Ranking a man who shut down Indian Point, transferred MTA funds to fund an upstate ski resort, prioritized glam projects over nuts and bolts fixes, interfered in NYCs COVID response because he didn’t like deblasio, harassed women is extremely disappointing. I can’t believe you’ve written in support of him
Cuomo is a defender of Elizabeth Street Garden! He is entirely opposed to our agenda is it is quite confusing to prefer him over a candidate whose worst policies have little chance of materializing.
If Zohrans policies have little likelihood to materialize, why vote for him? He doesn’t have the experience to pass bills, navigate budgets etc so then what? He’s a dangerous candidate!
I think we can disaggregate Zohran's policies into likely and unlikely. The unlikely policies are mostly bad or wasteful, while the likely policies are all pretty good. The expected value of his mayoralty is thus positive if he is strategic with his political capital and realizes that trying and failing to pursue more divisive policies would destroy his mayoralty. I understand this is not the most persuasive case for a candidate, which is why I personally ranked him 4th.
Personally, I don’t find opposition to Zohran to be a compelling reason to rank Cuomo at all. Cuomo is unacceptable as someone who has used tens of millions of NY taxpayer dollars covering his legal fees and will be easily blackmailed by the Trump admin (the DOJ is actively investigating him). We don’t need another Eric Adams. Cuomo is unfit for office.
Why is opposition to Zohran a compelling reason to rank Cuomo? Don't take it from me, take it from Zohran's campaign, which has made "don't rank Cuomo" a central campaign message. When I told his canvassers that I would never rank Zohran, they switched immediately to asking me not to rank Cuomo. They understand that Zohran can't win a majority of D primary voters outright. His path to winning comes from (1) getting enough high ranking votes to pass candidates like Adams and Lander and make it to the last round, AND (2) getting enough anti-Zohran voters to spoil their ballots so that the last round involves a much smaller number of votes, of which his support would constitute a majority.
Do what you like but understand if you do not rank Cuomo or Zohran there is a high chance that your vote won't count. That's of course fine if your goal is a protest vote, but if your goal is to stop Zohran you'd be making a strategic mistake not to rank Cuomo. I would throw Lander in there as well: he is polling well and getting a fair amount of attention, though I'm not sure the Mamdani cross endorsement was a good idea for him.
I think Lander is a great choice for a lot of NYers! The Mamdani cross endorsement seems to have increased his name recognition from what I can tell. Not to mention ICE's masked vigilantes detaining him. The party probably should've backed him from the start of this campaign cycle instead of tying themselves to Cuomo.
I have a similar ranking to you, but I’ll be ranking Mamdani fifth. Moral character is in my view a highly salient feature of a leader, such that Cuomo’s bad moral character outweighs for me Mamdani’s bad policy. (I also think, incidentally, that Mamdani would be constrained by reality—as you point out, some of his worst proposals depend on an Albany that is unlikely to cooperate.) I do not think this is letting passion overwhelm reason; it’s just a theory of good governance—a theory that I think Lincoln, incidentally, illustrates by example. He was a canny politician and very personally ambitious, and no doubt both of these contributed to his success as a president. But I also think he would not have been so good a leader, would perhaps not have gotten the nation through the war, had he not had real principles.
The expulsion of Cuomo from public life was a tremendous victory. The principle that people like him should have no place in public office is a good one and I feel, as a Democrat, genuinely ashamed that my party’s leadership has collaborated or acquiesced in a Cuomo comeback. If he wins the nomination I may well cast my first ever protest vote in a contested race. (It already being my policy to cast write-in votes in uncontested races.)
Well said. I am using the debate on Cuomo vs Mamdani to gauge which Dem influencers and pundits are putting "winning" over basic human decency. One can use utilitarian calculus to justify almost anything. But at some point "winning" becomes meaningless if you give up on fidelity to basic principles like anti-corruption and not willfully abusing the weak. Cuomo obviously does not clear that very low bar.
In the Trump era liberals like myself came to admire people like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger even as we disagree with them 99% on policy because they not only put principles above their desired policy outcomes but also gave up power willingly to doing so. It is sad to see that many on the Dem side who claim to oppose Trump can somehow rationalize support for Cuomo.
Seeing you support the anti-congestion pricing, anti-nuclear, anti-transit candidate is disappointing. This kind of purity politics is why Democrats keep losing.
I'm astounded by this new line of center-liberal discourse that seems to be gaining speed in the final days of this primary: "Cuomo and Mamdani are actually equally bad, and if you think about it, Mamdani is kinda worse!"
The conclusion that a campaign promise of a rent freeze is a threat of lawless tyranny seems a WILD stretch to me, and a symptom of Fear of a Leftist Planet.
The preservation of entrenched power structures relies upon the rejection that Democratic Socialist policies have merit -- when have we EVER given Socialist principles a chance on a major political stage much less the endless chances (and failures) we've permitted of Center Left policies?
We can shit on de Blasio all day (and so will i!), but what is his #1 legacy that all New Yorkers can agree upon enthusiastically? All together now: UNIVERSAL 3K! Which also happens to be the most Socialist thing to happen to this city in a while.
Meanwhile: continuing the Bloombergian principle of prioritizing making NYC as hospitable as possible to a rich tax base will surely succeed, at the expense of making it unlivable for almost everyone else. With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?
Indeed! Some very serious people are pretending to take the "socialist" label quite literally when we all know that everything Mamdani or anyone else is proposing would be well within the bounds of a boring social democracy. The big money wing of the Dem party used to pretend that we want to build a social democracy but we cannot say so because that would not be "electable". This was the case made against Bernie.
But now after we lost to Trump, there is a push to abandon even social democratic goals and actively argue that seeking to reduce inequality or reduce pollution is bad policy on the merits. Some of this push to the right is natural as we need to build a bigger tent to save democracy itself but I would prefer it if arguments are made on those terms rather than trying to scaremonger about an imagined socialist tyranny.
This is so well-written and well-researched - I would expect nothing less from you! Our opinions definitely differ a bit, but I so appreciate reading about the candidates from your point of view.
Thank you for writing an informative and well-considered perspective.
I appreciate that you used no cheap shots, and especially that there is no hint of the fear or outrage or despair which are so often and clumsily used to make the case for someone's preferred candidate (or more commonly and even more viciously, AGAINST someone's dispreferred candidate).
• Tackle the affordability crisis, especially housing, which is crushing all but the richest New Yorkers.
• Cut crime 50% by investing in the communities in which most crime occurs, hiring 5,000 more police officers, and making crime illegal again.
• End street homelessness by forbidding it – and expanding and improving our shelter system. It’s not normal and it’s not acceptable that more than 4,000 people are sleeping on the streets every night. They are suffering and it’s incredibly dangerous for them – and for all of us.
I live in terror of the day that the c-suite at my company decides it’s time to pull up stakes and move office to some shithole in a sweaty highway-choked Sunbelt ‘city’, and my vote will always be structured to delay that day. So I’m also a Tilson #1, Cuomo #5, NO to Mamdani. I would sooner see Cuomo in prison than in the mayor’s office, but the voters have really f***ed this one up, and allowed Cuomo’s name recognition serve as the Schelling Point for the broad anti-socialist coalition that united around Adams, Bloomberg…
In addition to calling out the voters, I’ll also do something I rarely do and criticize Bloomberg here - a last minute Cuomo endorsement? Really, that’s the best you could do?? Your influence and money might have unified the field around someone good months ago, had you chosen to apply it… where’s Doctoroff? Sheekey? Where’s your successor, Mike??
I think you've made some excellent points, but disagreeing with Mamdani's positions doesn't excuse ranking Cuomo. In addition to Cuomo having no compelling plans for the city and a pretty crappy track record, his treatment of women on his staff is completely disqualifying. "Ms. Commisso said Mr. Cuomo grabbed her buttocks; reached under her blouse and fondled her breast; held her in close, intimate hugs; and asked her about her relationship with her husband, including whether she had ever “fooled around” or had sex with anyone else. She recalled his saying something to the effect of “if you were single, the things I would do to you,” and said he once complimented her on showing “some leg.” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/06/nyregion/andrew-cuomo-sexual-harassment-claims.html
This piece is erudite and uncompromising in some ways I appreciate, but ultimately comes off as shockingly blind and amoral regarding the Cuomo / Mamdani choice.
Ranking a noted sexual predator suggests something deeper is wrong with the milieu of this political community. What are the demographics in the abundance movement, that could abet this level of insensitivity to gendered violence? Are women well represented? Ideas without character is a shallow, soulless politics.
More nitpicky, but the concern for democracy here (in Mamdani inappropriately pushing the rent control board) misses the forest for a shrub in my opinion. Tens of thousands of working class people are needing to volunteer time they don’t have to compete with the funds and reach Cuomo is getting from a small group of wealthy backers. If you cared about democratic process, wouldn’t you add a paragraph on this point, rather than honing in on the independence of the rent board?
I appreciate and respect a lot of your work, which is why this post is such a disappointment.
I have to agree with other commentors and strongly condemn the decision to smear Zohran - the candidate that you yourself say is well-intentioned - and uplift someone as corrupt and despicable as Cuomo. This article should be titled “Out of Touch: A DNC Campaign“
Looks there is a wing of the Democratic party for whom proven corruption and sexual abuse is better than the mere threat of bad policy from a "socialist" even though everyone knows there is always a big gap between what one proposes and what one can actually achieve. Perhaps they feel corruption and personal character does not matter because the median voter does not care.
I am not a NY voter but I would not choose Cuomo over Mamdani. Corruption and wilful deception is a red line for me even more than hypothetical misguided policy.
Appreciate the honesty and reasoning of this post Daniel. It certainly has made me take a harder look at my own rankings, though I worry for the same reason over Cuomo’s disregard for policy legality and government ethics given his past actions. One thing I’m also curious about is how you’d place Eric Adams relative to these “last-choice” candidates in the general, though the time for that isn’t quite yet.
And regarding Adams, let’s see how the post-primary campaign plays out. I’ll almost certainly have a political club meeting so we can all discuss in person.
Ranking a man who shut down Indian Point, transferred MTA funds to fund an upstate ski resort, prioritized glam projects over nuts and bolts fixes, interfered in NYCs COVID response because he didn’t like deblasio, harassed women is extremely disappointing. I can’t believe you’ve written in support of him
Cuomo is a defender of Elizabeth Street Garden! He is entirely opposed to our agenda is it is quite confusing to prefer him over a candidate whose worst policies have little chance of materializing.
If Zohrans policies have little likelihood to materialize, why vote for him? He doesn’t have the experience to pass bills, navigate budgets etc so then what? He’s a dangerous candidate!
I think we can disaggregate Zohran's policies into likely and unlikely. The unlikely policies are mostly bad or wasteful, while the likely policies are all pretty good. The expected value of his mayoralty is thus positive if he is strategic with his political capital and realizes that trying and failing to pursue more divisive policies would destroy his mayoralty. I understand this is not the most persuasive case for a candidate, which is why I personally ranked him 4th.
This is the nuanced take I was expecting in Daniel’s article — thank you for articulating.
Personally, I don’t find opposition to Zohran to be a compelling reason to rank Cuomo at all. Cuomo is unacceptable as someone who has used tens of millions of NY taxpayer dollars covering his legal fees and will be easily blackmailed by the Trump admin (the DOJ is actively investigating him). We don’t need another Eric Adams. Cuomo is unfit for office.
Why is opposition to Zohran a compelling reason to rank Cuomo? Don't take it from me, take it from Zohran's campaign, which has made "don't rank Cuomo" a central campaign message. When I told his canvassers that I would never rank Zohran, they switched immediately to asking me not to rank Cuomo. They understand that Zohran can't win a majority of D primary voters outright. His path to winning comes from (1) getting enough high ranking votes to pass candidates like Adams and Lander and make it to the last round, AND (2) getting enough anti-Zohran voters to spoil their ballots so that the last round involves a much smaller number of votes, of which his support would constitute a majority.
Do what you like but understand if you do not rank Cuomo or Zohran there is a high chance that your vote won't count. That's of course fine if your goal is a protest vote, but if your goal is to stop Zohran you'd be making a strategic mistake not to rank Cuomo. I would throw Lander in there as well: he is polling well and getting a fair amount of attention, though I'm not sure the Mamdani cross endorsement was a good idea for him.
I think Lander is a great choice for a lot of NYers! The Mamdani cross endorsement seems to have increased his name recognition from what I can tell. Not to mention ICE's masked vigilantes detaining him. The party probably should've backed him from the start of this campaign cycle instead of tying themselves to Cuomo.
I have a similar ranking to you, but I’ll be ranking Mamdani fifth. Moral character is in my view a highly salient feature of a leader, such that Cuomo’s bad moral character outweighs for me Mamdani’s bad policy. (I also think, incidentally, that Mamdani would be constrained by reality—as you point out, some of his worst proposals depend on an Albany that is unlikely to cooperate.) I do not think this is letting passion overwhelm reason; it’s just a theory of good governance—a theory that I think Lincoln, incidentally, illustrates by example. He was a canny politician and very personally ambitious, and no doubt both of these contributed to his success as a president. But I also think he would not have been so good a leader, would perhaps not have gotten the nation through the war, had he not had real principles.
The expulsion of Cuomo from public life was a tremendous victory. The principle that people like him should have no place in public office is a good one and I feel, as a Democrat, genuinely ashamed that my party’s leadership has collaborated or acquiesced in a Cuomo comeback. If he wins the nomination I may well cast my first ever protest vote in a contested race. (It already being my policy to cast write-in votes in uncontested races.)
Well said. I am using the debate on Cuomo vs Mamdani to gauge which Dem influencers and pundits are putting "winning" over basic human decency. One can use utilitarian calculus to justify almost anything. But at some point "winning" becomes meaningless if you give up on fidelity to basic principles like anti-corruption and not willfully abusing the weak. Cuomo obviously does not clear that very low bar.
In the Trump era liberals like myself came to admire people like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger even as we disagree with them 99% on policy because they not only put principles above their desired policy outcomes but also gave up power willingly to doing so. It is sad to see that many on the Dem side who claim to oppose Trump can somehow rationalize support for Cuomo.
Seeing you support the anti-congestion pricing, anti-nuclear, anti-transit candidate is disappointing. This kind of purity politics is why Democrats keep losing.
Are you referring to Whit here?
I'm astounded by this new line of center-liberal discourse that seems to be gaining speed in the final days of this primary: "Cuomo and Mamdani are actually equally bad, and if you think about it, Mamdani is kinda worse!"
The conclusion that a campaign promise of a rent freeze is a threat of lawless tyranny seems a WILD stretch to me, and a symptom of Fear of a Leftist Planet.
The preservation of entrenched power structures relies upon the rejection that Democratic Socialist policies have merit -- when have we EVER given Socialist principles a chance on a major political stage much less the endless chances (and failures) we've permitted of Center Left policies?
We can shit on de Blasio all day (and so will i!), but what is his #1 legacy that all New Yorkers can agree upon enthusiastically? All together now: UNIVERSAL 3K! Which also happens to be the most Socialist thing to happen to this city in a while.
Meanwhile: continuing the Bloombergian principle of prioritizing making NYC as hospitable as possible to a rich tax base will surely succeed, at the expense of making it unlivable for almost everyone else. With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?
Indeed! Some very serious people are pretending to take the "socialist" label quite literally when we all know that everything Mamdani or anyone else is proposing would be well within the bounds of a boring social democracy. The big money wing of the Dem party used to pretend that we want to build a social democracy but we cannot say so because that would not be "electable". This was the case made against Bernie.
But now after we lost to Trump, there is a push to abandon even social democratic goals and actively argue that seeking to reduce inequality or reduce pollution is bad policy on the merits. Some of this push to the right is natural as we need to build a bigger tent to save democracy itself but I would prefer it if arguments are made on those terms rather than trying to scaremonger about an imagined socialist tyranny.
I appreciate the smart criticism of Zohran. I haven't been able to find much of that elsewhere. This has definitely changed my ranking.
Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for reading. “Smart criticism” was the goal, even if people don’t ultimately agree with the conclusion.
This is so well-written and well-researched - I would expect nothing less from you! Our opinions definitely differ a bit, but I so appreciate reading about the candidates from your point of view.
Thank you for writing an informative and well-considered perspective.
I appreciate that you used no cheap shots, and especially that there is no hint of the fear or outrage or despair which are so often and clumsily used to make the case for someone's preferred candidate (or more commonly and even more viciously, AGAINST someone's dispreferred candidate).
This is Tilson's agenda in his own words. My favorite is, "Fix our public schools." Sure?
• Revitalize our economy, creating wealth, prosperity, jobs, and higher wages.
• Tackle the affordability crisis, especially housing, which is crushing all but the richest New Yorkers.
• Cut crime 50% by investing in the communities in which most crime occurs, hiring 5,000 more police officers, and making crime illegal again.
• End street homelessness by forbidding it – and expanding and improving our shelter system. It’s not normal and it’s not acceptable that more than 4,000 people are sleeping on the streets every night. They are suffering and it’s incredibly dangerous for them – and for all of us.
• Fix our public schools.
Making crime (and homelessness) illegal! That'll do it!
I live in terror of the day that the c-suite at my company decides it’s time to pull up stakes and move office to some shithole in a sweaty highway-choked Sunbelt ‘city’, and my vote will always be structured to delay that day. So I’m also a Tilson #1, Cuomo #5, NO to Mamdani. I would sooner see Cuomo in prison than in the mayor’s office, but the voters have really f***ed this one up, and allowed Cuomo’s name recognition serve as the Schelling Point for the broad anti-socialist coalition that united around Adams, Bloomberg…
In addition to calling out the voters, I’ll also do something I rarely do and criticize Bloomberg here - a last minute Cuomo endorsement? Really, that’s the best you could do?? Your influence and money might have unified the field around someone good months ago, had you chosen to apply it… where’s Doctoroff? Sheekey? Where’s your successor, Mike??
I think you've made some excellent points, but disagreeing with Mamdani's positions doesn't excuse ranking Cuomo. In addition to Cuomo having no compelling plans for the city and a pretty crappy track record, his treatment of women on his staff is completely disqualifying. "Ms. Commisso said Mr. Cuomo grabbed her buttocks; reached under her blouse and fondled her breast; held her in close, intimate hugs; and asked her about her relationship with her husband, including whether she had ever “fooled around” or had sex with anyone else. She recalled his saying something to the effect of “if you were single, the things I would do to you,” and said he once complimented her on showing “some leg.” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/06/nyregion/andrew-cuomo-sexual-harassment-claims.html
This piece is erudite and uncompromising in some ways I appreciate, but ultimately comes off as shockingly blind and amoral regarding the Cuomo / Mamdani choice.
Ranking a noted sexual predator suggests something deeper is wrong with the milieu of this political community. What are the demographics in the abundance movement, that could abet this level of insensitivity to gendered violence? Are women well represented? Ideas without character is a shallow, soulless politics.
More nitpicky, but the concern for democracy here (in Mamdani inappropriately pushing the rent control board) misses the forest for a shrub in my opinion. Tens of thousands of working class people are needing to volunteer time they don’t have to compete with the funds and reach Cuomo is getting from a small group of wealthy backers. If you cared about democratic process, wouldn’t you add a paragraph on this point, rather than honing in on the independence of the rent board?
I appreciate and respect a lot of your work, which is why this post is such a disappointment.
I have to agree with other commentors and strongly condemn the decision to smear Zohran - the candidate that you yourself say is well-intentioned - and uplift someone as corrupt and despicable as Cuomo. This article should be titled “Out of Touch: A DNC Campaign“
Looks there is a wing of the Democratic party for whom proven corruption and sexual abuse is better than the mere threat of bad policy from a "socialist" even though everyone knows there is always a big gap between what one proposes and what one can actually achieve. Perhaps they feel corruption and personal character does not matter because the median voter does not care.
I am not a NY voter but I would not choose Cuomo over Mamdani. Corruption and wilful deception is a red line for me even more than hypothetical misguided policy.
Appreciate the honesty and reasoning of this post Daniel. It certainly has made me take a harder look at my own rankings, though I worry for the same reason over Cuomo’s disregard for policy legality and government ethics given his past actions. One thing I’m also curious about is how you’d place Eric Adams relative to these “last-choice” candidates in the general, though the time for that isn’t quite yet.
Right there with you regarding Cuomo’s past.
And regarding Adams, let’s see how the post-primary campaign plays out. I’ll almost certainly have a political club meeting so we can all discuss in person.
Sober, pragmatic, and forceful analysis. This is an excellent contribution to civic discourse!
I strive for no less 🫡