A day after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo landed the coveted endorsement of Michael R. Bloomberg in his bid to become mayor of New York City, Mr. Cuomo was backed by two more name-brand politicians on Wednesday.
The latest endorsements came from former Gov. David Paterson and Keith L.T. Wright, the chairman of the Manhattan Democratic Party. Four years ago, both men had backed the current mayor, Eric Adams, who is now running as an independent.
“We were with him when he ran,” Mr. Paterson said. “We thought he was doing a good job until he had these problems,” referring to Mr. Adams’s federal corruption indictment that was dropped earlier this year by the Trump administration.
Mr. Paterson suggested that Mr. Adams seemed beholden to President Trump in a way that was incompatible with how a Democratic mayor of New York City should act. “Some of the statements,” Mr. Paterson said, “have been far more supportive than I think the president deserves.”
With early voting for the Democratic primary for mayor set to begin on Saturday and the final debate of the primary set for Thursday, the two front-runners, Mr. Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, have been engaged in a battle to secure influential endorsements.
Mr. Cuomo on Wednesday also picked up the backing of the Satmars, a large Orthodox Jewish group in Brooklyn and part of an important voting bloc. A day earlier, he was backed by Mr. Bloomberg, who rarely wades into New York City primary squabbles.
Mr. Mamdani scored the most coveted endorsement among his fellow left-leaning candidates when he recently landed the backing of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York’s standard-bearer of the left. He also won top endorsements from Representative Nydia Velázquez and the Working Families Party.
For most of the campaign, Mr. Cuomo has centered his candidacy on his experience and accomplishments as governor, including several run-ins with President Trump during his first term. But on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo shifted his messaging to attack Mr. Mamdani, in seeming recognition that the contest appears to have turned into a two-person race.
He questioned whether Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old two-term assemblyman from Queens, had enough experience and gravitas to run the largest and most complex city in the country.
“There are some certain, basic skills to be mayor,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Can you manage? Do you know anything about Washington? Do you anything about Congress? Can you build projects? Have you ever gotten legislation passed?”
Then, without directly mentioning Mr. Mamdani’s name, Cuomo referred to the assemblyman’s thin record as a state lawmaker. “He’s only passed three bills in his own house.”
Mr. Wright, who served as a state Democratic Party chairman under Mr. Cuomo, said the former governor’s reputation for completing major projects, like LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B, is what the city needs. “When Andrew says he’s going to build 500,000 units of affordable housing, I believe him.”
As the race enters its final days, questions of leadership, experience and who has the most chutzpah to stand up to President Trump have dominated the contest. Mr. Cuomo spent much of his news conference asserting that he wasn’t afraid to take on Mr. Trump because he had done so during the pandemic.
Mr. Cuomo predicted that Mr. Trump would eventually try to send federal troops into the city to quell protests about his administration’s efforts to deport immigrants, as he has done in Los Angeles.
“It is authoritarianism in the way we have never seen it before,” Mr. Cuomo said.
Mr. Mamdani has acknowledged the questions of his experience and age. He pointed to the success of his current campaign, which he said showed his ability to marshal support for his ideas. He also said that if he was elected, he would hire the “best and brightest” to help him.
“Zohran is proud not to have the experience of defunding the M.T.A., cutting Medicaid, empowering Republicans and resigning in disgrace after being credibly accused of serial sexual harassment,” Andrew Epstein, a spokesman for Mr. Mamdani, said, referring to Mr. Cuomo. “New Yorkers are ready for a new generation of leadership that will take on Donald Trump and isn’t funded by the same billionaires who put him back in office.”
Mr. Mamdani was also hit by a surprise attack on Tuesday by Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker whose bid to qualify for the city’s generous matching-funds program he aided. Mr. Mamdani made an unusual appeal to his own followers to help Ms. Adams.
Nonetheless, Ms. Adams criticized Mr. Mamdani on social media for wanting to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “A lawless president does not mean we abolish entire agencies and our laws,” she wrote. The post has since been deleted.
Ms. Adams, speaking at a news conference at City Hall, said the post was “misinterpreted” and that it did not convey what she meant to convey. She has sued to prevent federal agents from gaining access to the Rikers Island jail complex.
“My focus has always been about Donald Trump,” Ms. Adams said.
Jeffery C. Mays is a Times reporter covering politics with a focus on New York City Hall.
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