32 Comments
User's avatar
тна Return to thread
Tigercourse's avatar

NYC - I actually think Cuomo is going to triumph here and that would have been inconceivable to me not that long ago. It's fascinating. Adams is a massive disaster, the rest of the field is weak, and Cuomo has a chip on his shoulder driving him. I think this country just showed that a history of sexual harassment/assault is barely an inconvenience.

Expand full comment
Paleo's avatar

If the choice were him or Adams, he'd win. But I don't think that will be the final choice.

Expand full comment
Tigercourse's avatar

Ranked choice will complicate it but I will currently give the edge to Cuomo over the other candidates that I am aware of.

Expand full comment
Diogenes's avatar

If sexual misconduct is no obstacle, Eliot Spitzer ought to enter the race.

Expand full comment
Tigercourse's avatar

If I recall correctly, the accusation of assault against Spitzer fell apart. There is still the issue with prostitutes, but, to your point, that seems quaint. Beyond that though, he was a very unpopular Governor and failed in his last NYC race (though not by much, as I recall).

Expand full comment
Diogenes's avatar

Spitzer was elected governor by the widest margin in New York history. After his fall from grace, he attempted a comeback by running for comptroller of New York City but lost in the primary to Scott Stringer, who is now a likely candidate for mayor. But if Cuomo is now a viable candidate, even Matt Gaetz is a credible candidate for governor of Florida.

Expand full comment
Tigercourse's avatar

Spitzer was very popular the day he was elected. I personally really loved the guy. He basically immediately started to piss off absolutely everyone and was headed toward an aborted political career even without the prostitution scandal.

Expand full comment
UpstateNYer's avatar

Kinda funny that Stringer then lost out on his Mayoral race due to sexual misconduct. Seems to be a theme here unfortunately.

Expand full comment
Mark's avatar

Or Anthony Weiner.

Expand full comment
Tigercourse's avatar

I suspect the only election Weiner would win at the moment is "local whipping boy".

Expand full comment
Mark's avatar

Only because Democrats chose not to circle the wagons around him and normalize him the way that Republicans do with their deviants. If Weiner belonged to the other party, he'd be getting a Cabinet appointment right now.

Expand full comment
ArcticStones's avatar

Our electorate is different from the MAGA base.

Expand full comment
James Trout's avatar

A fact which I have to constantly remind people here and elsewhere. This notion that Democratic politicians get the same leeway as Republican politicians do is simply not based in reality. Base Democrats actually expect their politicians to govern, do it well, and to be adults. It's a major reason Orange Slob could and would never make it as "one of us." He would have had to be Mayor of NYC or NY Governor first before even considering going national. His ego would NEVER allow that.

Expand full comment
Jonathan's avatar

But he's a bigger asshole than all the other scum mentioned above imo

Expand full comment
Ethan (KingofSpades)'s avatar

His sex scandal is the least of his problems. He helped tank Clinton because he couldn't be arsed to be kept away from electronics by either himself or his family.

Expand full comment
JanusIanitos's avatar

I think each of them has enough baggage that they'd lose more often than not on their own, but the calculus changes with both of them in the field.

RCV helps a lot but there's only so much oxygen in the room. Unless the not-toxic field consolidates down to one, or maybe two, of them getting attention I don't see it working out well.

As-is, Adams and Cuomo will dominate coverage and mental space for the mayoral election and it's going to be hard for one of the other candidates to break through that and be perceived as an equivalently viable option by voters.

Expand full comment
Jonathan's avatar

I simply don't agree that either Cuomo or Adams is elected in that race(I have no actual back-up to my opinion other than I think NYC voters are smarter than such idiocy)

Expand full comment
JanusIanitos's avatar

NYC voters elected Adams in 2021 after heaps of evidence that he was a deeply flawed candidate that would make a poor mayor. They also elected republicans to the office for two full decades between Giuliani and Bloomberg. In 2024 there was something like a 15 point shift to Trump in the city, relative to 2020.

History would suggest that NYC voters are more than capable of voting for one of two prominent poor choices in a primary. The core issue isn't unique to NYC, to be clear.

At the end of the day prominent candidates, even deeply flawed ones, get a lot of media attention. With there being two such high profile deeply flawed candidates in the primary, the general trend is that we should expect the majority of media attention to focus on those two. That will make it difficult for someone like Lander to break through and build a lane for themself, in order to get enough people to rank one specific not-Adams not-Cuomo candidate on their RCV lists.

Expand full comment
Jonathan's avatar

I simply don't agree because Adams is not popular and has had a mountain of negative publicity about corruption(and frankly weird behavior also); I think an alternative candidate will emerge that will win(probably a Hispanic imo)

Expand full comment
JanusIanitos's avatar

I certainly don't think it's guaranteed that Adams or Cuomo win, but I worry that it's reasonably likely.

Hopefully your confidence proves merited and they both go down in flames.

Expand full comment
Paleo's avatar

Adams is not winning. HeтАЩs not getting over 50%. He barely got it last time.

Expand full comment
Tigercourse's avatar

Basically what Januslantios said. I'll just add that NYC voters have shown poor turnout recently and the entire area has moved to the right. They are looking for strong leadership to deal with the mountain of problems that NYC has, and Cuomo appears strong. In that way, he is the most Trump like politician we have. All of the other people currently being talked about are either too liberal or too weak, or both, to stand up to Cuomo, who has way more name recognition than anyone else out there. As for someone not currently being talked about that could come in and beat him, that would probably be the AG, James. But I don't think she wants it.

Expand full comment
Mike in MD's avatar

Especially if the "not Cuomo or Adams" vote is split. I could see enough voters flocking to some other candidate who appears to offer a fresher start with less baggage to make such a candidate a serious contender, especially with RCV.

But such a candidate would have to have the money or media profile to break past the two flawed frontrunners, and I'm not sure if there's a Bloomberg type candidate who's willing to do that (they don't have to be as uber-wealthy as Bloomie, but it's gonna take a LOT of money for an outsider without institutional support or a record in office to do so.) And I don't think voters are really in the mood for turning the city into the lab for the latest progressive or socialist experiments, either.

Expand full comment
Avedee Eikew's avatar

Hopefully, NYC voters find a third candidate under 75 who hasn't taken bribes or sexually assaulted their staff. This shouldn't be so difficult.

Expand full comment
Jonathan's avatar

This is my opinion exactly; thanks for posting what I was trying to do

Expand full comment
James Trout's avatar

That would be YUGE for his ego. He'd get the one job that eluded Daddy Cuomo back in the day. Has he actually announced his Mayoralship candidacy?

Expand full comment
Henrik's avatar

As much as I dislike Cuomo his style is probably better suited for city politics than state/national and anybody would be an improvement over Adams

Expand full comment
ArcticStones's avatar

In due time, I expect Eric Adams to be offered a job in the Trump Administration.

Expand full comment
Jonathan's avatar

I don't know; not sure if Trump would actually do that(what is the payoff for him??)

Expand full comment
ArcticStones's avatar

The payoff for Trump is a big "eff you" to Democrats тАУ which is precisely what many of his other cabinet nominations are.

Expand full comment
JanusIanitos's avatar

On the other hand, Adams' legal problems are such that he would probably be gone soon enough anyway. Cuomo, if he wins, could presumably stick around as long as he wished.

Expand full comment
Jonathan's avatar

I think his chances are less than 1%

Expand full comment
ErrorError