Since his resignation from the Empire State’s governorship in 2021, Andrew Cuomo has been no stranger to the political fray. With frequent criticisms of everyone from his successor as governor to the far Left of the Democratic Party, Cuomo has demonstrated he knows how to remain in the spotlight.
The former governor’s next political undertaking appears to be a race this year for New York City mayor; recent polls even show him to be leading the field of announced or likely candidates. While many pundits cast doubt on the former governor’s chances, the reality is that Cuomo has a genuine shot at a political comeback in 2025.
Since he left as governor in 2021, Cuomo has staked out a position as a truth telling, centrist Democrat who isn’t afraid to do battle with his own party on everything from wokeism to Gaza to congestion pricing.
While the Big Apple has a reputation for being a hotbed of progressivism, Cuomo’s brand of politics appears to be what voters in America’s largest city, including Democratic primary voters, are embracing.
In the 2024 election, New York City saw a significant shift to the Right. President Trump received the largest share of the vote for a Republican presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush.
The Big Apple’s shift in 2024 even enabled the GOP to pick up a key state senate seat in Brooklyn, breaking the Democrats’ supermajority in the state legislature’s upper house. Cuomo may just be in the ideological sweet spot for the changing New York City electorate.
Ranked choice voting, the process for holding primary elections for local office in New York City, may also provide an important advantage to a Cuomo candidacy. City voters overwhelmingly approved RCV in a 2019 referendum, and 2025 will be the second mayoral election where it will be used to determine the winner of the Democratic primary.
Under ranked choice voting, voters in party primary elections for local New York City office rank their preferred candidates. In each round, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated.
The eliminated candidates’ votes are then reallocated to the remaining candidates in the contest. This continues until one candidate receives a majority of the vote. That candidate is the winner of the primary and the party’s nominee in the general election.
RCV could be Cuomo’s secret weapon for winning the Democratic primary. Already, most of the leading Democratic candidates are self-described progressives or democratic socialists.
This gives Cuomo an opportunity to consolidate support among more middle-of-the-road Democratic primary voters while the far-Left candidates for mayor cannibalize the left-wing vote. This is similar to how incumbent mayor Eric Adams prevailed in the 2021 Democratic primary for mayor.
In the 2021 race, Adams was widely viewed as the leading centrist candidate in the Democratic primary field.
Because of RCV, Adams, in the eighth round of voting and with only two candidates remaining, was able to squeak out a win with 50.4% of the vote.
If he continues his run for reelection, Adams could be an obstacle to Cuomo’s candidacy. Like Cuomo, Adams has established himself as a moderate and no friend of the Democratic Party’s left wing.
Since the October 7 attack on Israel, Adams, like Cuomo, has been unwavering in his support for the Jewish State. More recently, Adams has attempted to cozy up to the incoming Trump Administration. He held what appeared to be a productive meeting with the new administration’s border czar and even paid a visit to Mar-a-Lago.
The mayor, however, is under indictment on a number of federal charges, and his poll numbers are abysmal. A Marist poll from October 2024 showed that 74% of New Yorkers disapproved of Adams’ job performance, and a whopping 69% of poll respondents said wanted the indicted mayor to resign from office.
More recent polls show Adams continues to be in serious political trouble should he continue to seek reelection.
If Adams continues with a reelection campaign, the campaign is likely to find itself strapped for cash, making it difficult for the incumbent mayor’s candidacy to be viable.
New York City offers public matching funds for qualifying candidates running for municipal office. The mayor’s 2021 campaign participated in this program and relied on these funds.
Adams’ 2025 campaign, however, was recently denied public matching funds by the body that administers this program, the New York City Campaign Finance Board. The board could reverse its decision in the future if it is satisfied that Adams’ campaign is in compliance with the program’s rules, but the Board’s decision remains a major blow to Adams’ reelection chances.
While Mayor Adams has (so far) been blocked from public campaign matching funds and all of the other would-be mayors are scrambling to raise matching fund-qualified contributions, Cuomo would enter the race with few financial concerns.
The former governor has approximately $8 million in his state campaign account. New York City campaign finance rules may prevent him from using all of that money for a city race, but Cuomo would still start the race in a far stronger financial position than any of his rivals.
Mayor Adams’ legal and political woes undoubtedly provide an opportunity for Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor, and with ranked choice voting, moderate Democratic primary voters who like both Adams and Cuomo will be able to have their vote for one transferred to the other should their first choice be eliminated.
The Democratic primary for New York City mayor is on June 24, and should he enter the race, Andrew Cuomo, like his competitors, would need to begin the arduous process of collecting petition signatures on February 25.
Cuomo has only a few weeks left to decide on whether to jump into the race or not. If he does run, Cuomo will be a serious contender.
Joseph T. Burns is a partner in the law firm of Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC and a Republican election lawyer and political strategist.