The End of Andrew Cuomo

The Politics of Pronunciation

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When Andrew Cuomo stepped onto the debate stage Wednesday night, he needed a strong performance to maintain any hope of an improbable upset on November 4th.

Cuomo, heavily favored in the Democratic Primary, had been felled in dramatic and humiliating fashion by a gifted upstart less than half his age. Yet, despite his thirteen point drubbing in June, the former Governor of New York soldiered onto the General Election, running as an Independent, determined to rewrite his political obituary.

Zohran Mamdani, his opponent, was the anti-Cuomo. Where the career politician avoided unscripted interactions and retail politics altogether, the democratic socialist insurgent, who had spent a small lifetime knocking doors, relished any chance to talk to voters. When the son of Albany stuck to the familiar playbook of the Democratic Party establishment and its attendant consultant class, the son of an acclaimed filmmaker leaned into creativity and belonging, reinventing the art of campaigning along the way. And, for what the thirty-three year old lacked in experience, he made up for with youthful energy and earnest charisma, compared to his scandal-scarred and overly-cautious opponent. If Mamdani was Michael Jordan, a supremely talented overachiever, then Cuomo was Karl Malone, always coming up short in the clutch.

With Election Day around the corner, polls showed Cuomo trailing Mamdani by double-digits.

The debate was his last chance.

Cuomo’s entrance was serenaded by bagpipes, played by volunteers wearing all Black. After falling flat in the previous debate, the evening had all the makings of a funeral for his storied career.

Nonetheless, Cuomo started out strong, routinely emphasizing Mamdani’s lack of experience. “You’ve never even introduced a bill on housing,” he asserted, to steady applause. Asked his position on the three ballot measures (Questions 2-4), Mamdani, unwilling to irk the Democratic City Council or anger the influential and well-funded pro-housing forces in the city, pointedly refused to answer the question. The anti-politician was caught being a politician. This was followed by another bruising exchange for the Democratic nominee, as Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa took turns pillorying Mamdani for refusing to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.”

Through the first 40 minutes, the listless Cuomo was full of life, the dynamic Mamdani on the defensive.

However, Mamdani soon turned the tide. After Cuomo complained about a lack of state funding for housing, Mamdani effortlessly trapped his opponent: “We just had a former Governor say in his own words that ‘the city is getting screwed by the state.’ WHO was leading the state? It was YOU.”

Since the Democratic Primary, Cuomo, now a longshot third party candidate, has avoided the same degree of media scrutiny he experienced prior to the Primary, as Mamdani, the heavily-favored Democratic nominee, has become the main source of press attention and vetting. Thus, in the cross-examination portion of the debate, Mamdani shined the light back on Cuomo’s skeletons, none more damning than his alleged sexual harassment of female state employees.

“Mr. Cuomo, in 2021, thirteen different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment. One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening. You sought to access her private gynecological records. She cannot speak because you launched a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak. What do you say to the thirteen women that you sexually harassed?” — Zohran Mamdani

“If you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature…” his opponent stammered, before pivoting. The arrogant and heartless Cuomo was back.

Nonetheless, the evening was a rare bright spot in an otherwise forgettable campaign. The political class agreed, describing the former Governor’s showing as “much better than last time,” and even “pretty good.”

However, mere moments after the debate concluded, almost no one was talking about Andrew Cuomo’s performance, for their attention was focused elsewhere…

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It has been bewildering to watch Andrew Cuomo, the son of a beloved three-term Governor, the most powerful man in New York State for a decade, and the talk of the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic, reduced to such a diminished state.

It is not so much that the sixty-seven year old Cuomo is old, but more that his understanding of political power, media, the Democratic Party, and New York City are ancient — despite spending a lifetime in the arena.

After the primary debacle, Cuomo’s institutional support abandoned him in droves. Immediately, the city’s largest labor unions defected to the Democratic nominee who would soon negotiate their contracts. They were followed by many elected officials, particularly those who, fearing a primary challenge from the Democratic Socialists of America, watched Mamdani handily win their districts. His high dollar consultants, eager to preserve their other business before the city, left the campaign (some of whom leaked internal conversations to the press in the process). Even billionaire Bill Ackman, the perfect caricature of the feckless and entitled anti-Mamdani coalition, said that Cuomo was too “low energy” to continue. Only a handful of the former Governor’s most loyal and sycophantic aides stayed on for the General. Their autopsy was convenient and incomplete: Cuomo was too cautious, neglected retail politics, and remained anonymous on social media. After watching the Biden debacle last summer, Cuomo ran an equally moribund campaign — no questions, few public appearances, rooted in opposition rather than affirmation — save for the senility. There were little to no reflection on Cuomo’s losing and lacking message: that the city was a hellscape only he could save, despite half a lifetime spent in the suburbs and Manhattan’s toniest enclaves. No, with a few simple tweaks and increased media scrutiny of Mamdani, the listless Cuomo could be competitive in November. “He’s read the polling,” they insisted. But could an old dog learn new tricks?

The answer was resoundingly no. For a couple weeks, Cuomo made a series of direct-to-camera videos in Mamdani’s mold — visiting seniors in Co-op City, showcasing his love of muscle cars, choosing a campaign theme song with his daughter — in an attempt to humanize the man with terrible favorability ratings. However, these productions were abandoned quickly, replaced by AI slop: somehow even more hollow and cringe. Now, Cuomo outsources his social media to a handful of “meme lords” and “comedy influencers,” each more controversial than the last, in a futile and pathetic attempt to manufacture attention. Governor Cuomo, who once ruled New York State with an iron fist, would have never tolerated such nonsense.

Absent genuine enthusiasm, desperately needing to counter Mamdani’s “emotional momentum,” Cuomo’s only move was to try and consolidate the field and take his chances with the older, more politically moderate General Election. The problem was that neither Eric Adams nor Curtis Sliwa wanted to defer to the man who had been so handily defeated months earlier. For this was Andrew Cuomo’s modus operandi, pushing aside those who stood in the way of his ambition. Twenty years ago, on the brink of salvaging his career, Cuomo and his allies forced Charlie King out of the Democratic Primary for Attorney General, so as not to split the Black vote. As AG, Cuomo frequently marginalized New York’s first Black Governor, David Paterson; wounded by scandal, the incumbent eschewed re-election, clearing the deck for Cuomo to ascend to the state’s top post. No wonder his contemporaries believed he was arrogant and entitled. Two aligned operatives, pollster Mark Penn and former Council President Andrew Stein, personally briefed President Donald Trump on Cuomo’s chances versus Mamdani in a one-on-one race, a secret plot unearthed by The New York Times. The saga left Cuomo damaged by a pseudo-association with the unpopular GOP President in overwhelmingly liberal New York City, without a comparable boost among conservatives. And, while Adams eventually dropped out (but not before ripping Cuomo in a bitter, live televised rant outside of Gracie Mansion), Sliwa is adamant he would only leave the race in a body bag. When asked on WABC whether he would consider working for a Cuomo administration, Sliwa asserted he would “rather be tortured and murdered than work for Andrew Cuomo,” comparing the experience to the final scene of Braveheart. Instead of marginalizing Sliwa’s support, the GOP nominee experienced a boost in the polls, as the red beret wearing Republican gleefully cast Cuomo as an avatar of political insiders and the billionaire class. As Governor, Cuomo could ruthlessly bully others, for he had no true peers, only subordinates; but as a retread candidate with no power, he cannot.

With Early Voting beginning tomorrow, the math is not in the former Governor’s favor:

For every one vote Andrew Cuomo gains from the bungalows of Breezy Point, a gated community of conservative Irish civil servants, or the single family homes of Throggs Neck, home to the Puerto Rican and white ethnic homeowner class; he loses two votes to Zohran Mamdani on the Upper West Side, historically-Jewish and steadfastly liberal, or the working-class Caribbean neighborhoods of East Flatbush and Canarsie, among the bluest blocks in the United States. Mamdani is poised to crush Cuomo in white-collar Manhattan and Brooklyn, the most vote-rich and Democrat-leaning boroughs of New York City. A bloodbath, even more pronounced than the Primary, will commence throughout the Commie Corridor. The age splits between Mamdani, 34, and Cuomo, 67, will only widen; with the former annihilating the latter among voters under-45 (close to half of the electorate last November). The alienated and disillusioned working-class masses of the Bronx and Queens have little incentive to turn out for the former Governor, an avatar of the dysfunctional status quo and loathed political establishment. Were the city’s demographics fixed in 2001, Cuomo would be the heavy favorite; in 2025, he has a snowball’s chance in hell.

To pull off an improbable upset, Cuomo, not Mamdani, will need to expand the electorate. However, given Cuomo’s supporters have the lowest enthusiasm (by far) of any major candidate, that will prove extremely difficult.

His solution? Fear.

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Halfway through the debate, Cuomo’s campaign posted — and quickly deleted — an AI-generated ad depicting “criminals for Zohran Mamdani,” where a shoplifting Black man in a keffiyeh, a domestic abuser, a pimp, a drug dealer, and a drunk driver collectively declare their support for Mamdani. The video also portrayed Mamdani eating rice with his hands, a “common practice among South Asians that has been frequently invoked by the right to mock Mr. Mamdani,” according to The New York Times. The final shot was New York City in smoldering ruins, overlaid with an ominous “PAID FOR BY CUOMO NYC” tag. Hours later, another TV ad, from a pro-Cuomo, business-funded super PAC, placed “JIHAD ON NYC” over Mamdani’s face.

As the Internet reacted to the former Governor’s most recent blunder, he sped away to Madison Square Garden, sitting courtside next to incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who quit the race weeks earlier. After calling the former Governor “a snake and a liar,” Adams endorsed Cuomo the following day. If Cuomo fanned the flames of Islamophobia, his newest ally poured gasoline on the fire, telling reporters: “New York can’t be Europe, you see what is playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism. Those Islamic extremisms that are burning churches in Nigeria, that are destroying communities in Germany, that have taken over the logical thinking.”

Yesterday morning, Cuomo, talking to conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg, asked: “God forbid, another 9/11 — can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?”

“He’d be cheering,” Rosenberg responded. Cuomo, who never visited a mosque during his decade-long tenure as Governor, paused and chuckled before saying, “That’s another problem.”

The episode marked the natural conclusion of a monthslong escalation of Cuomo’s rhetoric with respect to Mamdani’s faith, talking points which have since been echoed by JD Vance, Elon Musk, and white nationalists across the country.

Fifty years ago, New York City’s Italian population routinely faced discrimination. The patrician press, dominated by progressive WASPs, derided the more conservative Italians as uncouth and reactionary. They lacked a foothold in the labor movement: the Police Department and Transit Workers Union were tightly controlled by Irish bosses; while the United Federation of Teachers was overwhelmingly Jewish. The backbone of the lower and middle homeowner class, Italian Americans did not receive the government welfare of the Black and Puerto Rican underclass, nor the media clout of the upper-middle class intelligentsia. While Manhattan was filled with “the beautiful people,” the Outer Boroughs were home to the “stoop sitters.”

During the tumultuous period of the late 60’s and 70’s, two Italian Americans ran for Mayor of New York City: Mario Procaccino and Mario Cuomo.

They could not have been more different.

Procaccino, the son of a shoemaker who infamously coined the term “limousine liberal,” was far more than a candidate of cultural grievance. Stoking the flames of white working-class resentments, Procaccino trafficked in apocalyptic rhetoric with respect to the city’s poorest residents, overwhelmingly people of color, slowly moving beyond redlined ghettos into what were previously solely White neighborhoods. After Black and Puerto Rican students at City College went on a seventeen day strike, Procaccino ran commercials depicting the college in West Harlem burning down from a riot. New York’s elite liberal institutions, newspapers and celebrities, portrayed Procaccino as a caricature of himself for a series of embarrassing gaffes (tinged with anti-Italian prejudice). In defeat, Procaccino claimed the election was stolen.

Cuomo, running for Mayor in 1977, shattered many of these stereotypes, breaking barriers for Italian Americans in New York City. A well-respected lawyer, Cuomo was regarded as a bridge builder, tasked with managing tensions during polarizing housing fights in Forest Hills and Corona, both middle class white neighborhoods. As a Democrat, he won the votes of many who also cast ballots for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, without forsaking his liberal conscience. At great cost to his political ambitions, Cuomo eschewed reactionary rhetoric (his opponent regularly railed against “poverty pimps,” demeaning the welfare system), and famously declined to support the Death Penalty (a key factor cited in his defeat to Ed Koch, who did).

There are many parallels between the Italians of twentieth century New York and the city’s present-day Muslim community. Both established an economic foothold in the small merchant class, which the most fortunate parlayed into homeownership in the outer boroughs. Owing to the more traditional values espoused by their religion, Italians and Muslims, concerned with safety and crime, have been described as “moderate” and “conservative,” both culturally and politically, in a city where liberalism has always reigned. Italians and Muslims watched their festivals and gatherings broken up by the police, only to be told they were not intentionally targeted on the basis of their darker skin. Despite consistently growing, each remained an overlooked piece of the local political tapestry, until one of their own emerged to topple the pre-existing machine. And, when their leading politicians were maligned on account of their faith or cultural orientation, many throughout the Democratic Party establishment, past and present, remained silent. John Lindsay could not pronounce (or deliberately butchered) “PRO-CAC-CINO,” the same way Andrew Cuomo fails to pronounce “M-A-M-D-A-N-I”.

During his opening statement at the debate, Andrew Cuomo promised to “end the hate mongering and division that is tearing this city apart, because that is not who we are as New Yorkers.” Those words were tested yesterday, and Cuomo failed to channel the high-minded and inclusive prose of his father, instead opting for the bigoted and inflammatory rhetoric of Procaccino, lacking an affirmative message of his own. Similar behavior and tactics to those employed by Cuomo and his surrogates over the past 24 hours were once used to disparage and discredit his ancestors.

Our city has always been a home to new immigrants, who have come to the five boroughs in search of opportunity, hoping to be judged by the content of their character, rather than their skin color or religion. Let’s keep it that way.

For the New York City project will endure. Andrew Cuomo’s career will not.

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