NEW YORK — Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo trounces Mayor Eric Adams and other candidates in a Democratic mayoral field Cuomo has not yet entered — but his negatives are among the highest of the contenders, a third-party poll found.
The well-known Cuomo topped the candidates with 32 percent when likely Democratic voters were asked to choose a favorite candidate in what will be a ranked-choice election. Following him were former city Comptroller Scott Stringer at 10 percent; his successor Brad Lander at 8 percent; state Sen. Jessica Ramos at 7 percent; and Adams and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani at 6 percent.
Former Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr., who said he does not plan to run for mayor, tied Ramos at 7 percent. Candidate Michael Blake came in at 2 percent and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie at 1 percent, with 18 percent saying they were unsure who to choose and 3 percent selecting “other.”
“As far as mayor goes, I’m with Eric Adams as long as he’s a candidate. And that’s all I have to say,” Díaz Jr. said.
The poll was conducted fairly early in the cycle — between Dec. 16 and Dec. 22 — and is partly driven by name recognition. The primary is on June 24, but most candidates are still waiting to receive taxpayer-backed matching funds and have not begun airing TV ads. Independent expenditures have yet to come together either. And the city’s political class is waiting to see how the indicted Adams’ legal case plays out and whether Cuomo ends up jumping into the field.
The poll provided a ranked-choice sample, which showed Cuomo leading in the first round with 39 percent to Stringer’s 12 percent. In that hypothetical, Cuomo surpasses the 50 percent victory threshold by the fifth round of voting, with Stringer maintaining his second-place status at 16 percent and Ramos and Lander tying at 14 percent. Díaz Jr. makes it to the fifth round with 10 percent.
The survey demonstrates that Adams — who won in 2021 in the city’s first ranked-choice mayoral election — would not benefit from the relatively new practice. He stayed at 8 percent from rounds one through four, at which point he was eliminated. The city’s second Black mayor, Adams has warned of racial disparities with ranked-choice voting practices.
The survey, obtained by POLITICO, was commissioned by Progressives for Democracy in America, a 501(c)(4) founded “to rectify the general population’s lack of engagement with politics and public policy between elections.”
The group’s executive director, Alan Minsky, said he paid for the poll in order to assess the state of the crowded Democratic primary for mayor. “We commissioned the poll to see which candidates might be competitive with Cuomo, given his huge name recognition advantage,” Minsky said.
Minsky’s group hired Washington based Hart Research Associates to conduct the survey of 800 likely Democratic voters.
The results for Adams are stark, and they follow public polling that shows his support cratering — even before federal prosecutors indicted him in September for an alleged bribery scheme. Since then, members of his scandal-scarred inner circle have quit or been fired at the behest of Gov. Kathy Hochul — an Adams ally — and the city’s Campaign Finance Board has denied him matching funds. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have signaled plans to issue a superseding indictment as well, though time is running out: President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, has signaled an openness to pardoning Adams.
Seventy-one percent of respondents reported a negative view of Adams, compared to 22 percent registering a positive one. Cuomo had a 48-44 positive response. The other, lesser-known candidates had negatives between 5 percent, for Blake, and 20 percent, for Stringer.
A New York Times/Siena poll of 853 likely voters in October found Cuomo leading Adams 21 percent to 11 percent in a head-to-head survey question. That poll included Attorney General Letitia James, who had a similar level of support as Cuomo but is not planning to run for mayor. James was not incorporated into Hart’s survey.
Cuomo — who resigned from the governorship in 2021 after charges of sexual harassment that he denies — has been making moves toward a run for mayor while publicly staying mum on his intent.
The mayor and former governor have overlapping bases of Black, orthodox Jewish and Latino voters — particularly moderate Democrats who eschew left-leaning policies around criminal justice. Should he proceed with his reelection plans, Adams would have a narrow path to victory, but Cuomo is squarely in his way.
“When people unbiasedly look at this administration they’re going to say pound for pound, this is one of the greatest administrations in the history of the city,” Adams told POLITICO in a recent interview, making the argument for his difficult reelection. “Turned around our economy out of Covid, cycled us out Covid, cycled us out of the greatest humanitarian crisis this city has ever seen, cycled us out of the public safety issues, cycled us out of the economic issue.”
“When people go back and look over it and I’m in the New York City museum, they’re going to say wow, this dyslexic, South Jamaica, public school-educated mayor — blue collar — did something no one thought he could do,” Adams added. “No one thought I was able to govern this city; no one.”
In response to the survey, Adams pollster Ben Tulchin said, “Any polling is very premature — voters’ real feelings won’t be clear until they’ve had a chance to be reminded of what Eric has accomplished, including reducing crime, and where any opponents have failed.”
The higher the unfavorable rating for a candidate, the better chance opponents have at shaping public opinion.
And Cuomo’s would-be rivals — should he get into the race — have already made clear they will go after him, even if Adams ends up lacking the resources to do so. His extensive time in New York’s political world gives prospective opponents an opening to seize on his vulnerabilities, including the scandals that drove him from power.
Aside from the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him, Cuomo also weathered criticism for his handling of nursing home policies during Covid. The public health crisis initially made him a national celebrity, but he faced scrutiny for how his administration reported the deaths of nursing home residents, as well as for a controversial order that prevented the facilities from turning away Covid-positive patients.
Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing and has asserted his critics have played politics with the controversy — a contention supported by a recent Department of Justice report that concluded Trump administration officials sought to leverage the issue ahead of the 2020 election.
The former governor’s team has also asserted a measure of vindication after one of the women who accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior dropped her lawsuit against him. He subsequently moved to sue her for defamation.
A Stringer adviser warned in a memo last year that scandal-weary voters would reject a Cuomo bid for mayor. And Lander blasted Cuomo during a fundraiser last week as “not the leadership we need for New York City.” (Stringer was also accused of sexual misconduct, accusations he has denied.)
Adams, who has largely refrained from criticizing Cuomo directly, told POLITICO in a recent interview that he would remind voters the former governor signed a controversial law limiting when cash bail is required in criminal cases.
— Jeff Coltin contributed to this report.
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