Cuomo says he’ll problem progressive Zohran Mamdani generally election after being trounced within the Democratic main.
Andrew Cuomo has mentioned that he’ll run as an impartial within the race for New York Metropolis mayor, following a stinging loss to progressive upstart Zohran Mamdani within the Democratic Get together main final month.
The previous New York State governor, who resigned in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations, vowed to proceed his mayoral bid in a video posted to social media on Monday.
“As my grandfather used to say, while you get knocked down, be taught the lesson and decide your self again up and get within the sport. And that’s what I’m going to do,” mentioned Cuomo. “The combat to avoid wasting our metropolis isn’t over.”
Mamdani’s 12-point win over Cuomo within the Democratic main has electrified progressives and pushed pro-business Democrats, cautious of his embrace of progressive financial insurance policies and critical stance in the direction of Israel, to hunt an alternate after the bruising main defeat.
The final election will happen in November, with Mamdani dealing with off towards Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who trails in most polls and whose tenure has been marred by a sequence of corruption scandals. Anti-crime determine Curtis Sliwa may even be within the race because the Republican nominee.
“I welcome everybody to this race, and I’m as assured as I’ve been since three weeks in the past on main night time, after we confronted Andrew Cuomo and gained that race by greater than 12 factors with probably the most votes of any Democratic nominee in New York Metropolis main historical past,” Mamdani mentioned in remarks responding to Cuomo’s entry into the overall race.
“And we did so due to the truth that whereas Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams journey over themselves to make offers in again rooms with billionaires, we’re preventing for working New Yorkers.”
Cuomo was as soon as thought-about the near-prohibitive favorite to win town’s Democratic main, the principle contest for the mayoralty within the liberal stronghold. However he step by step misplaced floor to an lively marketing campaign by Mamdani.
The 33-year-old democratic socialist ran a marketing campaign sharply centered on cost-of-living and affordability points, selling insurance policies equivalent to free public buses and the creation of city-run grocery shops that may provide important items at extra reasonably priced costs.
Polling has proven that lots of Mamdani’s populist financial insurance policies, equivalent to elevating taxes on the rich to spend money on social programmes and freezing rental costs in place for low-income tenants, take pleasure in widespread reputation. However Cuomo and different centrist Democrats have mentioned that they’re unrealistic and unworkable.
“My opponent, Mr Mamdani, provides slick slogans, however no actual options,” Cuomo mentioned in his video.
Cuomo and members of the Democratic Get together have additionally criticised Mamdani’s place on Israel, which he has mentioned is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
That opinion is in keeping with a rising variety of worldwide human rights teams and human rights consultants, and comes at a second of rising disfavour in the direction of Israel amongst US voters generally and Democratic voters specifically.
After the Worldwide Prison Court docket (ICC) introduced it was issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, Cuomo, a agency backer of Israel, joined a workforce of attorneys who mentioned they’d defend the Israeli chief.
Mamdani’s main victory sparked a wave of Islamophobic attacks by supporters of Israel and members of the US proper, together with President Donald Trump, who has referred to as Mamdani a “communist” and mentioned he may strip him of his citizenship.