Landlords in New York City have apparently picked their champion in the mayor’s race: Andrew M. Cuomo.
Housing for All, a super PAC representing landlords’ interests, announced plans on Thursday to spend $2.5 million on campaign ads to promote Mr. Cuomo — the single largest ad commitment of the election cycle so far.
The donation, which was first reported by Politico, again highlights the outsize influence of super PACs, which allow donors to contribute unlimited sums of money that can be used to promote a candidate as long as the groups do not coordinate with the candidate directly.
In the mayor’s race, Mr. Cuomo has been the prime beneficiary of such money. Another super PAC, Fix the City, has raised roughly $10 million on his behalf, including from companies and individuals with business before the city. The largest donation, $1 million, came from DoorDash, the food delivery service lobbying City Hall on regulations that could disrupt its business model.
The $2.5 million ad buy from Housing for All is funded by the New York Apartment Association, which represents landlords and lobbies city government and the city’s rent-setting organization, the Rent Guidelines Board, on their behalf.
Kenny Burgos, who leads the association, said the goal was to ensure the longtime viability of the housing stock by making sure that landlords had money to maintain their buildings.
“These pre-1974 buildings, many of which are over 100 years old, cannot afford to be defunded or minimized to political pandering much longer before they crumble,” Mr. Burgos said in a statement. “These are people’s homes.”
The support for Mr. Cuomo may also be a reflection of how much residential real estate interests oppose his chief rival in the race, Zohran Mamdani, a state lawmaker and democratic socialist who has proposed a rent freeze for the roughly 900,000 rent-stabilized apartments in the city.
“It’s not complicated,” Mr. Mamdani said. “Landlords know they can make a lot more money if Mr. Cuomo is in City Hall.”
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for the former governor, disputed that any donation would influence a future Cuomo administration. “The governor has got a 40-year record of working for working people,” he said, noting that Mr. Cuomo had been endorsed by most major unions in the city.
In the first mayoral debate on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo faced criticism over these donations, which one challenger characterized as attempts to “buy the mayoralty.”
Mr. Cuomo rejected the assertion.
“I don’t care who gave me what,” he said.
Mr. Cuomo has enjoyed a commanding lead in the polls since entering the race. But Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old Queens assemblyman with a thin legislative record but a powerful campaign, has been increasingly gaining in polls, in large part by focusing on populist issues like rent, groceries and the cost of transportation.
Mr. Azzopardi said that if elected mayor, Mr. Cuomo intended to keep rents as low as possible.
Mr. Cuomo was known to have a good relationship with the real estate industry as governor, even if that relationship had rough patches. In 2019, Mr. Cuomo signed the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, which clamped down on loopholes that landlords had long used to raise rents and push units out of stabilization.
At the time, Mr. Cuomo promoted the legislation as the “strongest possible set of reforms” and a “major step forward for tenants across New York.” The law was one of a handful of signature reforms Mr. Cuomo championed — including major changes to the state’s bail laws and congestion pricing — that helped to bolster his progressive bona fides.
Landlords strongly opposed the measure, saying it would make it impossible for them to properly maintain buildings that were rapidly deteriorating.
In the years since he left office, however, Mr. Cuomo has been critical of the implementation of these measures, which he has framed as typical of New York’s out-of-touch leftist inclinations.
On the campaign trail, he has distanced himself from the rent reforms he signed into law, particularly regarding apartment upgrades, which he acknowledged had harmed landlords.
His successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, successfully pushed for changes to the 2019 law that would make it more attractive for landlords to maintain their properties.
There is no issue in New York City more urgent or challenging than the cost of housing.
All of the candidates agree that the city needs to build more housing, and have offered plans for how to do so. And while Mr. Mamdani has led the calls for the Rent Guidelines Board to freeze rents, nearly all of the top contenders have agreed with him.
“Tenants are the majority in New York City, and we’re on the verge of electing a mayor who will freeze the rent,” said Cea Weaver, director of the New York State Tenant Bloc. “That’s why landlords are panicking and throwing millions at Andrew Cuomo in a last-ditch attempt to protect their profits.”
Mihir Zaveri contributed reporting.
Grace Ashford covers New York government and politics for The Times.
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