Andrew Cuomo has decided to stay in this year’s
New York City mayoral race
— but there’s a caveat.
According to sources familiar with his thinking, Cuomo will announce this week he’s going to mount a genuine independent bid in November’s general election.
Cuomo, who
lost last month’s Democratic mayoral primary by a 12% margin
to upstart socialist Zohran Mamdani, will still leave the door open to bowing out of the November contest, though, said the sources, who spoke with the Daily News on condition of anonymity.
That’s because Cuomo favors a proposal, first floated by independent mayoral hopeful
Jim Walden
, to commission a poll in mid-September testing the strengths of each of the remaining mayoral candidates in head-to-head matchups with Mamdani.
Under that proposal, whichever candidate performs best in such a scenario would stay in the race, while the rest would drop out, a strategy designed to maximize chances of defeating Mamdani. Cuomo himself would in such a scenario drop out if he didn’t perform strongest in the potential poll, the sources noted.
It wasn’t immediately clear which day Cuomo plans to formally make his announcement. His spokesman Rich Azzopardi didn’t immediately return a request for comment Monday.
Cuomo’s decision to stay in the race was
first reported
by NewsNation, where his brother, Chris Cuomo, is an anchor.
Cuomo, who
resigned as governor in 2021
amid sexual and professional misconduct accusations he denies, has continued to poll as the strongest potential candidate to take on Mamdani since the June 24 primary.
However, Walden appears to be the only candidate willing to play along with Cuomo’s proposal.
Mayor Adams, who dropped out of the Democratic primary amid
fallout from his corruption indictment
, has made clear he will stay in November’s race no matter what, running on an independent line.
On Monday, Frank Carone, Adams’ reelection campaign chairman and longtime political confidant, slammed Cuomo’s latest proposal and reaffirmed the mayor is staying in the race.
“To even suggest that Mayor Adams, with his record of delivering for working class New Yorkers and bringing the city to where we are today post-COVID, should somehow agree to a fakakta poll suggests either a delusion or arrogance. Maybe both,” Carone told The News. “Either way, it will not happen!”
Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa, meantime, has said only death would prevent him from running in November’s election.
