Mayoral Race Features Cuomo, Mamdani and the Shadow of Trump

By Jacob Margolies / Yomiuri Shimbun New York Bureau

7:00 JST, June 24, 2025

The following is an installment of the “Letter from New York” column by Jacob Margolies, The Yomiuri Shimbun’s General Counsel for America. Having practiced law for over three decades in New York, he explores a variety of topics — cultural, economic and political — in and around the Big Apple, and examines issues that the United States, Japan and the world at large are facing.

New York City is electing a mayor this year, and on Tuesday, the Democratic Party’s registered voters will be choosing their candidate for the general election race in November.

Nearly two-thirds of voters in the city are Democrats, so it is very likely that the candidate who wins the Democratic primary will be the city’s next mayor. Unaffiliated voters form the second largest bloc of voters in the city at 21%, and registered Republican Party voters are only 11%.

Unlike some other major U.S. cities, the mayor of New York has strong executive powers. He (the city has never had a woman mayor) is in charge of the major city agencies, including the police and schools; prepares the city budget, including annual expenses and the capital plan; and has veto power over any law passed by the city’s legislative body, which can only be overridden by a two-thirds vote by the City Council. The mayor appoints judges and has primary responsibility — subject to approval by other arms of government — for land use and zoning as well as city contracts.

So, who the mayor is really matters.

As with most aspects of American politics, U.S. President Donald Trump’s influence looms over New York’s mayoral election. The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, is unpopular. In a March poll only 20% of voters approved of Adams’ handling of his job. His popularity, which was already low, plummeted after he was indicted on bribery charges and violations of campaign finance law in September 2024.

But after Trump took office, the United States Justice Department ordered prosecutors in its New York office to drop the case, citing concerns that a prosecution could interfere with Adams’ ability to assist with immigration enforcement efforts. In April, a federal judge dismissed all the charges against Adams.

Adams’ attendance at Trump’s inauguration and his attempts to curry favor with the president have been viewed with disdain by most New Yorkers. Trump won only 30% of the city’s vote in the 2024 election, and four of Adams’ deputy mayors submitted their resignations after the Trump Justice Department officially moved to dismiss the criminal charges against him.

Seeing he had no chance to win in the primary, Adams has chosen not to seek renomination by the Democratic Party, but he says he intends to run on an independent line in the November general election.

Two frontrunners

The two leading candidates in the Democratic primary this month both have remarkable stories. The frontrunner is 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo, who served as the governor of New York State from 2011 until he resigned in disgrace in 2021 after a report by the New York attorney general found he had sexually harassed 11 women, many of whom worked under him. After the report was released, then President Joe Biden and other Democratic Party leaders called for Cuomo to resign, and he faced likely impeachment.

It was a mighty fall for the three-term governor. During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuomo held daily briefings that were televised and provided reassurances, advice and comforting words during the worst months of the crisis. His televised press conferences over 111 consecutive days were compared to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chats during the Great Depression. For a few months, Cuomo was the most popular elected official in the United States.

But in 2021, an official New York State report found that the Cuomo administration had understated the number of COVID-19 deaths in New York nursing homes by 50%, and the governor was criticized for an order in the first days of the pandemic that forced nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive residents returning from hospitals if they were medically stable.

Cuomo had issued the order because he feared a shortage of hospital beds during the first months of the pandemic, but the policy has been blamed for the high number of virus-related deaths among nursing home residents. According to press reports, the Trump Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether Cuomo lied to Congress when testifying publicly about COVID-19 related nursing home deaths.

Despite the sexual harassment and nursing home scandals, Cuomo decided to run for mayor and, to the surprise of many, he has been the clear leader in the polls. The former governor is well-known and thought by many to be tough and decisive. Some supporters cite infrastructure projects that got built under his command.

Cuomo is especially popular with Black voters (74% said they would vote for him in a recent poll). He is also strongly favored by older voters, some of whom fondly remember Cuomo’s father, Mario Cuomo, who was New York’s governor from 1983 through 1994.

While Andrew Cuomo is a nationally known political figure, his leading opponent, according to polls, is a young newcomer who until a few months ago was unknown to most New Yorkers.

Zohran Mamdani is 33 years old. He is a Muslim who was born in Uganda and moved to New York with his Indian parents at the age of 7. In 2020, he was elected to represent a district in Queens in the New York State Assembly.

Mamdani is running as an avowed socialist, and while many of the other candidates in the race boast long resumes and decades of experience in government, it is Mamdani whose campaign has electrified younger voters. He has thousands of volunteers, and his exuberant videos on social media get millions of views on TikTok and Instagram.

Mamdani has focused on economic issues. He promises to make city buses free, freeze rent in the city’s 1 million plus rent-regulated apartments, provide free childcare for New Yorkers aged six weeks to 5 years and establish low-cost government-run grocery stores in each of the city’s five boroughs. In an extremely expensive city, where many residents struggle to pay their bills, Mamdani’s appeal to pocketbook issues has struck a resounding chord.

Exactly how all that Mamdani proposes would be paid for is unclear. While some may see his promises as merely aspirational, he presents his platform with a straight face.

Of course, outlandish political promises aren’t necessarily an impediment to political success in the United States. While on the campaign trail, Trump promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war “within 24 hours of taking office” and pledged to cut people’s energy bills by 50% in his first 12 months in office.

There are 11 candidates on the Democratic primary ballot and voters are allowed to rank their top 5 choices in order of preference.

If no candidate earns more than 50% of first-choice votes on election day, the city Board of Elections will tabulate a ranked-choice tally a week later, on July 1, where at the end of each round, the last-place candidate will be eliminated and voters who chose that candidate will have their vote counted for their next choice. This process will continue until two candidates are left and the one with the most votes will be declared the winner.

A hostile president

How the next mayor would deal with a president who is extremely hostile to the Democratic Party is an open question. The president grew up in the city. He still has an apartment on 5th Avenue in the Trump Tower, and his family business remains headquartered there. So, Trump still has a keen interest in the affairs of New York.

He also holds a deep and enduring animus toward the city and state’s leading elected officials. Manhattan’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought a criminal case against Trump, that even many of the president’s critics found dubious, resulting in a criminal conviction in May 2024 for falsifying business records. New York Attorney General Letitia James won a civil case against Trump and the Trump organization that resulted in a $454 million fine. Both of those cases are currently on appeal.

In his first months in office, Trump has targeted New York institutions and state and local government policies. His Department of Education has attempted to remove $400 million in federal grants from Columbia, the city’s leading university, and is now challenging the school’s accreditation.

Trump’s Department of Transportation is seeking to end the city’s successful congestion pricing program that has reduced traffic and carbon emissions and provided needed funding for mass transit. Trump has also issued executive orders targeting several major law firms in the city that would limit the firms’ ability to represent clients in disputes with the federal government.

And many international travelers upset at Trump’s policies are changing their plans to visit New York. The city’s official marketing organization last month cut its forecast for international tourists in 2025 by 17%, and the city is expected to host 800,000 fewer international travelers this year than in 2024.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for the next mayor will be how to respond to Trump’s promise to crackdown on undocumented immigrants in a city where over 400,000 city residents are living without legal authorization. The recent unrest over raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Los Angeles and elsewhere could be a precursor to similar trouble in New York.

The city’s mayor, whoever is elected, will be taking on what is always a difficult job with some unprecedented new challenges.