MEMO: State of the Race
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Lander For Mayor
RE: The State of the Race
DATE: January 17, 2025
The 2025 mayoral campaign in NYC is finally starting to ramp up, so we thought it’d be a good time to check in with some key observations about where the race is now.
In the past nine days, Brad Lander has amassed the biggest war chest, unveiled by far the most impressive political coalition, and released the most serious plan to solve subway and street safety in this campaign.
As we approach the end of January, a few developments in this race have now become increasingly clear:
1) Andrew Cuomo is running for mayor – but delaying his announcement to try to evade scrutiny. Behind the scenes, Cuomo has hired his team, reached out to labor and business leaders, conducted polling (unclear with what money) and prepared his launch. His attempt at personal retribution is upon us (unfortunately, his podcast didn’t take, and unlike his brother, he seems to have no other marketable skills). He is running.
So, why no announcement yet? We all know Cuomo is notorious for over-strategizing everything – in this case, he’s waiting until the last minute so he can avoid scrutiny as long as possible. He knows that he has huge negatives and vulnerabilities.
That’s what he did in 2010 when he made clear he was interested in running for governor, prepared a shadow campaign, hoped the embattled incumbent would drop out, and finally entered the race at the last minute. (Sound familiar?) And now it’s what’s behind his spokesperson’s comments that start with, “This is all premature, but…” and referring to Cuomo as “a guy who isn’t currently in the race,” etc. It’s all a ruse to cut down the amount of time he has to be scrutinized and answer tough questions about all the chaos and harm he has caused.
We will not be playing that game (or any of the other weird little schemes in his sad bag of tricks that he’s infamous for). He’s running for the second biggest job in the country to clear his name, on the backs of New Yorkers – and we’ll be contrasting Brad’s record and vision with his (and encourage you to do the same) starting now.
2) Cuomo has enormous vulnerabilities. Yes, he enters the race with the highest name ID, but the fact that a man with universal name recognition is failing to net more than 1/3 of the vote against a field of lesser known candidates is pathetic. His unfavorable ratings remain extremely high, which makes him vulnerable to another, more likable candidate overtaking him over the next five months (more on that below). Observers will recall that another Andrew, Mr. Yang, was leading the field by huge margins this time around in 2021; in fact, he held a strong lead deep into the spring, before finishing in fourth place. There is plenty of time for Cuomo to squander this lead, which is exactly why he’s trying to shorten the campaign.
While some of the facts against Cuomo – the rampant sexual harassment, pattern of corruption, disastrous nursing home policies and subsequent lies to Congress – are obvious, a series of other inconvenient facts will be raised about Mr. Cuomo’s tenure in politics that are similarly disqualifying. For years as governor, he constantly fought against New York City, cut its funding, cut services (including mental health services), disinvested in CUNY, and starved the subway (remember the “summer of hell?” That was because of him). His record of catastrophic policies and mismanagement wreaked devastation on New York City (where he has not lived in decades), and that chicken will finally come home to roost. More will come on that.
Voters will also see quickly that Cuomo is only in this race for himself. It is transparent that he is running solely in pursuit of some twisted personal redemption story, in which he wreaks revenge on those he screwed previously.
3) Brad Lander is the clear, top challenger to Cuomo. Brad is the one candidate in this race who brings the three things we need now: strong management experience, outstanding public integrity, and bold ideas to move our city forward. And in terms of the race itself – whether you look at fundraising, political support, vision, or path to victory – Lander is the clear leader:
Fundraising: On Wednesday, Brad qualified for matching funds and reported the most money raised in the entire field, leaving him with $5.4 million – roughly 2/3 of the way to the spending cap. This shows he has the most grassroots support in the race and will have all the money needed to communicate with voters about his plans to deliver a safer, more affordable, better run city.
Political support: Last week, Brad announced the deepest, most impressive roster of support of anyone in this race, with the host committee for his kickoff event at Brooklyn Bowl.
In announcing her support for him, State Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger said, “Brad is exceptionally smart, principled, and committed to making government do the right things for people. I have watched him live his values for our city’s communities as a councilmember and as comptroller. He is ready to take on the most demanding job in our city, Mayor.”
At an event filled to the brim with hundreds of enthusiastic supporters, Brad was introduced by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who said, “I am very, very proud to support somebody that I have been working with for over 15 years who has stood up when it was difficult to do so... my partner in safety, Brad Lander.”
Others who announced their support were Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, State Senator Andrew Gounardes, Assemblymember Robert Carroll, and Councilmember Tiffany Cabán. Again, no other candidate has anything close to this breadth of early support – and there will be much more to come. It is a reflection of the broad coalition that Brad – and only Brad – has in this race.
Vision: Also this week, Brad cemented his reputation as the most serious leader in the race by unveiling the boldest, most detailed policy plan of any candidate on any topic, laying out in rigorous detail how he will make the subways and streets safer by ending homelessness for people with serious mental illness. Unlike other candidates who offer loose platitudes and vague goals in their plans (or have to admit things like “parts of the plan still need to be ironed out… specific benchmarks are not yet included… and it’s not clear if or how much additional city funds would be needed”), this was a 28,000 word blueprint for how to make the streets and subways safer, while also delivering housing for those in need. Brad will continue to put out dozens of serious, substantive plans for how he will keep New Yorkers safe, bring down the cost of living, and get the city working again.
Path to victory: Having just won a city-wide race with support from a diverse array of New Yorkers in 2021, Brad starts this race with a solid base – but the good news is he still has tremendous room to grow. Unlike Eric Adams or Scott Stringer, who both ran races for Mayor that garnered massive attention three years ago (and therefore have little chance to grow their support), Brad will be introducing himself, his record, integrity, coalition and vision to New Yorkers in the months to come – and polling shows he is already at the top tier of Cuomo opponents, with the most potential to climb, and in the strongest position to beat Cuomo. The breadth of Brad’s support makes him clearly the strongest of the challengers to Cuomo in a ranked-choice field.
But don’t just take our word for it – Andrew Cuomo has made it clear behind the scenes that he and his moneyed special-interest allies will be targeting Brad, specifically. Why? They know everything we said above:
Brad Lander is his biggest threat. And he is ready for this battle.
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