Oh-No Cuomo Turns The Big Apple Red?

A defining trait of politicians everywhere is the ability to nurture and manage an oversized ego. Few have demonstrated this with as much chutzpah as former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Having lost the Democratic primary for New York City mayor to socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani in a ranked-choice voting fiasco, Cuomo made headlines this week by announcing he would re-enter the race as an independent.

As political ego trips go, this one takes the cake.

We warned in these columns weeks ago about the perils of ranked-choice voting in New York City. Just because a computer algorithm processes ballots does not mean the winner commands a genuine mandate. In the first round of the Democratic mayoral primary, Mamdani secured 43.5 percent of the vote to Cuomo’s 36.4 percent — hardly a sweeping endorsement. Yet, as ranked-choice voting dictates, Mamdani prevailed only after the system redistributed second, third, and even lower-ranked choices, many of which were cast by voters who never intended him as their top pick. In the end, he finished with 56 percent to Cuomo’s 44 percent, according to the New York City Board of Elections.

The absurdity of this year’s race deepened when incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, a lifelong Democrat, chose not to contest the Democratic primary. The reason? The specter of Donald Trump. New York’s progressive leaders — including State Attorney General Letitia James and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — have built their careers on vilifying Trump. Adams, who was rumored to have cooperated with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement while facing a federal corruption probe, became persona non grata within the Democratic establishment. Denied a place on the party ticket, Adams opted to run as an independent, betting that his political base could still carry him in a general election unencumbered by ranked-choice voting.

Adams’s move opened the floodgates for the far left. Within days, State AG James, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders, former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, and a who’s who of the party’s extreme wing rallied behind Mamdani — perhaps the most radical candidate in the city’s history.

Cuomo, who resigned as governor amid sexual harassment allegations and faced scathing criticism for his disastrous pandemic nursing home policies, was initially the establishment’s fallback candidate. Without Adams in the primary, Cuomo’s name recognition and longstanding ties to Black and Hispanic communities vaulted him into a respectable second place. But even that performance fell short of expectations, particularly given that those same minority voters are likely to support Adams in the general election.

Now, with Cuomo re-entering the race as an independent, he risks playing the spoiler. Mamdani’s promises — a $30-per-hour minimum wage and $65 billion in new public housing when the city’s annual budget barely scrapes $112 billion — may sound like fantasy, but they are enough to galvanize a niche segment of voters enchanted by utopian visions. Cuomo’s continued presence on the ballot fractures the moderate vote that would otherwise consolidate around Adams and deliver control of New York City, the bastion of global capitalism, to a socialist.

Immediately after his first-round victory, Mamdani sat down with CNN’s Erin Burnett and shocked the world with his views on capitalism.

CNN: Do you like capitalism?

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: No. I have many critiques of capitalism. In the words of Dr. King decades ago, he said, ‘Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism; there must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.’

And that’s what I’m focused on, is dignity and taking on income inequality.

American politics is replete with examples of an ego-driven candidacy by a disgruntled politician running as an independent, only to turn results upside down on election day. The gold standard here is the candidacy of Ross Perot, a Texan billionaire and founder of Electronic Data Systems, who entered the 1992 presidential race. Perot shocked the political establishment by capturing 19 percent of the popular vote but not winning a single state in the Electoral College. However, Perot siphoned off enough votes to help elect Bill Clinton, a young moderate known for his political slipperiness—hence the nickname “Slick Willie.”

Clinton won the presidency with only 43% of the vote. In a more telling version of this statistic, 57% of Americans voted against Clinton but still had to accept him as their president. In hindsight, Clinton’s election proved to be a blessing. After Democrats were crushed in the 1994 midterms, Clinton pivoted to the center. He famously declared the era of big government was over and worked with Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich to reduce the deficit. Clinton eventually produced three consecutive budget surpluses. Unlike the prosperity that America enjoyed under Bill Clinton, a Mamdani victory in New York City would be catastrophic for generations to come.

Spoilers have also changed state political outcomes. In the 2010 Florida Senate Race, Charlie Crist ran as an independent after losing GOP support, splitting the anti-Marco Rubio vote and allowing Rubio to win — an example of a spoiler helping a Republican. In Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee ran as an Independent Governor, weakening Republicans and helping to ensure Democrats’ overall dominance in the state. Today, Rhode Island is a reliably blue state, which Democrats take for granted.

Back in New York City, business leaders on Wall Street and Madison Avenue are continuing to watch the Cuomo-Mamdani-Adams circus with growing dread. The prospect of Mamdani’s socialist agenda taking hold in America’s financial capital is real. His millionaire tax proposal threatens to drive top talent and entire companies out of the city, following the well-trodden paths to Florida and Texas. Yet, inside Mamdani’s ideological echo chamber, such warnings are dismissed with contempt. Attacking boardrooms and deriding corporate leaders has become the default strategy of his campaign.

In this scenario, Cuomo’s vanity project could deliver Mamdani a clear path to victory this November. If that happens, it would mark an extraordinary political outcome: a candidate with minimal broad-based support emerging as mayor of the nation’s largest city, thanks to a fractured opposition and Cuomo’s ego-driven spoiler campaign.

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