probably hasn’t thought much of this through — Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, will have far more fodder for his general-election campaign against Andrew Cuomo and the rest of the field.
The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump had discussed the mayoral race in a phone call with Cuomo, a politician he has known for many decades. The two men have long been at odds but share a Queens lineage — a decade apart in age, they grew up only a few miles from each other — and the awareness of what it’s like to rise to prominence in the shadow of a powerful father. Trump, according to the Times, had asked a Republican congressman, Mike Lawler, about who among Mayor Eric Adams, Cuomo, and Sliwa has the best chance of defeating Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist who deeply unsettled the city’s elite by beating Cuomo in the June primary. Trump has also reportedly been briefed on the race by Mark Penn, a prominent pollster who worked for the Clintons, and Andrew Stein, a former City Council president and longtime friend of Trump’s, on polling that showed Cuomo could still be competitive as an independent candidate.
Indeed, Cuomo is highly unlikely to win in the fall, but his chances are greater than zero. Adams is deeply unpopular, struggling with record-low approval ratings, and Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder, won less than 30 percent of the vote four years ago and shows no signs of being able to build on that total. Cuomo was the front-runner in the Democratic primary for months before collapsing in late May; Mamdani surged, buoyed by his massive volunteer operation, and Cuomo crumbled after running a lackluster Rose Garden campaign. (Disclosure: In 2018, when I ran for office, Mamdani was my campaign manager.)
Cuomo has been banking on a friendlier general-election environment with moderate Democrats and Republicans potentially flocking to him to stop Mamdani. His association with Trump, however, can only mildly help him with these Republicans while poisoning the well with a vast majority of left-leaning voters. Even though Trump, last year, won more votes in New York City than any GOP presidential candidate in several decades, he barely managed 30 percent against Kamala Harris. Since then, his approval rating in New York State has cratered, and independents who warmed to him a year ago are now more skeptical.
Mamdani has already been blasting away at Cuomo’s ties to Trump, and that will only continue as the election enters the home stretch. An inexperienced socialist is, in theory, vulnerable in the general election, but Cuomo is far from the ideal candidate to topple him. He resigned in disgrace following accusations of sexual harassment, and his COVID-era scandals haven’t been forgotten. Mamdani, as the official Democratic nominee, can probably eat into some of Cuomo’s support from the primary, and he has already received endorsements from labor unions who initially backed Cuomo. It’s unclear, too, whether Cuomo will benefit from massive super-PAC spending again. Some wealthy donors are eager to fund anti-Mamdani efforts, but plenty won’t want to plow cash into a losing cause — especially when they must also fret over cultivating relationships with a probable future mayor.
Trump could help defeat Mamdani by hiring away Sliwa for a job in Washington, D.C., taking him out of New York and permitting him to legally remove his name from the ballot. Sliwa has flatly rejected the idea. Even if he accepted Trump’s theoretical offer, it’s not obvious Cuomo would immediately stand to benefit. Perhaps if Adams also left the race — another long shot, given the fact that he’s the incumbent — and the general election became purely Cuomo versus Mamdani, there would be a stronger chance for a Mamdani defeat. The trouble again is Cuomo: In a one-on-one matchup, his negatives would be exposed anew and Mamdani would have plenty of cash (and his own super-PAC) to hammer away on his failures as governor.
The reality for the anti-Mamdani business leaders and politicians is that they have few, if any, good options for a counterattack. Had they been more organized and recruited a well-regarded centrist into the election many months ago — a Michael Bloomberg–like contender campaigning as an independent — they’d have more hope. The deadline for creating an independent ballot line and running a candidate, however, has long passed. This is what they are left with: a mayor who was indicted on corruption charges, a former governor who had to resign in disgrace, and a red-beret-wearing Republican who is more performance artist than serious politician. And now with Trump looming, Mamdani has even more in his arsenal. Cuomo, tarred as MAGA, is going to squirm.