Andrew Cuomo keeps saying he hasn’t made up his mind about dropping out of the New York City’s mayor’s race despite getting trounced in the Democratic primary last week by the upstart Trotskyite, Zohan Mamdani – but an increasingly large contingent of the business community is planning to make the decision for him, On The Money has learned.
The plan is to effectively defund his attempt to run as an independent in the general election this fall to allow the current mayor, Eric Adams, to have a clearer shot at preventing what they fear will be a Communist takeover of City Hall that was abetted by Cuomo’s lackluster campaign against Mamdani.
If they can galvanize enough support, they’re hoping that Cuomo realizes he will have no money to compete in November, and they would force him to drop out.
“As far as we’re concerned, what Andrew wants to do doesn’t matter,” said one billionaire businessman and former Cuomo supporter who is behind the dump Cuomo effort. “He lost after running a horrible campaign and we can’t afford for him to screw up again. There’s a lot at stake.”
What’s at stake is maybe the most far-left politician in the country taking over the epicenter of capitalism, and advancing policies like government-run groceries and defunding the police – and imposing massive tax increases on wealth creators to pay for all the stuff he promised during his campaign.
And while the NYC business community is far from the largest voting bloc in the city, Cuomo and Adams need its support, aka campaign cash to combat Mamdani’s well-oiled campaign that appears not to be short of financing from mysterious donors and money from the city’s matching-fund election program.
Cuomo, sources close to him say, understands the threat posed by these defections (former supporter Bill Ackman, a hedge fund billionaire, just threw in for Adams) and has been busy working the phones since last Tuesday’s humiliating loss to the 33-year-old unknown, attempting to persuade his big money supporters not to jump ship and fully support the current mayor — who is running as an independent.
But the former governor is facing a lot of skepticism, particularly over his excuse for not more aggressively attacking Mamdani during the primary.
“Cuomo is nowhere right now,” said one government affairs executive at a major Wall Street firm. “He needs two or three big donors to publicly call on him to continue to run. He needs that for credibility and so far it hasn’t happened.”
Cuomo has tried to deflect blame for being a no-show on the campaign trail, saying pre-election polls showed he was up comfortably and didn’t need to rally support to offset Mamdani’s progressive base.
He’s also arguing even after his own staggering defeat — by more than 10 points after final votes were tallied Tuesday — that it is Adams who is “unelectable.”
Cuomo and his people say Adams — who won four years ago as a Democrat — sat out the Democratic primary because he’s tainted by the corruption scandals that engulfed his mayoralty. Also, the federal indictment that was dropped only when he embraced President Trump’s deportation efforts, which in of itself, is a losing issue in very blue NYC.
As evidence of Adams’ unelectability, Team Cuomo pointed to a recent snap poll released by a firm called the Honan Strategy Group, showing Adams polling far behind Mamdani if Cuomo drops out. If Adams drops, the poll shows Cuomo up slightly in a general election matchup.
The release of the poll may have slowed the anti-Cuomo momentum, but not enough to erase the deep-seated fears among business leaders – and past supporters – that the former governor shouldn’t be given a second chance, several business leaders tell On The Money.
They point to what was described as a weak concession speech by Cuomo that even congratulated Mamdami for his victory despite his advocacy of radical policies, including, as suggested on his website, taxing white New Yorkers more to pay for his redistributionist schemes.
Adams, through his former chief of staff Frank Carone, has been holding around-the-clock meetings with top city business people, and slowly building a consensus that Cuomo blew it the first time and shouldn’t be allowed a do-over, these people say.
“We’re not calling people, but people in the business community are calling us asking how we can help and hear our plan on how we are going to win,” Carone told On The Money. “That began literally at 10 p.m. on primary night when Mamdani won.”
Last weekend, Cuomo was spotted at the East Hampton wedding of Democratic power broker Patricia Duff and real estate magnate Richard Cohen.
According to one person who quizzed him on his future candidacy, Cuomo said at least for now he’s in the race, but circumstances could change later if there isn’t a path to victory.
Cuomo’s people tell me he was speaking in hypotheticals and as of this writing is still in it to win it, even preparing to release more polling data showing his relative strength in beating Mamdani, as compared to Adams, and GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa.
The business community doesn’t seem to be buying it.
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