NEW YORK — Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has attacked rival Andrew Cuomo for months over his “Trump-backed” donors. Now, Cuomo is following suit, but with a twist.
Instead of tagging the frontrunner’s financial backers as out-of-touch elites — as Mamdani has done to Cuomo — the former governor is attempting to portray his opponent’s donors as extremists.
Last week, Cuomo targeted contributors to New Yorkers for Lower Costs, a super PAC supporting Mamdani in the contentious general election. During a press conference, he accused the independent expenditure committee of accepting cash from people who celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“He takes dirty money,” Cuomo said.
The clash over donor credibility has now become a defining theme of the race, with both candidates weaponizing each other’s financial backers and portraying them as corrupt or dangerous in an effort to weaken their opponent’s legitimacy.
Mamdani has attacked Cuomo over a super PAC, Fix the City, that’s spent $23 million — the largest amount ever in a mayoral primary — with much of those funds coming from Trump-aligned donors and real estate interests, in addition to a multi-million dollar contribution from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mamdani has said the contributions show Cuomo’s allegiance to wealthy donors rather than everyday New Yorkers.
Now, Cuomo is firing back with his own donor attacks. His decision to take aim at the democratic socialist’s financial backers comes at a crucial time for the former governor as he tries to consolidate support in the final weeks of the election after Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race.
After suffering a stinging upset in the primary, and launching a general election campaign as an independent, Cuomo has adjusted his message — moving away from a focus on Israel and antisemitism to more broadly portraying his opponent as both inexperienced and extreme.
During the primary, Mamdani didn’t have any comparable outside backing. New Yorkers for Lower Costs spent around $1.3 million supporting Mamdani and opposing Cuomo ahead of June 24. The democratic socialist did, however, raise a mountain of cash from small-dollar donations.
Since then, the pro-Mamdani super PAC has raised an additional $1 million, giving Cuomo an opening. And he appears keen to use it to mobilize voters wary of Mamdani’s positions on Israel and the war in Gaza — without leaning as heavily on the war as he did in the primary. The Democratic nominee consistently refers to the war as a “genocide” against Palestinians and has threatened to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should the embattled leader set foot in the city while Mamdani is mayor.
Whether Cuomo will be effective in exploiting those positions, however, is another matter.
“Where Cuomo is vulnerable is that he’s largely been painted as the candidate of the more monied and powerful interests in the city,” said Basil Smikle Jr., former executive director of the state Democratic Party. “And I don’t know that any of the super PACs that support his candidacy don’t disabuse anyone of that image of him.”
By law, super PACs are allowed to raise and spend unlimited sums of cash in New York City elections, provided they do not coordinate with the campaigns they are supporting. Neither side is accusing the other of breaking the law, but they are both attempting to tether the other to the benefactors of outside organizations.
Cuomo, who’s trailing the Democratic nominee by double digits in most polls, was fined during the primary for coordinating with a super PAC. At the time, his team disputed the New York City Campaign Finance Board’s ruling.
Last week, he highlighted $100,000 worth of donations to New Yorkers for Lower Costs, the pro-Mamdani super PAC.
He alleged the organization that made the contributions — the Unity and Justice Fund, which gave $25,000 and $75,000 in May and June — is tied to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization.
“His Super PAC took $100,000 from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Unity and Justice Fund, an organization whose leader said that he was, quote, ‘happy about October 7th,’” Cuomo said Tuesday.
While New Yorkers for Lower Costs did not respond to requests for comment, public documents show the reality is more complicated.
The Unity and Justice Fund and CAIR both advocate for similar causes including supporting Palestinians, but they have denied they have any organizational ties.
Cuomo’s campaign highlighted an indirect link between the two found in public campaign finance records, which POLITICO reviewed: A listed treasurer for the Unity and Justice Fund, Basim Elkarra, serves as the national director of CAIR Action, a separate organization that is allowed to participate in politics.
Elkarra did not respond for comment.
The Cuomo campaign noted in a press release that the Biden administration cut ties with CAIR in 2023 over anti-Israel rhetoric.
Team Cuomo was referring to a speech given by CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad in November 2023, slightly more than a month after the Hamas attack on Israel. In it, Awad referred to Oct. 7 and said he was, “happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not allowed to walk in.”
While CAIR did not have a close relationship with the Biden administration, the remarks sparked condemnation from the White House and prompted them to remove CAIR from a group of organizations it was working with on combating antisemitism.
Awad said at the time his comments were taken out of context.
Eric Sunderland, another listed treasurer of the Unity and Justice Fund, called Cuomo’s comments “false and defamatory” and stated the fund operates “fully within the law and in accordance with all campaign finance regulations” and has no affiliation with CAIR.
“Governor Cuomo’s attempt to label contributions from American Muslims as ‘dirty money’ is a baseless and Islamophobic smear that has no place in public discourse,” Sunderland said.
CAIR called Cuomo’s claim about the organization’s stance on Oct. 7th false.
“We have not supported and cannot support any candidate for office. We can’t even communicate with PACs,” CAIR deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell wrote in an email. “I did notice Mr. Cuomo made a false claim about [our] organization’s stance on Oct. 7th, which we condemned.”
When asked about donations to the super PACs supporting him, Mamdani said the organizations are independent of his political operation and returned to bashing outside money supporting Cuomo.
“If Andrew Cuomo was not the chosen candidate of Donald Trump and the billionaire class, they wouldn’t be lining up to throw millions behind him,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Fix the City has previously said that super PAC’s coffers were full on account of Cuomo’s governance bona fides, and that the organization had made no promises to its benefactors.
“Donors have supported Fix the City because they know that Andrew Cuomo has the right experience and the right plans for New York City,” Liz Benjamin told The New York Times in July.
Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said the campaign has not violated any Campaign Finance Board laws while soliciting money from donors and that some of the same backers who gave to the former governor have also supported Democratic figures backing Mamdani.
“These ‘Trump billionaires’ have contributed to such fringe right wing MAGA figures as Kathy Hochul, [Mamdani’s] favorite Attorney General Letitia James and Bill de Blasio.” Azzopardi said.
Joe Anuta contributed to this article.
