The last few weeks have been Zohran Mamdani New York Mayor campaign love fests in the media….
Have things changed?
Cuomo getting top billing today….
NY Times…
The many New Yorkers familiar with Andrew M. Cuomo’s voice can be certain of one thing: He has adopted a new one on social media.
To an X user who seemed confused about an apparently AI-generated video of a toddler mouthing Mr. Cuomo’s words in Mr. Cuomo’s voice, he shot back, “Turn the sound on bro.”
When someone fondly compared Mr. Cuomo to the Energizer bunny, he swiftly responded, “Twice his age, twice his energy.”
What’s behind the chattier, looser social media persona? Mr. Cuomo’s convincing loss in the Democratic mayoral primary to Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist.
During the primary, Mr. Cuomo saw a huge polling advantage dwindle as he held only limited, tightly controlled public appearances. His relative absence from the trail and his negative focus on New York City’s “chaos” created an opening for the emergence of Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old digital native with charisma and clear, positive messaging.
Now, Mr. Cuomo, the former governor of New York, is running in the general election on an independent ballot line, and he is using X, Instagram and TikTok to challenge the proposition that an old dog can’t learn new tricks, at a time when more and more votersare getting their news from social media.
“We were too cautious, too buttoned-up,” said his spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, on Thursday morning. “And the philosophy for the general election is we’re going to meet voters where they are.”
But as any teenage girl on Instagram can tell you, being online comes with risks.
When a self-described “elections junkie” turned to social media to express reluctant praise for Andrew M. Cuomo’s new campaign logo, he did not expect much of anyone to notice.
The “elections junkie,” Anthony Emerson, a writer based in Portland, Maine, for Uni Watch — a website that “deconstructs the finer points of sports uniforms” — had only 1,000 or so followers on X, many of them fellow democratic socialists.
Politico…
Cuomo has been undergoing a reset after losing to Mamdani in the June primary by nearly 13 points. Eschewing the aloofness with which he approached the campaign in the months leading up to his defeat, the former governor has instead been doing more interviews with the press and has twice held court at the Sheraton Hotel with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation. On Wednesday, he appeared to tacitly concede the popularity of Mamdani’s platform, even as he sought to improve upon the specifics.
Mamdani has pledged to make buses free for all New Yorkers, a plan that would cost around $900 million annually. On Wednesday, Cuomo proposed fully subsidizing subway and bus fares for New Yorkers earning up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, which would apply to a family of four making up to $4,000 monthly. He pegged the annual cost at $140 million.
In response to Mamdani’s proposal for a city-run grocery store in each borough, Cuomo floated a new program to subsidize $100 worth of food purchases for households who make too much money to qualify for federal nutrition assistance. He pegged the cost of that initiative at $200 million a year.
More broadly, Cuomo cast his proposals as more targeted to New Yorkers in need…..
Fox News….
The race for New York City mayor intensified this week when former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, called out socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani for owning property in Uganda despite the country’s anti-LGBT policies.
“The no-show assemblyman missed this interview while vacationing at his parents’ compound in Uganda, a country that murders LGBTQIA+ people,” Cuomo posted on XTuesday.
“Silence is violence. I hereby call on you to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction your property in Uganda and commit to stop spending tourism dollars there until they overturn their hateful, discriminatory laws which violate basic human rights.”
Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, has faced criticism in recent days for spending the last part of June at his family’s compound in Uganda, where, according to a New York Post report, his wedding celebration was surrounded by armed guards….