Andrew M. Cuomo’s bid to become mayor of New York City will receive an unexpected boost from a rival Democratic candidate on Friday, when Jessica Ramos will announce that she is endorsing him.
Ms. Ramos, a state senator from Queens, is a progressive Democrat who has been one of the harshest campaign critics of Mr. Cuomo, the former New York governor who resigned in 2021 after a sexual harassment scandal.
She said in April that Mr. Cuomo’s “mental acuity is in decline” and that New Yorkers could not afford a “Joe Biden moment” at City Hall, in reference to the former president’s age and health concerns.
But on Friday, Ms. Ramos will appear at a campaign event with Mr. Cuomo to announce her endorsement, just two days after the two were among nine Democrats sparring on a debate stage.
Ms. Ramos said she was “staying in the race” and would remain on the ballot, but her endorsement of Mr. Cuomo is effectively an acknowledgment that she cannot win. She said she was supporting Mr. Cuomo because “he’s the one best positioned right now to protect this city.”
“With Trump threatening to bulldoze New York and take us backward, we need someone in City Hall who knows how to hold the line and deliver under pressure,” she said.
She said the race was about “governing, not posturing” and that she would continue to push for “higher wages, more housing and a stronger voice for working people.”
Ms. Ramos has trailed in the polls and in fund-raising and has expressed disappointment about feeling abandoned by her allies on the left. She has also intensified her criticism of Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens and a democratic socialist who has risen to second place in the polls ahead of the June 24 Democratic primary.
Her endorsement comes the day after Mr. Mamdani received the top endorsement of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who ranked five candidates but left Ms. Ramos off her slate. The left-leaning Working Families Party listed her fifth among its endorsements.
Ms. Ramos, whose parents are from Colombia, had hoped to reach Latino voters and to win union support. But most of the unions endorsed Mr. Cuomo, and she received less than 4 percent of votes in a recent poll. She has only $9,000 in her campaign account and has not qualified for public matching funds.
Mr. Cuomo thanked Ms. Ramos for her support in a statement and called her a “fighter for working New Yorkers.” He said that he looked forward to working with her to approve a $20 minimum wage for the city, one of his major campaign promises.
“We’re both proud Queens kids, and with it comes a Queens attitude that is both tough and protective of their families and their neighbors and by extension all New Yorkers,” he said.
In April, the former governor’s spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, said that Ms. Ramos’s remarks about Mr. Cuomo’s mental state reflected a “desperate attack from a desperate extreme left socialist,” and asked whether she was sober at the time.
But as Mr. Mamdani continued to gain ground in the race, Ms. Ramos began to direct her barbs at him.
At the debate on Wednesday night, Ms. Ramos expressed regret for not having run for mayor four years ago. She then made clear, without naming Mr. Mamdani, that her remark was an attack on him and his popularity on social media.
“I thought I needed more experience, but turns out you just need to make good videos,” she said.
Several candidates have been working together to encourage voters to leave Mr. Cuomo off their ranked-choice ballots, and it is possible that they could cross-endorse one another or campaign together in the coming days. At a recent event, Mr. Mamdani walked arm in arm with the rest of the Working Families Party slate, which includes Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker; Brad Lander, the city comptroller; and Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn.
An alliance with Ms. Ramos could help Mr. Cuomo counter the lingering misgivings that some voters have retained over the sexual harassment allegations that led him to step down as governor. Ms. Ramos was among a group of female elected officials who pushed for his resignation.
At the debate, Mr. Cuomo faced pointed questions about the allegations and about his handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic. Michael Blake, a former state lawmaker, said onstage that Mr. Cuomo was the greatest public safety threat to “young women, mothers and grandmothers.”
Mr. Cuomo has denied the sexual harassment allegations and fought them in court. In polls, some of his strongest support comes from women.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall bureau chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.
The post Jessica Ramos Will Endorse Andrew Cuomo for New York City Mayor appeared first on New York Times.
