When Mayor Eric Adams suddenly ended his re-election bid just over a week ago, the development seemed tailor-made for former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
As one of just three major candidates left in the New York City mayoral race, Mr. Cuomo had a wider lane to attract centrists skeptical of the front-runner, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, and dismissive of the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa.
“It’s a totally different campaign,” Mr. Cuomo said last week. “I have much more of a field operation, much more presence on the ground, much more social media presence than I’ve had before. And I’m doing much more personal outreach myself.”
But so far, there is little evidence that Mr. Adams’s exit has been a game changer for Mr. Cuomo, and time is short: He still trails Mr. Mamdani by 20 points in most polls with a month before Election Day.
Polls suggest that Mr. Cuomo’s chances will only meaningfully increase if Mr. Sliwa drops out — a scenario that the Republican nominee has repeatedly rejected.
Donations to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign did rise last week, with nearly $400,000 arriving in the 36 hours immediately following the mayor’s announcement. Super PACs supporting the former governor also registered slight upticks in contributions, but nothing that matched the tens of millions of dollars raised for the spring primary.
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The post Is Adams’s Exit a Game-Changer for Cuomo? Not So Far. appeared first on New York Times.
