For more than a decade, Andrew M. Cuomo held sway over New York as the state’s chief executive and de facto Democratic leader, doing all that he could to keep his party in control of the governor’s mansion.
Even after he resigned in disgrace last year, Mr. Cuomo made clear that he was not done exerting his influence, announcing the creation of a super PAC that would back like-minded Democrats running for state and federal office.
But with just a few days until Election Day, and with Democrats in New York facing fierce challenges from Republicans this midterm election, there are few signs that Mr. Cuomo has done much to support Democrats.
The super PAC he promised to create has not materialized, with a spokesman saying it will not be up and running until the next election cycle.
And although Mr. Cuomo left office with roughly $18 million in unspent campaign funds, he has mostly used the donated money to cover his legal and image-building expenses, not to dole out large sums to local party committees or to aid Democrats in competitive swing districts.
With little apparent interest in immediately helping a Democratic Party that shunned him after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, Mr. Cuomo has, for now, found more comfort offering political commentary from the sidelines — even if it’s criticism directed at his own party.
On Tuesday, the former governor was spotted taking selfies and conducting man-on-the-street style interviews with passers-by in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan for an episode of his recently launched podcast. The episode focused on crime and the midterm elections.
On Wednesday, he called into a radio station, WABC, to criticize Democrats for being “tongue-tied” on public safety, one of the issues that has defined the races for governor and Congress. “I don’t know why they can’t be more aggressive addressing the issue of crime,” he said.
Mr. Cuomo also hasn’t exactly offered a ringing endorsement of his successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul. Polls show that Ms. Hochul is in an increasingly close race against her Republican challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin.
Mr. Cuomo told Cindy Adams, the New York Post gossip columnist, that Ms. Hochul was New York’s “best alternative” in the race. In October, he told The Associated Press that he hoped that Ms. Hochul would win, saying, “I’ll watch the returns. I just won’t have as much anxiety and stress and heartburn.”
Mr. Cuomo has steadily drawn down his campaign war chest since resigning in August 2021 — he has just over $10 million left, according to state filings from July. Much of it went toward rehabilitating his image as he considered a political comeback earlier this year: He spent over $93,000 in polling, tens of thousands of dollars on his legal defense and millions of dollars in television ads aimed at a make over.
Since resigning, he appears to have made only two political contributions, each for $4,700 to Democrats in the State Assembly who were facing primary challenges from candidates backed by the left-leaning Working Families Party, a longtime nemesis of Mr. Cuomo.
One donation went to Assemblywoman Vivian Cook of Queens, one of the lawmakers who signed a letter in March 2021 urging the public to wait for the conclusion of an investigation into the claims against Mr. Cuomo before calling on him to resign.
He also donated to Assemblywoman Inez Dickens of Harlem, who defended Mr. Cuomo last year by questioning the motivations of some of the women who accused him. In an interview, Ms. Dickens said she reached out to Mr. Cuomo for support, saying, “I had a socialist running against me and I had to raise money, so I reached out to everybody that I knew.”
Ms. Dickens said that even though Mr. Cuomo likely felt “burned” by his party, she believed he would seek to stay relevant through a super PAC rather than through public office, saying that he “can be just as relevant by being a king and queen maker.”
A federal PAC that Mr. Cuomo created in 2018 to help Democrats take control of the House has likewise been dormant, making no contributions this cycle.
In 2018, the PAC — called “Cuomo NY Take Back the House” — raised $47,000 that it disbursed to 20 House candidates in battleground districts, including 10 in New York. That included $2,700 to Antonio Delgado, the former Hudson Valley congressman now running as Ms. Hochul’s lieutenant governor.
“Anyone who has asked for help, formally or informally, has received it and the governor, who is deeply concerned, is standing by to help any way he can in the coming days,” said Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo. (Bulldog Strategies, Mr. Azzopardi’s crisis communications and public relations firm, has received $125,000 from the campaign this year, according to filings posted in July.)
Even if Mr. Cuomo has retained good will among some Democratic voters, he remains largely a pariah among members of the party establishment, most of which called on him to resign last year and quickly turned the page on his decade-long tenure. Indeed, his support or presence on the campaign trail could amount to an inconvenience for Democrats, resurfacing a blemish on the party’s brand in the final stretch of the elections.
Nor is there any indication that Democrats are actively seeking support from the former governor, who has denied wrongdoing.
Ms. Hochul has said that she would not welcome his endorsement, saying that New Yorkers wanted to “look forward.” And any involvement by Mr. Cuomo could be attack fodder for Mr. Zeldin, who has sought to link Ms. Hochul, who served as Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant governor for seven years, to his scandals, calling her “Cuomo 2.0.”
“The circumstances in which he left would make it really difficult for him to go out there and campaign for any other candidate at this point,” said Mario Cilento, the president of the New York State AFL-CIO, a former ally of Mr. Cuomo’s, adding that there was “a lot of enthusiasm” in the labor movement to elect Ms. Hochul.
Yet it’s unclear how many Democrats would actually eschew financial support from Mr. Cuomo. Representative Jerry Nadler, for example, recently told Politico that he would have no problem taking his money.
The New York Times reached out to five Democrats locked in competitive House races in New York asking if they would accept campaign contributions from Mr. Cuomo or welcome outside spending from a Cuomo PAC on their behalf.
Only one House candidate said he would not accept “any overt or behind-the-scenes help” from Mr. Cuomo, though he refused to be identified.
Max Rose, who is running in a New York City district that includes Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, and has received money from Mr. Cuomo in past campaigns, did not return a request for comment. A spokesman for Francis Conole, a Democrat running in Syracuse, declined to comment, adding that “it’s not something we’ve even thought about.”
Laura Gillen and Robert Zimmerman, a pair of Democrats running on Long Island, also declined to comment.
Mr. Zimmerman, however, has received support from one Cuomo who appears to be more politically involved this election cycle: Maria Cuomo, the former governor’s sister, donated $2,900 to Mr. Zimmerman in April.
November 04, 2022 at 10:26PM
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Cuomo, Once New York’s No. 1 Democrat, Is Doing Little to Help His Party - The New York Times
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