Andrew Cuomo says he'll drop out of NYC mayor's race if he's not ahead in the polls. "I don't want to be a part of a suicide mission."
A day after announcing he's officially running for mayor as an independent, a totally different Andrew Cuomo hit the campaign trail Tuesday.
Cuomo seemed to have learned a big lesson when he lost the Democratic primary - if you're running for mayor in the 21st century, you have to run a 21st century campaign, and in a social media world, you have to also do social media.
Cuomo spent part of Tuesday talking to voters at a Harlem coffee shop as part of his reinvention as an independent candidate seeking a do-over of his crushing loss to Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.
Cuomo was tailed by a social media crew, and insisted he's so intent on preventing a socialist from taking the city that he will step aside if need be.
"It's about saving the city"
"It's about saving the city, Marcia," he told CBS News New York's Marcia Kramer. "We are at a crossroads as a city. We are either going to continue to decline, continue to lose people on all income levels, by the way. Everybody talks about rich people leaving because of the taxes. People all across the board are leaving - middle class, lower income people, they're all leaving."
Cuomo said Mamdani's affordability platform including free buses and a rent freeze is "a political ideology that is wholly unworkable in reality. This is just political theory."
"Free sounds good. I want everything free. Except, as they used to say, there is no free lunch," Cuomo said. "None of these great sounding ideas actually work in reality. It's not going to happen. And that means there's actually more cynicism."
"I'm not going to be a spoiler"
Cuomo admitted he made mistakes in the campaign.
"Remarkably, I wasn't aggressive enough in the campaign," Cuomo said. "I didn't make my case the way I should've. I didn't talk to people where they were the way I should've. I didn't debunk his fancy slogans the way I should've. We just didn't have the campaign and the debate and the dialogue that the people of New York City really deserve. And that's on me. I take responsibility for that."
Cuomo said having new-sounding ideas is not enough to govern.
"What everyone really wants is not a cool idea. They want a solution. They want progress. And that's what I'm offering," Cuomo said.
So what happens if incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is ahead in the polls and is a stronger candidate?
"I don't want to be part of a suicide mission," Cuomo said. "If Adams is a stronger candidate, I'm not going to be a spoiler and I'll defer. I'm not going to be a reason that this assemblyman became mayor of the city of New York."
So if Cuomo is ahead of Adams, will he ask Adams not to go on that "suicide mission?"
"I think everybody will say that to Eric Adams, because everybody is going to make your point, which is look at the math, right? You divide up the vote, you're just making Mamdani the candidate and the mayor," Cuomo said.
Cuomo said he's offering his expertise and proven ability to get things done. But Adams is also singing that tune, and his spokesperson told CBS News New York he has no interest in stepping aside, especially if it's based on polls.
"He lost embarrassingly by 12 points"
"We should never forget that these same polls had Andrew up 32 points, and he lost embarrassingly by 12 points. This is a campaign about results, not resumes. And on that, Mayor Adams wins," Adams spokesperson Todd Shapiro said.
Mamdani, meanwhile, celebrated his endorsement by DC 37 and met with city business leaders worried about his left-leaning policies.
"I will go into that room knowing there will be disagreements and also knowing that the foundation is a belief in the possibility of this city," Mamdani said.
Mamdani is on a charm offensive to build his coalition. He'll have another meeting Wednesday with another group of business leaders, and there are plans to meet with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries this week as well.
In a surprise development, Cuomo got a boost from none other than President Trump.
"I think Andrew would have a good shot," Mr. Trump said.
Team Mamdani offered a tongue-in-cheek congrats, wondering "whether Cuomo will embrace Trump's support publicly or continue to just accept it in private."
There's no indication Cuomo has done either.
When Mr. Trump was asked who he is going to endorse in the race, he said "I don't want to say." He didn't mention either Republican Curtis Sliwa, or Adams.
