Faced with accusations of amplifying or inserting Islamophobia into the New York City’s mayor’s race, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo struck a familiar, aggressive pose last week.
It was his opponent, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who sought to offend and divide, not him, Mr. Cuomo said.
“Who haven’t you offended?” he asked Mr. Mamdani rhetorically at a news conference in Queens. “Jewish, Italian, L.G.B.T.Q., N.Y.P.D. The Black community, saying that Barack Obama is evil and a liar. Who have you not offended? Who have you not tried to divide and attack? Hindu community. Sunni Muslim community. Who have you not attacked?”
As Mr. Cuomo, a lifelong Democrat running as an independent, tries to improve his standing in the final stretch of the race, he has cast a wider net to attract voters. To win Republican supporters of that party’s nominee, Curtis Sliwa, Mr. Cuomo has courted them at campaign stops, in interviews on Fox News and with appearances on conservative podcasts.
But Mr. Cuomo has also targeted certain groups that have longstanding affiliations with Democratic candidates and that may be more inclined toward Mr. Mamdani, whether because of his views, background or the fact that he is the Democratic nominee.
Matt Wing, a political consultant who worked for Mr. Cuomo when he was governor, said Mr. Cuomo essentially needed to convince a swath of Democrats who did not vote for him in the primary that Mr. Mamdani was “too toxic” and that “they have no choice but to come to me.”
To bolster his case, Mr. Cuomo has used tactics reminiscent of those used by President Trump to cut into the margins of longstanding Democratic constituencies, including Black, Hispanic and Jewish voters.
Mr. Trump tried to woo Black and Hispanic voters away by arguing that Democrats had abandoned them in favor of undocumented immigrants who were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.” He appealed to working-class voters with vows to reduce the cost of living. He said his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, was “killing Black and Hispanic heritage.” And he often accused Jews who voted for Democrats of betraying their identity because of the party’s criticism of Israel.
Mr. Trump’s strategy seemed to be effective: Exit polls and election results showed him making gains among Black voters and making significant inroads with Hispanic voters, including in Democratic strongholds like New York City.
But Mr. Trump could also count on a reliable Republican base. As an independent candidate in a Democratic city, Mr. Cuomo has a different challenge: He must create a new base of support outside of traditional partisan politics that includes Democrats spurning their party’s nominee.
Mr. Cuomo has made fear-based appeals to voters a central part of his closing message, spinning tales of a grim future for the city if Mr. Mamdani wins. He has recently suggested that Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is not really a Democrat, and has framed his own campaign as part of a larger civil war over the soul of the party.
“The far left is never, never going to declare peace,” Mr. Cuomo said on Stephen A. Smith’s SiriusXM show, issuing a warning to the Democratic establishment. “They’re going to come for power, and they’re going to come to kill them.”
Mr. Cuomo has exploited similar tensions to target key demographic groups in the city. No group of voters is monolithic, and he often highlights issues that can promote political division within racial or ethnic groups.
He has particularly homed in on Mr. Mamdani’s positions on Israel as a wedge that can win over Jewish voters. He has repeatedly cited Mr. Mamdani’s long-held pro-Palestinian views, vocal criticism of Israel and reluctance to condemn a contentious phrase to cast the assemblyman as inadequately supportive of New York’s large Jewish population.
Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University, said Mr. Cuomo had exploited, and magnified, existing tensions among Jewish New Yorkers over the war in Gaza. But she said his attempts to target other groups — L.G.B.T.Q. voters, Black residents, Muslims — with identity-based appeals struck her as “very disingenuous.”
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, dismissed suggestions that his tactics were divisive and said that the Cuomo campaign was trying to provide information to voters who were not properly informed about Mr. Mamdani’s past statements or views.
“Zohran is the least vetted candidate since George Santos,” he said, “and the most unqualified since” Bill de Blasio. “Voters,” Mr. Azzopardi added, “need to know the facts.”
Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani, accused Mr. Cuomo in a statement of “corrupt, self-serving politics” that “New Yorkers can hardly wait to leave behind for good come this Tuesday.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Cuomo’s campaign has taken aim at Mr. Mamdani’s support among South Asian voters, in part by pointing to his family’s mixed religious heritage. The assemblyman’s mother is Hindu and his father is Muslim, and Mr. Mamdani has said his Muslim faith has been central to his political views.
In a video the Cuomo campaign posted last month, a group of supporters calling themselves “Muslims Against Mamdani” argued that Mr. Mamdani was not really Muslim. “He’s a self-proclaimed Hindu,” one man says.
“Whenever he goes to a mosque, he says, I’m a Muslim,” another man says, adding that when Mr. Mamdani is at a Hindu temple, “he says my mother was Hindu. He’s misleading people.”
That line, amplified by Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, echoed an attack that Mr. Trump made against Ms. Harris, who is Black and Indian, as he tried to win Black voters away from Democrats.
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Mr. Trump said last year to a group of Black journalists. “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Mr. Cuomo has also singled out Sunni Muslims as he argues that Mr. Mamdani, who is Shiite, holds views on decriminalizing sex work that are “haram,” or forbidden by Islamic law. The split between the Shiite and Sunni sects has been at the heart of some geopolitical conflicts, but Mucahit Bulici, a sociology professor at John Jay College, said such divisions did not tend to be central in Muslim American communities.
And Mr. Cuomo has tried to sow doubt among L.G.B.T.Q. voters, who largely vote for Democrats, by pointing to a photo of Mr. Mamdani with a Ugandan elected official who has supported laws that would make same-sex sexual activity illegal.
Mr. Mamdani has characterized his encounter with the Ugandan official as an airport run-in and has said he did not know her views. But Mr. Cuomo, who pushed to legalize same-sex marriage in New York when he was governor, has cited the picture as evidence that he would better represent the L.G.B.T.Q. community as mayor. (Mr. Cuomo has also campaigned with a former Bronx elected official who has made anti-gay statements, and with a Republican council member who opposed bills related to transgender rights.)
Joseph Borelli, a Staten Island Republican and former city councilman who supports Mr. Cuomo, rejected the idea that the former governor’s campaign efforts were inherently divisive.
“I think he’s trying to put a lasso around people who are simply concerned about the rise of progressive socialism in New York,” Mr. Borelli, who also supports Mr. Trump, said.
As part of those efforts, Mr. Cuomo is also trying to court Republicans away from Mr. Sliwa. As he solicits the backing of those voters, he has appeared on podcasts hosted by Emily Austin, a conservative influencer who campaigned for Mr. Trump last year, and Logan Paul, the wrestler and social media star who endorsed Mr. Trump.
Mr. Cuomo has made frequent appearances on Fox News and on conservative radio programs, particularly on the talk radio station WABC.
Mr. Cuomo was asked this week by the Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo whether he feared that a victory by Mr. Mamdani might “change the look of New York.” Ms. Bartiromo cited London, which has a Muslim mayor, and which she caricatured as “largely Muslim” with women who were “completely covered up.”
Mr. Cuomo brushed the question aside by returning to a favorite subject: Mr. Mamdani’s previous association with Hasan Piker, a popular streamer who once said America “deserved 9/11.” Mr. Mamdani, who was 9 when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, objected to the comments at a debate last month.
Mr. Cuomo then referred to Mr. Mamdani’s birth and early years in Uganda and his dual citizenship and cast doubt on whether the assemblyman could sufficiently represent New Yorkers.
“He just doesn’t understand the New York culture, the New York values, what 9/11 meant,” Mr. Cuomo said.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
The post Cuomo’s Pitch as He Claws for Votes: I’m Not the Divider, Mamdani Is appeared first on New York Times.
