Andrew Cuomo thinks he can win. Maybe

Over my long career, I’ve covered dozens, maybe scores, of political candidates, almost every one of whom saw a path to victory, even when most political experts saw only an impenetrable jungle.

Current delusionary candidate: Andrew Cuomo, disgraced former governor, now running on his self-created independent “Fight and Deliver” party.

“Party” may be too strong a word. A better word might be “gathering,” or “hootenany,” or “kamikaze squad.”

All those politicians I mentioned? No matter how hopeless others saw their chances, almost every one saw a path to victory. As does Cuomo.

Alexander Pope wrote that “Hope springs eternal,” and why not?

A few weeks before the May primary, an unknown state assemblyman radical socialist with anti-Jewish, anti-white, and anti-capitalist leanings named Zohran Mamdani  was trailing Cuomo in the polls by 34 points. He wound up winning by 12, proving that lightning can strike.

Especially when one of the candidates, Cuomo, was coasting on his reputation, blissfully unaware that his reputation was smoking like an Iranian nuclear site.

It’s not just me saying it — it’s him, too.

“There was this ‘play it safe, make no mistakes’ attitude,” said Cuomo, who campaigned lethargically, limited media interviews, held few unscripted events, and avoided mingling with voters.

“That was not who I am. It’s not what New Yorkers expected from a campaign,” he lamented from the loser’s corner.

He had treated outsiders like they had Covid, and that was one of the reasons voters developed a Cuomo allergy. And why they did not get off the couch for him. 

The primary turnout was under 30%. He seems to believe a higher turnout would have helped him, but that strikes me as whistling past the cemetery. The Zohran has a magnetic personality, plus a superb TikTok campaign.

Cuomo’s campaign is the latest chapter in his comeback attempt, launched almost four years after he resigned as governor in 2021, following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations that were contained in a report from the New York state attorney general that Cuomo had harassed at least 11 women. Some were calling him “handy Andy.”

His national profile had peaked during Covid, when his daily coronavirus briefings were widely praised for both education and empathetic entertainment. He won an Emmy for the briefings. It doesn’t get much better than that.

That aura was tainted when it emerged that the state’s official count of nursing home deaths had excluded many victims who had been transferred to hospitals before they succumbed.

Cuomo apparently believed that his family name — before he was governor, his father was a successful governor from 1983-1994 — and his own plaudits would outweigh the criticism.

He was wrong, humiliated in the primary.

And his rebranding has not stopped the defection of unions, donors, and others who had supported him.

Such as Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, leader of Brooklyn’s Democratic Party, or influencers like the Rev. Al Sharpton, who urged Cuomo to step aside.

Brushing aside the nay-sayers, Cuomo had two contradictory things to say:

1- “I’m in it to win it.”

2- If he is not the highest-rated challenger to Mamdani by mid-September, he will drop out of the race, in a move to stop the socialist.

There are three other challengers: Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who is running as a Republican, as he did in 2021, when he lost to Eric Adams, running as an independent, after Donald J. Trump’s Department of Justice requested that corruption charges against him be dropped. The fourth candidate is lawyer Jim Walden, who has less name recognition than the New York Mets bat boy.

So there are four moderate-to-conservatives challenging one far Left candidate. Expected result? Those four will split the anti-Mamdani vote, thus electing the socialist.

In effect, Cuomo has acknowledged his vulnerability. He is not believing his own bullshit any more. He knows he can lose. 

The next question is this: Even if he throws his support to Adams or Sliwa, can either of them defeat Mamdani?

To me, it don’t look good. The Zohran has The Momentum.