The Democratic candidates seeking to replace New York Mayor Eric Adams are signaling to voters they will stand up to and battle President Donald Trump, who looms over his hometown’s mayoral election, Politico reported Monday.
This comes as polls show that most Democratic voters in the Big Apple want a mayor who will do just that.
Their desire for someone to fight the White House is why Adams is not running in the June 24 Democratic primary and instead is on the ballot as an independent in November, given his friendly posture toward Trump.
“President Trump’s name may not be on the ballot, but his presence is arguably the most important factor for Democratic primary candidates to navigate,” said New York City-based Democratic strategist Austin Shafran. “Failing to show you can stand up to him could be a major disqualifier among primary voters — especially Black and brown voters who have no love lost with President Trump.”
It’s an especially sensitive issue for Andrew Cuomo, the scandal-scarred former governor who has a decades-long relationship with the president.
Cuomo’s mayoral primary foes are seeking to tie him to Trump — highlighting shared donors and similarly autocratic styles — in a bid to halt the front-runner’s momentum, according to Politico. They argue that Cuomo has remained quiet as Trump carries out an unprecedented incursion into New York City’s affairs.
Casting Cuomo as too weak to fight Trump provides a crucial opportunity to his lesser-known challengers, who are finding it difficult to break through in the polls.
“Whenever Donald Trump wants to put New Yorkers within his crosshairs, I am going to fight him,” state Rep. Zohran Mamdani said. “And that is in stark contrast to our former governor, who is too busy being funded by the same people that put Donald Trump in office.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander is another candidate staking his campaign on attacking Cuomo and Trump — often together.
“Andrew Cuomo only cares about Andrew Cuomo,” Lander said in an interview. “He imagines Trump and he in some kind of finger-poking battle, but that’s not the battle that’s being fought.”
Lander added in the interview that “students are on the line. Due process is on the line. Our budget’s on the line. And [Cuomo] hasn’t said one word about any of those things. So this idea that anyone should care about his hypothetical idea about what he would do when he can’t be found to say anything about the battles that New Yorkers are fighting right now is very telling.”
Adrienne Adams, New York City Council speaker and a late entry into the mayoral race, says she’s already battling Trump in her leadership role. She fundraised off her lawsuit to block the mayor’s agreement to bring federal law enforcement agents back to city jails, calling it “the Trump administration’s attempt to seize power over our city at the expense of New Yorkers.”
Cuomo backers, in the meantime, see him as the perfect Trump foil — a bully, but “our” bully, an alpha to match the president’s own take-no-prisoners personality.
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