Since asserting his bid for Metropolis Corridor practically three months in the past, frontrunner Andrew Cuomo has solely attended mayoral boards the place candidates are quizzed by moderators one-at-a-time — a key part of a marketing campaign technique that has largely shielded him from public clashes together with his opponents and unscripted questions from the press.
That strategy has allowed Cuomo to keep away from tangling straight with opponents and the press on fraught points like his resignation over sexual harassment allegations and nursing dwelling deaths through the pandemic, as an alternative permitting him to extra tightly management his narrative.
“This is a classic Rose Garden strategy,” mentioned Journey Yang, a Democratic strategist who isn’t concerned in any mayoral campaigns this yr. “Cuomo is ahead by three touchdowns with three minutes left in the game, so he’s trying to run out the clock without taking incoming.”
Out of 4 boards the previous governor has attended — the United Federation of Lecturers’ discussion board this previous Saturday, the Black Agenda discussion board in Crown Heights final month, the Nationwide Motion Community discussion board in early April and a Washington Heights discussion board in late March — he and the opposite candidates every appeared alone on stage for questioning by moderators.
That stands in distinction to different boards the place the candidates sit facet by facet in a mini-debate setting. Although moderators management questioning throughout such boards, too, candidates generally tend to finish up chiming in on one another’s solutions when seated subsequent to one another.
Requested why Cuomo doesn’t present as much as boards which have the standard format, his spokesman Wealthy Azzopardi mentioned solely political “insiders” are targeted on that concern and referred to remarks the ex-governor made on April 28.
“Everyone campaigns a different way, this is what I think is most effective,” Cuomo instructed reporters then. “I want to talk to the people of this city in a real-life environment, not in a staged forum with special interests where the audience is selected.”
Cuomo’s marketing campaign and a supportive tremendous PAC have spent tens of millions of {dollars} on tv and digital advertisements pitching him as a robust chief can flip the tide on a metropolis in “crisis.”
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo waits for protestors to be faraway from the stage through the New York Metropolis Mayoral Candidates Discussion board at Medgar Evers Faculty on April 23, 2025. (Frank Franklin II/AP)
Yang, the strategist, mentioned there’s a possible draw back to Cuomo’s public look technique, although.
“The con in putting the candidate in bubblewrap for this long is that it’s going to be a lot of emotions heading into the debates, and keep in mind that Cuomo has not been tested in a debate setting since 2018,” he mentioned. “That’s a long time without practice.”
The primary debate within the Democratic mayoral major is about for June 4. That may probably be the primary time Cuomo faces off towards his opponents all of sudden.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks through the New York Metropolis Mayoral Candidates Discussion board at Medgar Evers Faculty on April 23, 2025. (Frank Franklin II/AP)
Cuomo’s technique has led his opponents to accuse him of working from his report.
Zohran Mamdani, who’s persistently polling because the runner-up to Cuomo, mentioned it seems the previous governor has made the bizarre one-candidate-at-a-time strategy a situation for him to take part in boards. He mentioned the primary time he even noticed Cuomo in particular person was throughout final weekend’s UFT discussion board, when he stepped onto the stage as Cuomo exited.
The candidate mentioned Cuomo is campaigning this fashion so he doesn’t must “face up to his record” of making an unpopular pension plan, slicing cash from the MTA and the sexual harassment allegations, which he denies, from greater than 10 girls.
The previous governor has been the frontrunner since getting into the race in March, with a latest Marist ballot displaying a greater than 20 level lead over Mamdani.
Political observers mentioned the technique is working to fend off any dents to that lead, whereas serving to sustaining an air of being above the competitors. It additionally mirrors Cuomo’s gubernatorial reelection technique in 2018 and his transfer in 2021 to restrict reporters’ entry to him amid the sexual harassment allegations that result in his resignation. Cuomo has denied these accusations.
“He doesn’t want to get beaten up all day,” Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist, mentioned as clarification. “If he’s out there, he’s going to get beaten up. Why bother?”
To be extra publicly obtainable would additionally additional legitimize his opponents, and “they become celebrities,” Sheinkopf mentioned.
