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Practically a 12 months in the past, Lisa Fields Lewis rallied in Pennsylvania for Donald Trump’s presidential marketing campaign.
However on a latest Friday night, Lewis, a mom of two and staunch Israel advocate, was in entrance of Bloomingdale’s stumping for Andrew Cuomo with greater than a dozen different volunteers on the Higher East Aspect. The neighborhood got here out strongly for him within the June mayoral major election he misplaced to democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani.
Standing on a nook of Lexington Avenue, Lewis handed out Cuomo palm playing cards to passersby. An aged Hispanic man in a MAGA cap requested to take some playing cards with him to The Bronx. Lewis bade him goodbye: “Vote for Cuomo — and make America nice once more!”
As a substitute of backing Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, Lewis threw her help behind Cuomo — a Democrat now operating as an unbiased on the “Struggle and Ship” poll line — as a result of she thinks he nonetheless has the very best probability to win the election.
“On the finish of the day, he will probably be a very good mayor,” Lewis mentioned of Cuomo. “A vote for Sliwa is a vote for Mamdani.”
On her Instagram account, she has made no secret of her disdain for Mamdani, just lately posting a video urging her fellow Republicans to stop, as she put it, “a communist mayor.” Carrying a MAGA hat and a Trump shirt, she implored her followers, “I would like you to carry your nostril. I would like you to vote for Cuomo.”
With the Nov. 4 election looming, Cuomo’s path to profitable the mayoral race is to consolidate the anti-Mamdani vote. However with Mamdani’s double-digit lead in polls — and in a metropolis the place a majority of voters are registered Democrats — it’s a tall order, even with Mayor Eric Adams out of the race. Cuomo’s finest shot at getting extra votes is to prove conservative independents and Republicans — with out alienating liberals and Democrats.
Cuomo is strolling a tightrope in terms of Trump — persuading voters he can stand as much as the president whereas courting those that ardently help him.
“The duty earlier than Cuomo is concurrently making an attempt to win a number of the most loyal members of the Democratic coalition whereas convincing a bunch of Republicans he’s their man,” mentioned Evan Roth Smith, a founding father of political consulting agency Slingshot Methods. “This could be the largest attain they ever tried to tug.”
Volunteers like Lewis may assist break by way of for Cuomo, one of the crucial identifiable Democrats nationwide and a scion of the state’s blue institution.
Speaking to voters on the sidewalk, Lewis made a measured case for Cuomo, stressing his expertise managing the state as governor; his plan to rent 5,000 law enforcement officials; his promise to develop public faculty gifted-and-talented applications; and his relationships with enterprise leaders.
Cuomo’s marketing campaign is specializing in undecided voters and framing the race as one between Cuomo and Mamdani. So is Repair the Metropolis, an unbiased expenditure committee that has raised a record-breaking $28 million to advertise Cuomo to voters, together with mobilizing paid and volunteer canvassers.
“Nearly all of voters haven’t lined up with Z.M., and that’s the chance of our marketing campaign, to take a message to the bulk the of the overall election citizens who’re involved about security, are involved about crime, are very involved about homelessness,” mentioned Cornell Belcher, Cuomo’s pollster. “When you have a look at the favorability amongst Republican voters, they’re not in love with any of the candidates, however actually Cuomo has a bonus there…if we are able to carry folks to a binary selection.”
However some Republicans who again Sliwa, like Councilmember Joann Ariola, aren’t shopping for what Cuomo is promoting.
“Former Gov. Cuomo would really like you to assume that he’s placing out an enormous tent message, however actually what he’s doing to independents and Republicans is placing out a message of concern: that in the event that they don’t vote for him, that they may get Mamdani, and that Curtis Sliwa doesn’t have any probability of profitable, and that’s merely not true,” mentioned Ariola, the present minority chief who represents components of south Queens.
‘A Sisyphean Job’
Cuomo is a life-long distinguished, institution Democrat. He’s the son of three-term Gov. Mario Cuomo, ran the U.S. Division of Housing and City Growth beneath President Invoice Clinton and for 15 years, was married to Kerry Kennedy — daughter of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — with whom he has three daughters.
The COVID pandemic, throughout Trump’s first time period as president, gave Cuomo a nationwide stage as a pacesetter who directed a forceful response whereas the White Home downplayed the pandemic.
However Cuomo’s standing modified after a number of feminine staff accused him of sexual harassment, prompting his 2021 resignation and protracted courtroom battles towards his accusers at public expense. Cuomo denies the allegations.
In the meantime, his COVID response alienated many conservative voters in New York, from public staff against vaccine mandates to Orthodox Jews outraged at state makes an attempt to close down non secular gatherings. Opponents additionally pilloried Cuomo for insurance policies that they claimed led to preventable deaths of nursing house sufferers.
Little love lingers for some Republican leaders. Marko Kepi, founding father of the political membership New York Metropolis Republicans, mentioned he’s standing by Sliwa.
“We keep in mind Cuomo as the identical Cuomo who mentioned conservatives haven’t any place in New York,” Kepi mentioned. “He felt he didn’t want us as governor, however now he’s begging for our votes. There’s a saying that the wolf adjustments his fur however not his techniques. He’s nonetheless the identical.”
However Cuomo additionally has a historical past of constructing alliances with Republicans. As governor, he employed Republican Senate employees to high positions and empowered the state Senate’s Impartial Democratic Convention, Democratic members who teamed up with Republicans to weaken Democrats’ majority management of the state legislature.
Republican megadonor John Catsimatidis, who describes himself as “anyone however Zohran” and ran for mayor himself in 2013, declined to debate Cuomo’s inroads with Republican voters or say who he plans to vote for.
“Pay attention, folks should determine,” Catsimatidis mentioned. “Socialism is just not a very good factor for America or for New York.”
Catsimatidis had been in contact with Trump about coax candidates out of the mayoral contest within the hopes of defeating Mamdani. Cuomo denied figuring out something about Trump’s involvement, although the 2 reportedly have mentioned the mayor’s race.
Political advisor Lupe Todd-Medina mentioned Cuomo’s path to victory depends largely on the power of his get-out-the-vote operation and getting dependable Democratic voters to fill within the bubble on the poll for somebody aside from the Democratic nominee.
“It’s not not possible. It’s most likely unbelievable. But it surely’s a little bit of a Sisyphean job,” Todd-Medina mentioned. “He’s actually received to get on the market, into these pockets the place he can pull some votes out.”
General, Cuomo fared finest within the Democratic major in areas with extra owners than renters and with lower-income voters, profitable a number of the poorest neighborhoods in The Bronx and most of Staten Island. He had giant margins of victory in Orthodox Jewish communities, like Borough Park in Brooklyn. And he did higher with voters over age 55 than Mamdani did.
Trump Card?
Cuomo didn’t utter Trump’s identify when he spoke in Elmhurst just lately to members of Native 3 of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Electrical Employees, one of many unions that has endorsed him within the basic election — largely males in t-shirts and work boots, ingesting beer.
“We want a mayor who will rise up and combat for New York Metropolis as a result of these are powerful instances for this nation, and Washington is focusing on New York,” Cuomo mentioned, referencing retaliatory funding cuts.
However Cuomo has additionally strategically invoked Trump’s threats to New York Metropolis as a cause voters ought to select him. On a number of TV appearances in native and nationwide media, he warned of dire situations, and argued that Trump needs Mamdani to win.
“Two causes,” Cuomo mentioned on The View Monday. “One, going into the midterms, he’ll take an image of Mamdani, run across the nation and say, ‘Right here’s what occurred to the Democrats. They’re now communists. They hate the police. They legalize prostitution, legalize medicine. They need to elect this Democrat, no expertise in any respect, being mayor of New York can be his first actual job.’”
Cuomo added: “Second transfer, it’s good for Donald Trump,” Cuomo continued, “as a result of it’s the excuse he must take over New York, which he mentioned he’ll do.”
Mamdani has pointed the finger again at Cuomo, calling him Trump’s choose for mayor.
“New Yorkers know that whereas Andrew Cuomo would merely roll out the crimson carpet for Trump, Zohran will probably be a mayor who fights relentlessly to guard us towards Trump’s authoritarianism and ship a extra reasonably priced metropolis,” the marketing campaign mentioned in a latest assertion.
Cuomo informed NBC he’d draw a line at accepting an endorsement from Trump. And within the house stretch, his most fervent help nonetheless comes from true believers, who’ve by no means forgotten the governor who helped maintain them throughout the worst of the pandemic.
Dhruba Tiwari, a chef who lives in Woodside, Queens, mentioned he tuned into Cuomo’s “inspiring” briefings day-after-day after he misplaced his job cooking at a tech firm’s workplace throughout the pandemic.
He volunteered for the Cuomo marketing campaign after seeing an internet advert and has been reaching out to voters within the neighborhood. Canvassing in entrance of a Hindu temple on a latest Wednesday evening, Tiwari confirmed off a selfie he took with the previous governor and mentioned: “He’s my idol.”
Further reporting by Lauren Hartley.
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