Trump as foil disappears from Andrew Cuomo's rebooted New York mayoral bid

Andrew Cuomo framed himself as President Donald Trump’s foil during the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, adamant that his past record standing up to Trump as governor positioned him as the party's best choice to defend the city during Trump’s second term.

But as the former governor reboots his campaign for a third-party general election bid, after losing the Democratic primary to state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, Trump is taking a back seat.

In about a half-dozen interviews conducted in his first few days as a general election candidate, Cuomo has hardly referenced Trump, pivoting questions about the president back to the race at hand.

Instead, Cuomo and his campaign are framing him as more concerned about policy and campaigning across New York City — after criticism that his primary campaign was too closed off to the media and that his opponent drew his strength from meeting voters where they are, both physically and on key issues like affordability.

With 16 weeks to go until Election Day, Cuomo is making it clear he wants to run this race differently.

Cuomo framed the Trump presidency as a unique threat to New York City’s well-being during the Democratic primary, with his campaign describing the president as “at the city’s gates” in a campaign ad that highlighted Trump’s decision to call National Guard troops into California. He had gone on to say that “we need someone experienced to slam them shut.”

Addressing a crowd at the National Action Network, a group helped by civil rights activists and MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton, weeks before the election, Cuomo hit Trump at the top of his remarks as an “existential threat” who is “worse than he was in his first term,” taking personal credit for Trump never sending federal troops to the city in 2020.

That message was typical of one of the key points Cuomo hit on the stump and in debates.

Then, when Cuomo announced plans to run in the general election with a social media video last week, Trump didn’t receive a direct mention. A promise to “take on anyone who stands in the way” of the city’s prosperity could have been a reference to the president, but it could have also been a veiled attack on his general election rivals.

Trump virtually never came up in the high-profile media interviews Cuomo did in the past week. When reporters referenced Trump’s recent comments about the race (he said Cuomo should “stay in” because he has a “good shot” at winning), Cuomo used the comments to criticize his mayoral opponents, with a brief wave at the anti-Trump message he put at the center of the campaign during the primary.

“We have a long history together, the president and myself, we have a lot of back and forth. I fight for New York against Washington, I fought for New York against President Trump,” Cuomo told WABC-TV of New York, framing Trump’s comments as simply “his analysis of the race.”

Most of Cuomo’s announcement video and interviews focused on policy and strategy, dripping with implicit and explicit acknowledgments that he made mistakes during his primary campaign and won’t make them again.

Cuomo’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the change in strategy.

“Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that the Democratic primary did not go the way I had hoped,” Cuomo says in the video, amid video of him shaking hands with people in the city.

Going on to criticize Mamdani’s “slick slogans, but no real solutions,” Cuomo says he’s focused on a city with “lower rent, safer streets, where buying your first home is once again possible, where child care won’t bankrupt you.” And in interview after interview, Cuomo pitched proposals for issues such as lowering rent, building more housing, addressing public transportation and other proposals completely divorced from the politics of clashing with the Republican president.

The focus on policy comes after many Democrats credit Mamdani’s emphasis on the issue of affordability in the city, as well as his social media and engagement strategy, for his upset victory over the far more established Cuomo.