Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Saturday that he would run for mayor of New York City, upending the race to unseat Eric Adams and setting up an audacious comeback attempt three years after he resigned in disgrace.
With near-universal name recognition, deep-pocketed supporters and a decade as governor, Mr. Cuomo is expected to quickly assume front-runner status for the June Democratic primary, albeit with hefty baggage.
In a video announcing his run, Mr. Cuomo, 67, attempted to reintroduce himself to New Yorkers on his preferred terms: as a tested manager, law-and-order moderate and forceful leader who is ready to fight crime in the subways, his party’s left flank and President Trump.
But his candidacy is also poised to push to the fore other, potentially divisive questions about the staying power of the #MeToo movement and the direction of the Democratic Party at a time when Mr. Trump is asserting power well beyond Washington.
It will be no easy task. Even before Mr. Cuomo entered the race, his Democratic rivals began denigrating him as a relic best left in the past. They are prepared to relitigate his treatment of women, his stewardship of the state during the Covid pandemic and even his commitment to New York City, where he had not lived full time for decades until recently.
“I don’t believe that New Yorkers want to trade one corrupt chaos agent for another,” Brad Lander, the left-leaning city comptroller running for mayor, said in a video assailing him.
Saturday’s announcement ended months of speculation about Mr. Cuomo’s future and touched off an urgent new phase in the race.
New York City is facing skyrocketing housing costs, unease about public safety and an unfolding leadership crisis that began with federal corruption charges against Mr. Adams in the fall and accelerated this winter amid accusations that he struck a corrupt deal with the Trump administration to drop them.
Mr. Cuomo joins a crowded field that includes talented young upstarts, seasoned Democratic officeholders and an embattled incumbent. At least two other prominent officials, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, are being pushed to enter the race.
Public polling before Mr. Cuomo’s entrance consistently found him in the lead, followed by Mr. Lander; Scott M. Stringer, the former comptroller; Mr. Adams and others, including State Senator Zellnor Myrie and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist.
For Mr. Cuomo, the contest may provide the best — and possibly last — chance to rewrite the story of a Democratic dynasty, one that he once hoped would end in the White House, not the political wilderness.
He waited for weeks, even as his opponents jockeyed for support, to enter the contest to be sure he saw a clear path to City Hall and to limit the time his opponents have to dredge up his past.
Mr. Cuomo has some clear advantages. His allies launched a super PAC on Wednesday aiming to raise $15 million, more than enough to dwarf his opponents. Mr. Cuomo, who is white, has deep ties to the city’s influential Black leadership and powerful real estate industry. And he can cite his success as governor legalizing same-sex marriage, rebuilding LaGuardia Airport and leading the state through the Covid crisis.
He appears to be betting that the political and cultural climate has shifted to his advantage. Democrats have been drifting slowly back toward the ideological center, where Mr. Cuomo has long been at home. He appears ready to pick fights with Democrats running to his left over policing and support for Israel.
Many of his supporters believe that the very qualities that contributed to his downfall as governor — his ruthless, domineering style — may now be positive attributes as Democrats search for someone who can go toe-to-toe with Mr. Trump.
“We don’t need a Mr. Nice Guy,” said Representative Ritchie Torres, an Afro-Latino Democrat from the Bronx supporting Mr. Cuomo. “We need a Mr. Tough Guy.”
But the history of New York City politics is also littered with early front-runners whose polling leads collapsed by Election Day. Mr. Cuomo knows the risks better than most: He got his political start working on his father’s 1977 race for mayor, when the early promise of a Mario M. Cuomo mayoralty crashed into defeat.
This time, the younger Mr. Cuomo must navigate a path littered with obstacles and enemies accrued in large numbers. The race is arguably his first truly competitive one in decades, and the first time Mr. Cuomo has run under the city’s relatively new ranked-choice voting rules.
Some of the state’s most powerful political forces — including Gov. Kathy Hochul, The New York Post and Letitia James, the New York attorney general whose office investigated the sexual harassment accusations against Mr. Cuomo — have spent months trying to field another moderate candidate with the stature to block his return.
Among the options are Ms. Adams, the first Black Council speaker, who formed a campaign committee and indicated she would make a final decision next week. The Post favors Ms. Tisch, a well-respected bureaucrat who is white and could afford to pump money from her family fortune into the race. She has taken no evident steps to run, though.
Then there is Mr. Adams, who still commands a loyal following. While few political strategists believe he could actually win a second term, the pugilistic mayor has shown he is willing to argue that Mr. Cuomo is trying to unseat the city’s second Black mayor and that he is a pampered scion out of touch with average New Yorkers.
Mr. Adams has attacked Mr. Cuomo for enacting changes to the state’s bail laws that Republicans and some Democrats say led to a rise in crime. Other opponents blame Mr. Cuomo for allowing the city’s subway system, which is overseen by the governor, to fall into disrepair.
Mr. Cuomo has had success chipping away at the credibility of some of the harassment claims. But the Justice Department concluded last year that he and his executive staff subjected at least 13 female employees to a “sexually hostile work environment.”
He could also face ongoing legal jeopardy from Washington, where the Justice Department under Mr. Trump has already shown itself willing to use the law to influence New York City’s mayor.
Last fall, a House Republican chairman referred Mr. Cuomo for potential prosecution after he accused him of lying about a report on nursing home deaths during the pandemic. Mr. Cuomo insists he did not lie, but rather failed to remember certain details that he later sought to correct.
After the tumult of the investigations into Mr. Adams and his inner circle, Mr. Cuomo’s critics also plan to remind voters of his ethical issues, including the corruption convictions of two close aides, which were later overturned by the Supreme Court, and the governor’s interference with a prominent anticorruption panel.
