Yesterday we discussed the theoretical appeal of Andrew Cuomo’s recently campaign for mayor. Lots of good discussion in the comments section there; I recommend you take a look. Some of the commenters argued that Cuomo lost because of his terrible campaign, others held the opposite view that he never had a shot.
One question that comes up is, if Cuomo had been able to run against Mamdani head-to-head, would he have won?
I doubt it.
To start with, Mamdani received 50.4% of the vote, while his Republican and Republican-endorsed opponents received 48.7%. That’s right, even if all of Sliwa’s votes had gone to Cuomo, Mamdani still wins by 1.7% of the vote:
But no, you might argue, in the absence of the spoiler, those missing 35,000 votes would’ve come out of the woodwork, motivated by the closeness of the race. Maybe–but in that case I think that same increased closeness would’ve induced more Mamdani supporters to come out and vote too. Indeed, to the extent that there was an enthusiasm gap–lots of people voted in a positive way for Mamdani, but the voter rolls were not filled with Cuomo stans–that’s indeed one reason why the candidate running on the “Fight and Deliver” ballot line lost.
Also, recall that Sliwa was polling at 16% a few days before the election. Some combination of tactical voting and the endorsement of Cuomo by national Republican leaders evidently persuaded a bit more than half these Sliwa supporters to switch to Cuomo or to abstain from voting (and I guess some small number decided to pull the lever for Mamdani). What if Sliwa had dropped out entirely? It’s not clear to me that this remaining 7% would’ve cast their ballots for Cuomo. After all, they already had the opportunity and encouragement to do so, but didn’t. I’m guessing that, without a Republican on the ballot, they would’ve mostly sat out the election. I don’t see Cuomo pulling off a win in this way.
But there’s another option: what if Cuomo had decided to run as a Republican? With the coveted endorsement of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Stephen Miller, etc.–ok, these guys are not so popular in NYC but their voices could well have swayed Republican primary voters who would’ve welcomed an actually competitive candidate for mayor–Cuomo could well have secured the Republican nomination. “I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the party left me,” etc. Under that scenario, it’s not clear who wins the Democratic primary, but it could well still have been Mamdani. In that case, though, I don’t see Cuomo pulling off the general election victory, as in this case it’s Mamdani the Democrat vs. Cuomo the Trump-endorsed Republican, and that doesn’t seem like a recipe for success in this city in this year.
So here’s how I see it. Given information available before the campaign, Cuomo did have a decent shot at winning the general election–but only because he could play the role of the sensible moderate flanked by crazies on all sides: Mamdani the wild leftist, Adams the corrupt failure and Trump associate, and Sliwa the joke candidate. Remove Cuomo’s Republican foil, or stick Cuomo on the Republican ballot line, and his moderate credentials go away. He’s just one more geriatric washed-up politician.
I’m not saying that Cuomo couldn’t have won. The primary election in particular was very fluid, and had the former run a more energetic campaign and been willing to make compromises–any compromises at all, really–he would’ve had a shot. The wheels came off during the general election campaign when Mamdani’s popularity scared the Cuomo team into pure negativity: so much for the “sensible moderate” pitch. For the reasons discussed above, I don’t think he’d have won a head-to-head contest. At least not in this city in this year. Maybe he’ll be back in 2029 to take his revenge. Stranger things have happened. He’ll only be 71 years old, more than 15 years younger than Ruth Bader Ginsburg was when she retired. Oh, wait, she didn’t ever retire. I forgot.
> He’ll only be 71 years old, more than 15 years younger than Ruth Bader Ginsburg was when she retired. Oh, wait, she didn’t ever retire. I forgot.
Got a good chuckle out of this one.
I just thought, “way too soon.” That’s another English idiom used to describe jokes made soon after a tragic event.
Fwiw – both Silver and Barkan here, speculate that the “crazy Mamdani” approach would not have been effective. They suggested instead something along the lines of Mamdani’s a nice guy and well-meaning but out of his league.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/a-1010-night-for-democrats
To be fair, I don’t think much of anything could have framed Mamdani as looking as non-credible as the candidates he was up against. Which isn’t to say Mamdani is credible — e.g. it’s 2025 and he’s pushing rent controls, for the love of Zeus. But a shocking number of people still think e.g. rent controls *sound* good, and his opponents were *so* bad that it’s hard to actually process.
And that of course is already making me slightly despondent since some people on the left are already trying to push the Mamdani case as a blueprint for Democrats going forward, as if Virginia and New Jersey didn’t happen in cases that are probably much more generalizable than the unique chaos that is NY politics.
The VA, NJ and NYC candidates ALL campaigned on making life more affordable. Meanwhile when asked how much their monthly housing payments were, Mandami answered $2300, Sliwa said $3900 and Cuomo answered $7800 and “Mandami is living in a rent controlled apartment meant for poor people”. Maybe paying $2300 a month for housing is what the poor should pay for a tenement according to Cuomo but I doubt very many people in America feel the same way.
His apartment is rent stabilized not rent controlled. Important difference. The fact that Cuomo does not know the difference (or even thinks that rent controlled tenants are “poor people” when we all know they are people who are living in the apartments they or even their parents grew up in) shows why he was not appropriate as an NYC mayor.
NYC mayors should really be NYC residents. And part of his idiocy was in moving to Sutton Place (super expensive and elite) rather than Queens (where his family was from) when he moved to the city to run for election.
Elin,
I assume the reason Cuomo didn’t move to Queens was that the traffic to midtown is hell, and no way Cuomo’s ever gonna ride the subway.
But, yeah, if he’d thought ahead of time that the race could be close and that he might lose, then maybe he would’ve sucked it up and accepted the inconvenience.
Andrew,
Too cheap to pay for conjestion pricing? But most campaigning for mayor doesn’t happen in midtown, which is full of commuters. My understanding is that he took over his daughter’s apartment. It was very tone deaf, but that’s not news when it comes to Cuomo.
In NYC Rent Control has a specific meaning, and he did not talk about rent control at all. He talked about rent stabilization, which is a different category of regulation. Every year the rent board decides on the amount of increase alloweze d and he is saying to allow 0. It’s not even all rentals in NY, there are many market rate rentals that are not regulated.
My daughter lives in a rent stabilized building where they never even do the full allowed increases; she has to sign a form every year acknowledging that they are legally allowed to charge more. But they could not fill that building if they charged those rates.
William –
he’s pushing rent controls, for the love of Zeus
He’s pushing freezing rents for a specific subset or the market (those in rent-stabilized apartments), along with programs to aggressively increase housing supply. Labeling it simply as old school rent control isn’t really accurate. And what’s to love about Zeus?
Don’t neglect that shrine of Zeus’s:
Tho’ he’s lost his vital juices
The old boy still has his uses
And he’s good enough for me!
[From an old filksong]
As I think about it more…probably the expression, when referring to “the love,” means the love that Zeus (or God) has for us? So then it would be what’s to love about us?
Paul?
It’s a play on a standard English idiom, “for the love of God.” From dictionary.com’s definition of “for the love of God”: used when expressing anger, impatience, or exasperation, or when making an earnest call for action. Idioms are tricky. Merriam-Webster has “used to give added force to an angry statement”.
From another old folksong:
The faucets are dripping in old New York City,
The faucets are dripping and oh, what a pity,
The reservoir’s drying because it’s supplying
The faucets that drip in New York.
You can’t ask the landlord to put in a washer,
He’d rather you move than to put in a washer,
The faucets are dripping, they sound in my ears,
The tap in the bathroom’s been running for years.
There’s a wild streak of green in the sink in the kitchen,
It comes from the rill trickling out of the plumbing,
The streams from the mountains, the pools from the lea,
All run from my faucet and down to the sea.
You can’t ask the landlord to put in a washer,
You can’t ask the landlord to mend the old stairs,
He takes in the rents and he lives in Miami,
Where faucets don’t drip and there’s sun everywheres.
The faucets are dripping, the landlord’s content.
With every new tenant he raises the rent,
The buildings can crumble, the tenants can cry,
There’s a shortage of housing, you’ll live there or die.
They’re building some buildings and fine city centers,
It’s sure working hard on the low-income renters,
They’re jammed into rooms with the rat and the fly
Where the faucets all drip and the floor’s never dry.
(Malvina Reynolds – 1959)
I haven’t lived in NY since 1969, but were I still there, being threatened by Trump would have had me canvassing for Mamdani the next day. I don’t believe that even 90% of hardcore Sliwa supporters would have switched to Cuomo.
Getting New Yorkers to vote against immigrants is like getting Nebraskans to vote against corn.
Yeah I agree with that, living in a place with a fair amount of Sliwa voters and signs. Those people never liked either Cuomo.