NEW YORK — Letitia James’ indictment is creating a profoundly awkward moment for Andrew Cuomo’s New York City mayoral campaign — a dynamic that resurfaced the ex-governor’s bitter antipathy toward his one-time ally who enabled his political downfall.
Democrats across the country are rallying around James following her two-count felony indictment, which was spurred on by President Donald Trump and widely considered an act of retribution for her office’s aggressive pursuit of a business fraud case against him.
Cuomo by comparison was strikingly diffident in his early reaction — initially releasing a vague statement that criticized the weaponizing of the justice system “whether it comes from the right or the left.” The equivocation produced eyerolls among New York Democrats who are otherwise galvanized by the James indictment and eager to leverage the case as a way to turbocharge turnout in next month’s mayoral election.
The former governor resigned four years ago on the heels of a devastating report released by James’ office that determined Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women — which he continues to deny. Cuomo cannot afford, though, to criticize James, a popular Democrat who hails from vote-rich Brooklyn and the first Black woman elected in New York statewide.
James’ legal battle with Trump’s Department of Justice has effectively put the ex-governor in a box: Unwilling to sympathize with the woman who triggered the end of his Albany reign, but unable to directly criticize how she’s used her office to take on powerful men like him and Trump. James has also endorsed the mayoral run of Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, who leads Cuomo in recent polls by double digits.
“Andrew Cuomo, if you are too afraid to speak her name, let me give you a helping hand: her name is Tish James,” said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a former mayoral candidate.
James’ indictment is now a prominent subplot of the New York City mayoral race — a contest that stands to be impacted by Trump’s desire to prosecute the popular two-term Democrat.
In the hours after the two-count mortgage fraud indictment, Democratic activists across the country began strategizing how to help James and capitalize politically on the Republican president’s desire to put her in prison. A conference call organized in part by the NAACP with more than 100 Black women political activists held Thursday evening became a virtual rally for the attorney general, said Jasmine Gripper, the co-director of the New York Working Families Party.
Plans were made on the call to support James’ legal defense and energize Democratic voters.
The political bolstering of the attorney general is immediately spilling over into the wildly unpredictable Big Apple mayoral contest, with the expectation it will boost turnout in the deep blue city, according to interviews with a dozen Democratic strategists, officials and activists.
“The New York City mayor’s race is a barometer on how much New Yorkers don’t like Trump and they want a leader who is going to stand up against him,” Gripper said. “It’s why you’re going to see a rallying cry for Zohran and Tish James. It’s a roar for our democracy.”
Put plainly, Cuomo cannot alienate Democrats eager to push back against Trump as the mayoral race enters its final weeks.
In his native city where he is highly unpopular with voters, the president has meddled in its political affairs in the last 10 months — efforts that include dangling potential jobs to Mayor Eric Adams in order to get him out of the race in a bid to help Cuomo — who lost the Democratic primary to Mamdani and is running in the general election as an independent. Democrats have tried to leverage their base’s anger toward Trump in the decade since his first White House victory — and harness the left’s wish to see someone battle the president. The party plans to frame Mamdani’s potential election win as an early rebuke of the president’s first year back in office.
“There will be rallies until this damn thing is dismissed — and then some,” Manhattan Democratic Chair Keith Wright said. “Tish is beloved in the state of New York, upstate and downstate. She’s probably one of the most conscientious and forthright elected officials I’ve ever encountered. People will be tripping over themselves to spearhead a rally.”
More so than the previous indictment of ex-Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, the James indictment has galvanized an otherwise fractious Democratic Party, aghast by the president’s efforts to leverage federal prosecutors against a political foe.
Aiding James’ cause with fellow Democrats is her long tenure in New York politics — a resume that includes the City Council and the public advocate’s office. Some Democrats tried to prod her into the mayoral race as Cuomo, perceived as a heavy favorite, was preparing to run last year. James ultimately declined, but became an enthusiastic Mamdani supporter.
“What it will do is shine a light on some of the tactics that the crazy president is doing at the local level against the city of New York,” said Democratic strategist Lupe Todd-Medina. “It’s just another example of how he’s trying to tarnish the city of New York. It’s in his playbook. He’s opening the book and saying, ‘Today, I’m going to do this.’”
Cuomo’s Thursday night statement — which took a generalized swipe against a politicized justice system and could easily have referred to his own resignation four years ago — was followed up a day later with a comment that referred to James by name. He also referenced efforts during Trump’s first term to probe the Cuomo administration and other blue state governors’ handling of the pandemic. The second statement, nevertheless, condemned Democratic efforts to leverage the justice system against political foes.
“The weaponization and politicization of the justice system is wrong no matter which side you are on — period,” Cuomo said in the statement. “It is wrong when Trump’s DOJ does it or when a democrat does it, and it must be universally condemned. I know firsthand as theWhite House weaponized the DOJ against me when I was governor of New York and three other democratic states during the height of COVID and it’s wrong that it appears to be happening with AG James and Former FBI Director Comey — it is part of why people have lost faith in the Justice system, the cornerstone of our democracy.”
Cuomo appeared to make common cause with the attorney general earlier this year when his campaign released a video tying the investigation against her to the Trump administration’s probe over his alleged lying to a House panel reviewing his Covid policies. He has denied any wrongdoing. The ex-governor cannot afford to alienate James’ supporters. Like her, he draws on the backing of older, Black New Yorkers who are considered the city’s most reliable voters to turnout on Election Day.
Cuomo has insisted the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him and sustained in James’ report are false and that he was denied due process in the civil proceeding. He has attempted to undermine the findings in the report through the myriad lawsuits that were filed in the wake of his stepping down.
He has also said he’ll be able to deal with Trump as the city’s next mayor, pointing to his decades of experience with the temperamental president. And Cuomo has been similarly effusive that Mamdani is too much of a neophyte to go toe to toe against Trump, warning in a primary debate that the president would run through him “like a hot knife through butter.”
Some Democrats are fearful the James indictment is an indication that the front-running Mamdani will be targeted by the Trump administration if he is elected next month. The president’s allies have mused about denaturalizing Mamdani, and Trump has suggested he would cut federal aid to New York City if the state assemblymember is leading City Hall.
“His team is well aware that Donald Trump will try to make an example of the socialist mayor of New York City,” said state Sen. Jabari Brisport. “I don’t think anybody has put forth an answer for what to do if Donald Trump tries to denaturalize the mayor of New York City, but that’s something he’s intimated before and it may be one of the tools.”
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