The Little Super PAC That Could (Stop Andrew Cuomo)

Yahoo

19-05-2025

Once Andrew Cuomo, the ex-governor of New York, announced that he was running for mayor of New York City, the race was his to lose. Despite having resigned in disgrace in 2021 amid a cascade of scandals, he was, and is, leading in the polls.
The counts against him are legion: Cuomo's policies reportedly exacerbated New York's COVID-19 death toll; he acknowledged that he withheld data on COVID-19 nursing home deaths from state lawmakers, the public, and the press; and he allegedly threatened a colleague. The state attorney general issued a report which found he had violated federal and state law in sexually harassing 11 women and retaliating against a former employee (Biden's DOJ later found he had harassed 13). His vaccine czar reportedly linked access to the vaccine to support for the governor. The state's Joint Commission on Public Ethics corroborated allegations that he'd used state resources to produce and promote a memoir he was paid $5.1 million to write. Though he apologized for making people 'feel uncomfortable,' he fought the women who said he'd harassed them tooth and nail, and his lawyers sought records from the gynecologist and therapist of at least one.
The fallout from Cuomo's misconduct continues—in April, House Oversight Chair James Comer asked the DOJ to prosecute him for lying to Congress about his involvement in a report that undercounted COVID-19 nursing home deaths—but the headlines have subsided. Campaign finance errors cost him more than $2 million in public matching funds in April, and, after finding that he had probably unlawfully coordinated with a super PAC, the NYC Campaign Finance Board denied him an additional $622,000 in May—a figure that could rise to $1.3 million by the end of the month. None of this has dented his lead in the polls. Like his father Mario, Cuomo was a sometimes popular three-term governor of New York, and New Yorkers know his name.
After a lifetime in politics and over a decade in the governor's mansion, he is also a formidable fundraiser. Fix the City, the super PAC city officials believe he illegally coordinated with, has now raised more than $8.7 million—the largest amount ever raised in city elections now that outside entities can receive unlimited donations. Fix the City has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from current and former Trump backers: $250,000 from billionaire Trump fan Bill Ackman, $100,000 from an investment firm run by Trump's one-time communications director Anthony Scaramucci, and $50,000 from GOP megadonor Ken Langone.
These sums dwarf what anti-Cuomo super PACs have been able to raise. New Yorkers for a Better New York Today, the super PAC associated with a campaign launched in February to blunt the momentum of the expected frontrunner in the mayor's race—first, New York's current scandal-plagued mayor Eric Adams, and now, the state's disgraced ex-governor—has so far raised around $52,000 (most donations under $1K won't be filed with the state until the end of May). That's around 0.6 percent of what Fix the City has raised, which explains why its founders jokingly call it the 'world's smallest super PAC.' Its top donor is Jews for Racial & Economic Justice's, or JFREJ's, electoral arm, The Jewish Vote, which contributed $5,000.
Other anti-Cuomo PACs include New Yorkers for Lower Costs, which supports the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani, and one originally called United For A Brighter Tomorrow, which ran anti-Cuomo ads before Cuomo officially entered the race. None have anything comparable to Fix the City's haul.
But maybe size isn't everything. The strategists and organizers who launched New Yorkers for a Better New York Today also, along with UAW Region 9A, masterminded the broader anti-Cuomo campaign known as DREAM. DREAM originally stood for, 'Don't Rank Eric Adams for Mayor;' once Cuomo entered the race, it became 'Don't Rank Eric (Adams) or Andrew (Cuomo) for Mayor.' Now that Adams has announced that he will forgo the Democratic primary and run as an independent in the general election instead, rendering Cuomo the central threat to the 'dream' of electing a progressive mayor, it stands for, 'Don't Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor.'
What the DREAM team and New Yorkers for a Better New York Today lack in size, they have been making up for in style, salience, and agility. The PAC's name may not trip off the tongue, but—thanks to its memorable acronym, sold-out merch, and clickable social media videos featuring Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, designers, comedians, fashion consultants, and/or NYC natives—the DREAM concept, as a campaign and a brand, is punching above its weight and has united a broad swath of anti-Cuomo New Yorkers under a common banner.
DREAM's message has managed to break through a crowded and fragmented information ecosystem in a major world city in part because it's catchy, aspirational (Dream big!), and, to journalists and Cuomo critics—hardly mutually exclusive groups—deeply compelling. Veteran radio personality Brian Lehrer, who hosts a long-running politics show on WNYC, recently discussed it with Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim on the air ('Kind of creative, right, Brian?' said Kim, referring to the switch from 'Don't Rank Eric or Andrew for Mayor' to 'Don't Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor'). References to DREAM have appeared in The New York Times, Politico, City & State New York, Crain's New York Business, and more.
Anti-Cuomo organizations, elected officials, candidates, and individuals are also eager to spread the DREAM gospel. Speaking of DREAM in a phone conversation, State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who represents a Bronx district, said, 'I don't have any official [role], but I am a full-on Dreamer.' Cuomo is 'not only a terrible human,' he added, but a 'terrible governor' who 'should not be anywhere near public service and certainly should not be the mayor of New York City.' Rivera added that sharing his perspective 'in English or in español' about what a 'hot garbage pile' Cuomo is would be one of the 'happiest volunteer activities' of his summer.
Joining Rivera in his mission are the New York Working Families Party, or NYWFP, the NYC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (of which I'm a member), and JFREJ, among others. Ana Maria Archila, co-director of the NYWFP, said in a phone conversation that her organization has focused on 'encouraging collaboration' among like-minded candidates 'aligned with the Working Families Party agenda.' The NYWFP can't engage in independent expenditure activity and isn't involved with any DREAM-adjacent super PAC, but it hopes to cultivate a united anti-Cuomo front by supporting the broader effort to persuade New Yorkers not to rank him.
Alicia Singham Goodwin, JFREJ's political director, said DREAM helps clarify how ranked-choice voting works and 'makes it really clear that this election is between the left and Andrew Cuomo.' A recent NYWFP ad outlines its strategy of endorsing a slate of candidates in the mayor's race, and ends with NYWFP co-director Jasmine Gripper exclaiming, 'Rank the slate and remember to dream!' (Even with ranked-choice voting, many are pushing for progressives to unite behind a single candidate closer to the primary. Archila said the NYWFP will announce its #1 pick at the end of May.)
The message seems to be resonating with everyday New Yorkers as well. In the last couple of weeks, stickers, posters, and graffiti bearing some version of the directive, 'Don't Rank Cuomo for Mayor' have appeared on lampposts, street signs, and bus shelters. Some are—or mimic—official campaign merch, with some of the lettering meant to evoke New York City subway signs; others repeat the same message in a variety of styles and with additional editorializing: 'Andrew Cuomo Won't Stand Up to Trump—He'll Sell Us Out/'Don't Vote for His Ass!'', 'Don't Rank Cuomo/No More Creeps!', 'Andrew Cuomo Is a Rapist,' and 'If You Tore Down My 'Cuomo is a Rapist' Sticker...You're a Little Bitch/We Have Options/Don't Rank Cuomo.'
Lawrence Wang, the co-founder of Greenpill, a communications and strategy firm instrumental in launching DREAM, said in a phone conversation that DREAM organizers' work on successful campaigns to pass the Build Public Renewables Act (now the subject of a forthcoming book), elect climate organizer Sarahana Shrestha to the state assembly, and elect Kristen González, whose main opponent outraised her by hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the state senate had taught them how to win against significant odds.
'We are seeing the power of a different kind of communications, a different kind of reaching out to New Yorkers, that has been effective without the money or the budgets that many of our opponents have,' he said. With fewer resources, DREAM has had to pioneer new ways of reaching the voters and would-be voters that campaigns like Cuomo's take for granted. And in a political world still dominated by fear-mongering, repetitive, and mind-bogglingly expensive TV and radio spots that may or may not work, campaigns like DREAM must find creative ways to capture the public's attention.
DREAM organizers have learned from their losses as well, most notably U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman's failed 2024 bid for reelection, which Wang and others worked on. 'AIPAC [the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee] and its allies had a 17-to-1 fundraising advantage against Bowman's campaign and won,' Wang noted in an email. 'Yet in the presidential election, despite spending between $346-647 million to Trump's $147-273 million, Kamala Harris was unable to beat Trump.' Wang added that while those numbers don't paint the entire picture, given hard-to-track dark money spending, a key takeaway from the 2024 presidential race was that Trump and the right embraced 'novel, guerilla, and alternative media compared to Harris and the Democrats'' more traditional spending—and won.
'From our own experience of what's worked and what hasn't,' Wang wrote, 'what separates them is the clarity of the message, the audacity of the vision, and the willingness to embrace unconventional tactics.' DREAM organizers' primary goal is to defeat Cuomo, but they also want to show risk-averse political operatives that a fresh approach can work.
Despite DREAM's effectiveness at uniting anti-Cuomo New Yorkers around a clear and powerful message, top progressive donors and large institutions have been reluctant to contribute to its super PAC. Some have cited what they see as the need to focus on fighting Trump. Others may be reluctant to antagonize the famously vindictive Cuomo, particularly in a race he is expected to win. Wang sees this lack of financial support as a missed opportunity: 'With the stakes of this election and Cuomo's significant money advantage, we can't afford to play it safe.'
Given the chance, and a fraction of a Bill Ackman-sized donation, the DREAM team would try to reach as many New Yorkers as possible by targeting diverse groups who use different social media platforms in different ways, from older people sharing political memes on Facebook to younger people getting their news on YouTube to immigrant communities sharing information and jokes on WhatsApp and WeChat. Some of the ideas they've considered but haven't yet executed for reasons ranging from potential legal risks to lack of money, time, and labor sound like they came out of a sketch show writers' room: 'Rats against Cuomo,' which could involve people dressing up as rats and going around the city saying things like, 'Rats get a bad rap, but did a rat ever shut down your school?/raise your rent?/defend Trump?' (Answer: 'No, that was Adams and Cuomo!') or a Mayor Cuomo food truck, which sells classic NYC street snacks at prices that go up every five minutes thanks to Cuomo's policies. A female Dreamer proposed selling purse-sized bottles of Cuomo-repelling pepper spray.
Carla Marie Davis, a social media content creator who analyzes city and state politics—and, per Instagram, a Brooklyn-born-and-raised 'fashion girlie that somehow ended up in local politics'—has shot several DREAM videos and thinks their appeal is clear. Reached by phone, she said the campaign strikes 'the perfect balance of being informative but also engaging and kind of playful.' Their products are 'shareable, digestible, and accessible' and 'not overly academic'—in short, 'the type of content that you don't have to be a political wonk to enjoy.'
Asked how DREAM's approach differs from older, cringier social media campaigns, Davis said organizers have learned a great deal in recent years about what works and what doesn't. They're not afraid to try new things or refine their approach. In the past, she added, campaigns tended to focus on landing big celebrity endorsements, even though big-name celebrities 'don't necessarily have as strong of a social currency' as was once assumed. People with 'an authentic voice,' Davis said, can potentially have more of an impact. Social media content is the 'core focus,' she explained, because it's 'such a powerful tool to leverage—even older folks, you know, gone are the days where older folks aren't on there—they might not be quite as active, but they're there.'
As they have several times in the last decade of American politics, causes and candidates with fewer financial resources can triumph over those with more. Yet as Cuomo's persistent polling lead indicates, money remains a crucial advantage. 'When you're outmatched in terms of money, a lot of it comes down to how you are deploying the limited resources you have, and the message,' Michael Beckel, Senior Research Director at Issue One, a nonprofit committed to reducing the role of money in politics, said in a phone call. 'There's a lot more people who can be spoken to about politics who may be disillusioned by it or feel like their vote doesn't matter, who can be activated,' Wang said. 'We've done some filming in Flatbush and Bed-Stuy, we're planning to go to Staten Island…we want to talk to people where they're at, not just digitally but also quite literally.'