Cuomo says he’ll problem progressive Zohran Mamdani basically election after being trounced within the Democratic major.
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 Social gathering major 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, once you get knocked down, study 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 struggle to avoid wasting our metropolis isn’t over.”
Mamdani’s 12-point win over Cuomo within the Democratic major has electrified progressives and pushed pro-business Democrats, cautious of his embrace of progressive financial insurance policies and critical stance in direction of Israel, to hunt an alternate after the bruising major defeat.
The final election will happen in November, with Mamdani going through off in opposition to Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who trails in most polls and whose tenure has been marred by a collection of corruption scandals. Anti-crime determine Curtis Sliwa can 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 major evening, once we confronted Andrew Cuomo and received that race by greater than 12 factors with essentially the most votes of any Democratic nominee in New York Metropolis major historical past,” Mamdani mentioned in remarks responding to Cuomo’s entry into the final 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 of the near-prohibitive favorite to win town’s Democratic major, the principle contest for the mayoralty within the liberal stronghold. However he steadily misplaced floor to an brisk 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 reminiscent of free public buses and the creation of city-run grocery shops that may supply important items at extra reasonably priced costs.
Polling has proven that a lot of Mamdani’s populist financial insurance policies, reminiscent of elevating taxes on the rich to put money into social programmes and freezing rental costs in place for low-income tenants, take pleasure in widespread recognition. However Cuomo and different centrist Democrats have mentioned that they’re unrealistic and unworkable.
“My opponent, Mr Mamdani, affords slick slogans, however no actual options,” Cuomo mentioned in his video.
Cuomo and members of the Democratic Social gathering have additionally criticised Mamdani’s place on Israel, which he has mentioned is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
That opinion is consistent with a rising variety of worldwide human rights teams and human rights specialists, and comes at a second of rising disfavour in direction of Israel amongst US voters basically and Democratic voters particularly.
After the Worldwide Felony Courtroom (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 crew of attorneys who mentioned they’d defend the Israeli chief.
Mamdani’s major 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.
