Remember Andrew Cuomo? You know, the former governor of New York who resigned under a cloud in Aug. 2021 — yeah, that guy, the arrogant, sanctimonious, and licentious older brother of the Fredo of the Cuomo family, former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. You might have thought that Andrew had been forever consigned to the dustbin of history, but no such luck: a recent New York City poll shows him with a massive lead in the race to succeed disgraced Mayor Eric Adams (who, unlike Andrew Cuomo, is actually in the race). Will Andrew, thus encouraged, officially throw his scandal-plagued hat in the ring? Stranger things have happened.
The poll, which the Progressive Democrats of America conducted, shows that New Yorkers generally don’t have much enthusiasm for any of the current candidates for the Democrat nomination for mayor. Yet since New York City is essentially a one-party state, no matter what damage the Democrats do to the city, they keep on getting re-elected. That means that one of these Democrats is almost certainly going to become the next Hizzoner of the worm-eaten Big Apple, and apparently, many of its residents hope that it will be Randy Andy.
The New York Post reported Monday that Cuomo was the choice of 32% of the poll respondents, former city Comptroller Scott Stringer coming in a distant second with 10%. City Comptroller Brad Lander got 8% and Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos picked up 7%. Adams got only 6%.
In a ranked-choice scenario, Cuomo “would win on the fifth round with 51% of the Democratic vote, to 16% for Stringer, and 14% apiece for Ramos and Lander… Adams would be eliminated with just 8% of the vote.” The poll noted also that “48% of Democrats viewed Cuomo favorably, while 44% said they had a negative view of the governor.”
Cuomo’s 48% favorable rating is remarkable in light of the many scandals that led him to resign as governor in the first place. On Oct. 31, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic announced that it was referring him for criminal prosecution, saying: “Evidence suggests Andrew Cuomo knowingly and willfully made materially false statements about New York’s COVID-19 nursing home disaster and the ensuing cover-up.”
Back in March 2021, according to the New York Times, “top aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo were alarmed: A report written by state health officials had just landed, and it included a count of how many nursing home residents in New York had died in the pandemic. The number — more than 9,000 by that point in June — was not public, and the governor’s most senior aides wanted to keep it that way. They rewrote the report to take it out.”
Cuomo covered up nursing home deaths in part because he had signed a lucrative book deal with Penguin Random House and didn’t need any bad news coming out to lessen enthusiasm for the book. Former New York State Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) declared: “It’s crystal clear now that Andrew Cuomo has had a financial motive to suppress nursing home death toll numbers. The report clarifies how the former governor abused his power to lie and cover up life and death data to preserve his lucrative book deal. These are beyond impeachable offenses, and we must hold him accountable.” No one did. He resigned instead, and now the good folks of New York City want him back.
Big Apple denizens seem to be as concerned about the nursing home scandal as they are about the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo. A New York State Assembly report found that Cuomo “engaged in multiple instances of sexual harassment, including by creating a hostile work environment and engaging in sexual misconduct.” Sherry Vill, one of the women who has accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, said that Cuomo “manhandled” her, kissed her without her consent, and behaved in a “highly sexual manner” while visiting her home in Greece, N.Y., which had been damaged in a flood. “The whole thing was so strange and inappropriate,” she recounted in March 2021, before Cuomo resigned, “and still makes me nervous and afraid because of his power and position. I am still afraid of him, but I am no longer willing to remain silent.”
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The polls don’t worry Adams, who “noted that businessman Andrew Yang had a significant double-digit lead over him in a February 2021 poll for mayor. ‘They were calling him mayor. They were measuring the drapes,’ Adams said during a press briefing Monday. ‘Polls don’t make mayors. People do. I don’t focus on polls.’”
All right. But it’s bad enough that Andrew Cuomo, with all the scandals swirling around him, would be such a popular choice for New York City mayor. No wonder Gotham is in such a fix.
