Cuomo Jolts New York’s Mayoral Race as His Challengers Attack

For months, the race for mayor of New York City felt stuck in suspended animation. No more.

The contest burst into motion on Sunday as a new front-runner, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, began a comeback campaign in Lower Manhattan, and Mayor Eric Adams and seven fellow Democrats fanned out across the city to try to stop him.

Fresh off announcing his candidacy, Mr. Cuomo, 67, reintroduced himself to fellow New Yorkers, thinner and grayer after three years in the political wilderness. He presented himself to a crowd of family and loyal supporters as a battle-tested executive ready to reassert control over a city “in chaos” while keeping an eye toward the national stage.

“At this time when the nation is searching for its soul, when it is divided as never before, when it’s questioning our democratic values, it’s questioning the very role of government, it’s questioning the balance of power,” Mr. Cuomo said, “New York must show the way forward and remind this country who we are at our best.”

After collecting endorsements from the carpenters’ and painters’ unions, the former governor wasted little time sharpening lines of attack accusing his rivals of adopting stances too far left on crime, homelessness and Israel.

“These politicians now running to be mayor made a terrible, terrible mistake,” Mr. Cuomo said. “They uttered the three dumbest words ever uttered by a public official: cut police funding. It created a city in chaos.”

He vowed to rebuild the New York Police Department, to move New Yorkers suffering from mental illness off the streets and to pursue policies that would accelerate the construction of new affordable housing.

It was a selective retelling of recent political history. Mr. Cuomo skipped over parts of his own record on the issues, including enacting changes as governor to eliminate cash bail for many crimes. Mr. Adams, Republicans and some Democrats argue that the new law contributed to a spike in crime.

Mr. Cuomo conspicuously made no mention of Mr. Adams, a fellow law-and-order moderate, whose scandal-plagued leadership Mr. Cuomo is trying to end. He did not mention President Trump.

Nor did he directly address the accusations of sexual harassment that ended his decade-long governorship in 2021, referring only to hitting an inevitable “tough spot” in his life. Mr. Cuomo has denied wrongdoing, but his opponents are determined to remind voters of the scandal.

His entrance into the race was met with immediate blowback from political forces as diverse as women’s rights organizations and The New York Post. The right-leaning tabloid slammed him on Saturday as “colossus of canards, a freak of fabrication, a behemoth of balderdash,” while the other candidates argued he had failed New York City as governor.

A Democratic-affiliated super PAC was already engaged to stop Mr. Cuomo. The group, New Yorkers for Better Leadership, held a call on Saturday to highlight stains on Mr. Cuomo’s record, including criticism from a woman whose mother died at a nursing home during the pandemic. Mr. Cuomo’s administration faced scrutiny from state officials and House Republicans over its efforts to conceal the total number of Covid-related deaths in nursing homes.

Near Mr. Cuomo’s rally, a group of his opponents held their own “Women Against Cuomo” rally to highlight his sexual harassment scandal. Tensions were high; women with sound systems shouted to union members who were waiting in line: “You are endorsing a sexual harasser!”

The group, which included a leader from the left-leaning Working Families Party, read from a deposition from one of the 11 women who accused Mr. Cuomo of sexual harassment.

Supporters of Mr. Cuomo who turned out on Sunday described different priorities.

Sheldon Samuel, a union painter from East Flatbush, Brooklyn, said he was most concerned with restoring a sense of safety to the city — and believed Mr. Cuomo had the track record to do so.

“Nobody’s perfect,” he said of the accusations against Mr. Cuomo. But Mr. Samuel, 49, said he had become alarmed by Mr. Adams’s apparent closeness to Mr. Trump and the state of the city.

“I have two young daughters,” he said. “I don’t want them to be going to school scared, going on the train scared.”

Mr. Cuomo’s opponents have reason to try to act quickly. Early polls have showed him well ahead of his rivals in the June primary. With the help of a friendly super PAC and a loyal network of donors, he is expected to outspend other Democrats in the race.

And yet, new potential rivals still loom. The City Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, is expected to decide in the coming days whether she will run for mayor.

Those already in the race took turns attacking Mr. Cuomo over the weekend.

Scott Stringer, the former city comptroller, released a combative video comparing Mr. Cuomo’s comeback attempt to that of Eliot Spitzer, the former governor who lost to Mr. Stringer in the 2013 comptroller race.

“We shocked a lot of people when we won that race,” Mr. Stringer said. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not shaking in my boots when people say Andrew Cuomo is the front-runner for mayor — the same Cuomo who has always put his ego and his interests ahead of our city.”

Brad Lander, the current comptroller who is running for mayor, held an “emergency” news conference to criticize Mr. Cuomo’s record. His spokeswoman added that the former governor’s launch was “almost as underwhelming as it was pathetic.”

And Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens, took the opportunity to knock both Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Adams.

“If New Yorkers want a corrupt bully with a record of alleged sexual misconduct, supporting Republicans, selling out to developers and exacerbating crises, they can just stick with the current mayor,” she said.

Mr. Adams has faced growing calls to resign over concerns that he is beholden to the president after the Trump administration moved to drop federal corruption charges against Mr. Adams. And while he maintains that he has a path to re-election, his campaign has been almost nonexistent.

Marching in a St. Patrick’s Day parade on Staten Island on Sunday, Mr. Adams declined to take a swipe at Mr. Cuomo.

“There’s a famous quote: Come one, come all,” he said, adding: “You can’t hide in the shadows. You have to come out and follow real positions, so I’m looking forward to it.”

He was not the only parade-goer who welcomed Mr. Cuomo’s entrance. Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder who is running for mayor as a Republican, said he relished the chance to take on either the mayor or the former governor in the fall.

“Anybody who grew up with Cuomo knows Cuomo,” he said. “He cannot reinvent himself.”

Olivia Bensimon and Mark Bonamo contributed reporting.