The Democrat’s fraught history is getting in the way of his pitch to Curtis Sliwa voters.
NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo is desperate for GOP votes in the New York City mayoral race — but Republican voters aren’t jumping on board to help.
The scandal-scarred ex-governor’s appeals to Republicans — grounded primarily around beating his frontrunning rival Zohran Mamdani — have not been subtle.
In recent days, Cuomo has appeared three times on Fox News in recent weeks to talk up his public safety plan. He dipped his toe into the “manosphere” podcast world popular with right-leaning young men by appearing on Logan Paul’s show. He said President Donald Trump slowed the flow of migrants and criticized former President Joe Biden’s handling of the crisis.
The 67-year-old Democrat’s pitch is aimed at voters who fear Mamdani’s victory next month but struggle with supporting long-shot Republican Curtis Sliwa, who Cuomo allies have branded a spoiler. That means Gotham’s scant Republicans are facing a difficult decision in the race for mayor: Support Sliwa or back Cuomo, a Democratic Party scion who once declared that conservatives should leave New York.
These days, Cuomo might wish enough hard-right voters stuck around so they could vote for him.
“I talked to a lot of Republicans and the thought of voting for Andrew Cuomo makes them vomit — or they would hold their nose and do it because they can’t stand the thought of a marxist in City Hall,” said former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who ran against Cuomo in the 2014 gubernatorial race. “Some of them would just stay home. The question is whether there would be enough of them out there for him to do it.”
Cuomo’s dash for Republican votes is cranking into a higher gear with less than two weeks to go before a mayoral election that Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is heavily favored to win. That prospect has set off alarm bells among New York’s wealthiest residents, moderates and Jewish voters who oppose his anti-Israel views.
The former governor’s bid to grasp the lead from Mamdani led to a successful effort to shove incumbent Mayor Eric Adams out of the race. Now, many of those same forces have turned to the Republican nominee, arguing that his continued presence in the campaign will only hurt Cuomo and lead to a Mamdani victory.
Sliwa so far has withstood pressure from the conservative New York Post editorial board, financier Bill Ackman and his radio station boss, billionaire John Catsimatidis, to drop out of the race. Republicans argue that Cuomo, a gun-control champion who signed a cashless bail law blamed for a rise in crime, is attempting to close a tough sale in a city where Democrats hold a massive enrollment advantage.
The moderate Cuomo’s fraught history with Republicans has alienated him from the left-leaning base of his own party and with GOP voters themselves — calling into serious question whether the former governor can find enough support in time to defeat the hard-left Mamdani. Cuomo is running as an independent after suffering a shocking loss at the hands of Mamdani in June’s Democratic primary.
His first term as governor included a productive working relationship with the Republicans who controlled the state Senate. The arrangement enabled him to rack up a series of early accomplishments, like the legalization of same-sex marriage — a measure that passed with GOP support. Yet he tacitly blessed a power-sharing arrangement between Republicans and a breakaway faction of Democrats — keeping his own party from fully controlling the chamber for years.
His feud with the left-leaning former Mayor Bill de Blasio — who sharply criticized Cuomo’s unwillingness to support Democratic power in the state Senate — cemented a toxic dynamic with his left flank, which has powered opposition to his mayoral comeback bid.
Yet many GOP voters have little love for the Democrat. His final years in office included approving criminal justice law changes favored by left-leaning activists and employing controversial Covid policies that rankled many Republicans. He has been a staunch supporter of abortion rights and gun control. And he railed against social conservatives who “have no place in the state of New York.”
The dynamic paints a picture of a candidate at home in a vanishing political middle and struggling to cobble together a centrist coalition in an age of political extremes.
“The funniest thing about Andrew Cuomo’s appeal to Republicans is how little the typical Republican voter finds him appealing,” Democratic state Sen. Mike Gianaris said. “He had an audience with Senate Republicans for years, but the voters seem to not be having it. But this is who he is. He’s always thumbed his nose at the progressive elements of the Democratic Party.”
Watch: The Conversation
Play Video43:58
Sen. Rand Paul and Katelyn Jetelina | The Conversation
Polling suggests Cuomo is drawing Republicans — as much as 37 percent of likely GOP voters, according to a Quinnipiac survey this month. Cuomo is also counting on a broader, more moderate electorate that did not cast ballots in the closed party primary. That includes a concerted effort to entice moderate Hindu, Muslim and Asian voters to back him over Mamdani. Support from those quarters, in part, will likely be fueled by his moderate positions on crime, like hiring 5,000 new cops, and the contrast he draws with Mamdani.
And that support is fueling calls among powerful Republicans for Sliwa to step aside in order to complicate Mamdani’s path to victory.
The most prominent efforts are coming from wealthy donors to Cuomo or his super PAC. Catsimatidis, a New York Republican powerbroker who owns the radio station Sliwa appears on, urged him to step aside. The New York Post editorial board called on Sliwa to “swallow the bitter pill” and suspend his campaign. Ackman, a hedge fund executive, wrote on X that “we are toast” if Sliwa doesn’t drop out.
Republicans have not held the Big Apple mayoralty since Michael Bloomberg, who later changed his registration to independent. Republican political strategists expect it would be a tall order — with early voting set to begin this weekend — to convince GOP voters to back Cuomo en masse.
“Unless for the last couple of weeks he’s been bombarding Republican voters with ads, I don’t see it,” said Republican operative Chapin Fay. “It was only a few years ago he was the big villain in New York politics. It’s Mamdani derangement syndrome. These are the people who want to destroy democracy to save it.”
Cuomo has not overtly called on Sliwa to drop out. Rather, the ex-governor asserts Sliwa’s support will naturally evaporate in his favor. And his campaign has seized on polling that shows Cuomo running more competitively in a head-to-head race with Mamdani. (Sliwa, like Adams, would remain on the ballot if he dropped out before the election.)
Cuomo in a radio interview on Tuesday said Sliwa “is not viable” while adding “a vote for Curtis is a vote for Mamdani.”
“I’m an Italian, common sense, practical, competent, get-it-done guy from Queens,” Cuomo told conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg. “That’s who I am. And I need your voters to vote for me.”
The Republican nominee — and local GOP leaders — aren’t playing ball.
Sliwa is running with a slate of New York City Council and judicial candidates — making his top-of-the-ticket position important to turn out votes. Local Republican leaders on Tuesday affirmed their support for Sliwa to remain in the race.
“Republican voters are not going to vote for Andrew Cuomo,” the city’s five GOP county chairs said in a joint statement, which included Manhattan GOP Chair Andrea Catsimatidis, John Catsimatidis’ daughter.
In a podcast interview that went viral over the weekend, Sliwa insisted he would stay in the mayoral contest. He took populist shots at the wealthy people trying to get him out and took direct aim at the claim Cuomo needs him to quit in order to win.
“Andrew Cuomo failed everybody in that primary. He even admitted it,” Sliwa said. “Now he’s basically saying I can’t win without Sliwa votes. Where are your votes?”
Emily Ngo and Jeff Coltin contributed to this report.