In the heart of southern Brooklyn, where the venerable Greenhouse Cafe has hosted weddings and served brunches for more than 40 years, the co-owner, John Keegan, seems like a perfect target for former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s mayoral campaign.
Mr. Keegan, 62, is an independent voter who supported President Trump last year, but has been disappointed by Mr. Trump’s second term. He admits to not being enamored with the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, and his lingering allegiance to Mr. Trump means that voting for the Democratic candidate, Zohran Mamdani, is a nonstarter.
That leaves Mr. Cuomo, right? Mr. Keegan replied with a hard no.
“The reason why New York City is in trouble is because of Cuomo,” Mr. Keegan said. His return to politics was “an insult to the people of New York,” he added, noting the sexual harassment scandal that led to his resignation in 2021. (Mr. Cuomo has denied the accusations.)
Mr. Keegan said he would vote for Mr. Sliwa, though he would have preferred someone a “little bit more polished.”
As Mr. Cuomo tries to mount a late comeback against Mr. Mamdani, the front-runner, he has taken steps to woo Republicans and right-leaning independent voters. He has made multiple appearances in the Republican stronghold of Staten Island in recent weeks, and has shifted his messaging in ways and in places that seem designed to court Republican voters.
Over the last month, Mr. Cuomo has been a guest on various Fox News programs, and on conservative radio programs on WABC at least six times. Last week, he appeared on a podcast hosted by the influencer Logan Paul, whose popularity has been grounded on a cultural wave of masculinity.
Days earlier on Fox News, Mr. Cuomo said that if people voted for Mr. Sliwa, they “may as well vote for Zohran Mamdani directly.”
“If this city becomes a Zohran Mamdani city, a socialist city,” Mr. Cuomo added. “It’s going to be the death of New York as we know it, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican.”
Mr. Cuomo’s campaign seems intent on continuing to court the support of right-leaning New Yorkers, with some of the appeals drawing criticism from fellow Democrats. On Wednesday night, Mr. Cuomo’s campaign posted, then quickly removed, an A.I.-generated video depicting Mr. Mamdani’s supporters as criminals; a critique of how his policies would harm the city. It also depicted Mr. Mamdani eating rice with his hands, a common practice among South Asians, and called him an “inexperienced radical.”
In a speech on Friday at a mosque in the Bronx, Mr. Mamdani condemned Islamophobic attacks from Mr. Cuomo and other opponents.
“This is Andrew Cuomo’s final moments in public life,” Mr. Mamdani said during an interview on PIX11, “and he’s choosing to spend them making racist attacks on the person who would be the first Muslim to lead this city.”
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, said the A.I. video was unauthorized and had been put up by a junior staff member who was no longer with the campaign.
Mr. Cuomo’s messaging seemed targeted for parts of the city like Staten Island and the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn, where Mr. Sliwa’s signs dot the windows of local businesses and Mr. Trump won 66 percent of the vote last year, a 16 percent increase from the 2020 presidential election.
During an interview on Thursday with the conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg, Mr. Cuomo talked about reducing the toll on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and helping homeowners on Staten Island rebuild after Hurricane Sandy.
Sitting on his stoop in Dyker Heights, Mark Mastellone said he planned to vote for Mr. Sliwa, even as he acknowledged that his candidate would lose the Nov. 4 election.
A political independent who also voted for Mr. Trump, Mr. Mastellone said he was concerned about calls from Mr. Mamdani for higher taxes to support his policy proposals like universal child care. He said he’d only consider a vote for Mr. Cuomo, who is running as an independent, if Mr. Sliwa ended his campaign.
“Since he’s in there,” Mr. Mastellone, 56, a union carpenter, said one recent afternoon, “I’ve got to go with my heart.”
Mr. Cuomo’s message — that the city would fall into ruin during a Mamdani mayoralty — was not completely lost on Steven Tsibikos, 63, another Dyker Heights resident.
But as he walked his beagle-Pekingese mix down a commercial stretch of Dyker Heights, Mr. Tsibikos said his personal appreciation for Mr. Sliwa outweighed any concern about Mr. Mamdani.
A contractor who described himself as a “Reaganite,” Mr. Tsibikos said he appreciated Mr. Sliwa’s approach on crime.
“Sliwa is not a politician, OK? He’s more of a doer,” Mr. Tsibikos argued, adding: “He knows the heart of the city more than the other two combined.”
Aside from voters’ skepticism with Mr. Cuomo, political observers think the former governor’s efforts to charm Republican voters are arriving far too late in the race to have a meaningful effect.
Justin Brannan, a Democratic councilman and a Mamdani supporter who represents Bay Ridge, said there was little room for Mr. Cuomo to mine votes in the ideological gap separating Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Sliwa.
Mr. Mamdani, he said, has the support of those who want New York City to be “a more affordable place,” while Mr. Sliwa is backed by voters who “think New York City has gone to hell, and the 1950s were the glory days.”
Former Senator Alfonse D’Amato, a Republican who has previously supported Mr. Cuomo, was more blunt.
“It is over,” Mr. D’Amato said, adding that Mr. Cuomo “has not done anything to attract them, and you got this other jackass running on the Republican line. The hard cores will stay with him. It’s hopeless.”
Mr. Cuomo seems unpersuaded. His efforts to push Mr. Sliwa to drop out and for Republicans and independents to vote for him have ramped up, with the start of early voting on Saturday. Polls show that the gap between Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Mamdani would decrease considerably if the election was a one-on-one contest between the two.
In his earlier runs for statewide office, Mr. Cuomo regularly courted Republican voters. There was a “Republicans for Cuomo” group and a steady stream of endorsements from prominent Republicans, including Mr. D’Amato.
The New York Times reported in August that Mr. Cuomo had spoken to Mr. Trump about the race for mayor. Mr. Trump has consistently disparaged Mr. Sliwa’s campaign, saying recently on Fox News that he was not a viable candidate and questioning whether he was “really a Republican.”
During Wednesday night’s debate, Mr. Mamdani called Mr. Cuomo “Donald Trump’s puppet.”
Andrew Stein, a former New York City Council president and a decades-long friend of Mr. Trump, said he expected Mr. Trump to signal to his supporters that they should back Mr. Cuomo, even if they do not like his entire record.
Mr. Cuomo’s hopes lie in voters like Carmen Rojas, a registered Democrat who voted for Mr. Trump last year, and Steven Scalici, a resident of Staten Island’s South Shore, who are both skeptical of Mr. Sliwa.
Ms. Rojas, a Dyker Heights resident, said she objected strongly to Mr. Mamdani because she was born in Venezuela, where the country’s economy collapsed in recent years under an authoritarian, socialism-inspired government. As a result, she would not support anyone who identifies as a socialist. She likes Mr. Sliwa but believes that “he doesn’t have a chance” to win the election.
“It’s a tough one,” Ms. Rojas, 67, said. “I’m going to go with Cuomo.”
Mr. Scalici, 69, has been torn between support for Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Sliwa.
Mr. Scalici’s father was murdered in 1981, and the killer was released on parole after decades in prison, he said. He blamed Mr. Cuomo for changing the ideological complexion of the parole board, making it easier for the man to win his release.
“This vote has to be more than just about me,” Mr. Scalici said. “One is a long-shot, perpetual candidate, the other is a guy who kind of stinks, but he is a mature man.”
Mr. Cuomo is not the only Democrat reaching out to Republican and independent voters. Mr. Mamdani has made several recent campaign stops on Staten Island, where he was met by protesters at one event, and he appeared on Fox News before the first debate.
Mr. Mamdani’s criticism of the pricing of World Cup tickets and appearances on several sports podcasts is part of his outreach to disaffected young, male voters. On the “I’ve Had It” podcast, Mr. Mamdani said his campaign was seeing interest from New York City residents who voted for Mr. Trump last year.
He believes his campaign’s strict focus on affordability cuts across ideological lines.
“I think part of our posture has been, we welcome anyone to join this movement,” Mr. Mamdani said on the podcast. “We don’t ask them where they’ve been or why they haven’t joined yet.”
Jeffery C. Mays is a Times reporter covering politics with a focus on New York City Hall.
Benjamin Oreskes is a reporter covering New York State politics and government for The Times.
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