Good Riddance
New Yorkers crushed Andrew Cuomo’s dreams of a political comeback on Tuesday, decisively electing rising star Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s new mayor instead. It was a fitting end for the former governor, who left office in 2021 while facing allegations of sexual harassment as well as corruption and mismanagement claims. And yet, as he made clear over the past seven months, he felt he deserved to lead the largest city in the United States.
In one of the biggest political upsets in recent history, Mamdani won the Democratic primary in June against a crowded field that included Cuomo, the presumed front-runner. But the former governor decided that his humiliating loss did not reflect a true mandate from New York’s Democratic voters. Instead, he determined he was not “aggressive enough” during the primary and that, because he felt New York City was at a “crossroads,” he needed to stay in the race as an independent. It was clearly a long-shot bid: Mamdani kept a comfortable lead in the polls for months ahead of the general election, and Cuomo’s path to victory was always incredibly narrow.
Still, super-PACs backing Cuomo spent more than $40 million to stop Mamdani’s progressive platform. The former governor’s supporters included billionaires allied with President Donald Trump, such as hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman and casino mogul Steve Wynn. Cuomo and his team also engaged in some truly abhorrent campaigning, including posting a racist AI-generated video featuring “Criminals for Zohran Mamdani,” tacitly agreeing to Islamophobic comments about his 34-year-old rival, and casting the allegations of sexual harassment that 13 women brought against him when he was last in office as a political witch hunt. Trump himself even endorsed him on the night before the election, after threatening to withhold federal funds if Mamdani won.
To close the widening gap between himself and Mamdani, Cuomo appealed to conservative voters as well as liberal New Yorkers freaked out by his opponent’s alleged inexperience and progressive platform. The bet didn’t pay off: Voters all across the city chose a new vision of hopeful leadership over Cuomo’s old-guard bully politics.
Not that the former governor was willing to accept that reality. During his concession speech, Cuomo said his campaign was “the right fight to wage,” took jabs at Mamdani’s platform, and tried to downplay the fact that the Democratic upstart had a clear mandate after winning 50 percent of the vote. “A caution flag that we are heading down a dangerous, dangerous road,” he told supporters at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in midtown, playing into the xenophobic talking point that the first Muslim mayor will bring ruin to New York City. “Well, we made that point, and they heard us, and we will hold them to it.”
Mamdani, on the other hand, is already looking to move on from Cuomo as he celebrates his victory and begins preparing for the hard job of governing. “I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few,” Mamdani said at his victory speech. “New York, tonight you have delivered — a mandate for change, a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city we can afford, and a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.”
And thank God for that.
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