“If former governor Andrew Cuomo acknowledged and apologized for his behavior toward women and said he has learned from the mistakes he made, would you consider voting for Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary or not?”
“How would you rate Governor Cuomo’s strength of leadership in a crisis situation during his time in office?”
“Who do you think would do a better job of managing New York City? Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams?”
These and other polling questions were leaked to political reporter Ben Max, who posted them on X last Friday, setting off a frenzy among local politicos about whether or not the former governor, who resigned in 2021 over allegations of sexual harassment, was attempting to mount a comeback.
The survey was conducted by Expedition Strategies, a Virginia-based firm that has polled for Cuomo before, and it included questions about respondents’ feelings regarding the job Adams is doing as mayor, whether or not they would consider voting for Cuomo for mayor or governor or senator against incumbent Democratic Kirsten Gillibrand, and asked how concerned they were Cuomo’s “actions toward women.”
“It’s the kind of poll you do when you are gearing up for a public push and want to have information on media and strategy and want to see where the opportunities are,” said Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies. “It’s the kind of poll that basically is asking, ‘Of all the great things Andrew Cuomo did, which was your favorite?’”
Part of the frenzy the poll induced was that it dropped just as Adams faces the most difficult stretch of his tenure: a sprawling federal criminal investigation into whether his campaign conspired to receive illegal campaign contributions from Turkey, a migrant crisis that has led to him to impose devastating budget cuts, and a new poll showing an anemic 37 percent approval rating.
Cuomo is in Sicily with his daughters this week, and several people close to him said there was nothing resembling a campaign operation in the offing. Yet Cuomo, who is currently registered to vote in Westchester County, has been taking the temperature of local political operatives and power brokers for months, before the investigation exploded into public view with an FBI search of the mayor’s chief fundraiser and agents seizing Adams’s phones. Cuomo has mused aloud about the possibility of buying or renting an apartment in Queens, the borough in which he was raised before his father became governor, in order to establish residency to hold office as mayor.
“The future is the future,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said in a statement. “And he gets these questions often, which I think are fueled by the fact that many people are facing a crisis in confidence in government at many levels and now view the circumstances in which he left office as the political railroading that it was.”
Several people close to Cuomo said that despite the timing of the poll and some of its questions, there remains almost no chance that he would run against Adams in 2025, even as the investigation heats up. The two centrist Democrats have been close, and Cuomo has been more of a defender of the mayor than even some of his would-be allies, telling Fox 5 that law enforcement have been “very heavy-handed here with the mayor, publicly humiliating the mayor. I haven’t heard anything that could suggest behavior that would justify what they are doing.” And regardless of what current polls say, running against the city’s second-ever Black mayor would be ugly.
Those close to Cuomo maintain that he is more likely to seek out his old job as governor than run for mayor. He maintains that he was unfairly pushed out of office by Attorney General Letitia James, whose office generated a brutal report that Cuomo had sexually harassed women as governor, leading Democrats to seek his impeachment before he quit. His base of support among Black voters and suburbanites would give him an advantage in a statewide race that he wouldn’t have in a citywide one, where even if Adams did not run there would likely be some figure from the Black or Hispanic community who would emerge. Plus, if Cuomo were to become mayor, much of the job would involve him beseeching his former deputy, Governor Kathy Hochul, for aid to the city, which seems unimaginable.
Cuomo is unlikely to enter any political contest in which he does not have a clear path to victory. In 2002, he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor against Carl McCall, who was then the state comptroller and had most of the party’s Establishment behind him in an effort to elect the state’s first Black executive. That race ended in humiliating fashion for Cuomo, who spent the next four years rebuilding his reputation. Afterwards, he mended fences with Black New Yorkers by becoming a champion of reforming the state’s draconian Rockefeller-era drug laws, hosting a rally in lower Manhattan that featured Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and Grandmaster Flash. This time around, Cuomo has been regularly speaking out at Black churches on the need for common-sense solutions on issues like guns and crime. In various other appearances, he has castigated Albany and Washington for not doing more to help the city combat the migrant crisis and antisemitism.
Still, with Manhattan federal prosecutors overseeing a grand jury, there is a distinct possibility that charges would be leveled against Adams or others in his orbit. Should the mayor be indicted and resign before his term is up, there would be a two-month campaign to replace him, one that would likely invite comers of all stripes, with public advocate Jumaane Williams serving as acting mayor. In that case, Cuomo’s name recognition and millions of dollars in his war chest would have a big advantage, especially over a split field.
But all of that is, as one Cuomo adviser put it, “a fantasy-land scenario,” and one that Cuomo himself has not been willing to engage in publicly. When asked what he would do if there were a special election to replace Adams, he said that it was like asking him if he would be willing to be an offensive lineman for the Jets.
“I don’t deal in hypotheticals,” he said.
