Major health care union backs Cuomo's mayoral bid
NEW YORK — New York City's largest private sector union endorsed Andrew Cuomo's mayoral bid Friday, adding to the list of politically influential labor organizations backing the scandal-scarred former governor.
The union, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, cited Cuomo's 'record of delivering for health care workers' and his work securing a $15 minimum wage, expanding paid family leave, winning marriage equality and defending immigrant rights.
'New York is at a crossroads, and we need leaders who will stand up for working people, fight for good union jobs, and ensure every New Yorker — no matter their zip code — has access to quality healthcare, affordable housing, and a living wage,' President George Gresham said in a statement Friday. 'At a time when our city is facing enormous challenges, we need leaders with the experience and vision to deliver real results — our members recognize that Governor Cuomo is the clear choice to lead New York forward.'
The union represents 200,000 health care workers within the five boroughs and played a large part in getting former Mayor Bill de Blasio elected, making it one of local politicians' most coveted endorsements.
It may not be the most consequential now, though. The union's political power has softened from years without a permanent political director and an
increasingly disenchanted membership
. Lawyer Maya Wiley won the union's support in the 2021 mayoral race, to no avail.
President George Gresham, a longtime Cuomo ally who eventually called on him to resign,
urged the union's top officers
weeks ago to throw their support behind his candidacy. But the endorsement landed on the union's backburner, as Gresham campaigned for reelection and grappled with fallout from a
nine-month POLITICO investigation into his lavish spending of union funds
.
The union's internal election — its first
contested leadership race
since 1989 — is being conducted by mail through the end of the month.
Cuomo campaign spokesperson Rich Azzopardi did not respond to requests for comment on the POLITICO investigation into Gresham's spending.
The union has donated heavily to Cuomo's gubernatorial campaigns in the past and, through an advocacy arm co-led by the Greater New York Hospital Association,
spent millions on television ads
in 2018 praising his health care policies.
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Politico
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Playbook: Newsom v. Trump
Presented by With help from Eli Okun and Bethany Irvine On this morning's podcast, Jack and Dasha discuss the dangers of late-night theater, the art of the 3 a.m. apology and why — once again — Democrats are turning to the courts to try to stop Trump. Good Thursday morning. This is Jack Blanchard, a little bittersweet today with 'God Only Knows' still spinning around my head. R.I.P. LAST NIGHT AT THE THEATER: President Donald Trump got a decidedly mixed reception last night as he attended the opening night of 'Les Misérables' at the Kennedy Center, my POLITICO colleague Megan Messerly reports from the Opera House. Her iPhone vid from inside the theater suggests the president and first lady Melania got off pretty lightly compared to VP JD Vance the other month, with plenty of cheers for Trump and chants of 'U.S.A.' But there were boos as well, plus a procession of audience members who dressed in drag — and a yell of 'Viva Los Angeles' when Trump stood up at the break. 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Newsom's clickbait-friendly social media operation sought to take advantage with some high-level trolling of the Trump administration, reposting videos of jovial protesters dancing in the sunshine, and of bored LAPD cops in riot gear eating McDonald's. 'PETE, SEND THE MARINES!' teased Newsom's team. It's certainly a striking change from your average Dem fare, and it's doing him no harm at all. While we're doing California kremlinology … The battles of the past week have certainly not dissuaded Kamala Harris from a possible bid for state governor, my POLITICO colleague Melanie Mason scoops this morning. 'If she was worried that her becoming governor might put a bigger target on California, the last week took that question off the table,' one Harris supporter says. 'We've got a helluva target on us no matter who the governor is.' Harris tried to call Newsom this week, Melanie reports … but only made it through to voicemail. Ouch. 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Pic — Edith Jorge-Tuñón, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, and Cristina Jorge-Tuñón, budget analyst at the Maryland Department of Budget and Management, recently welcomed Mateo Jorge-Tuñón, their second son. Pic HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) … Carrie Budoff Brown … Mayra Macías … Dag Vega … Bloomberg's Kevin Sheekey … Alex Castellanos … Rabbi Levi Shemtov … Chris Lu … Lilia Dashevsky … Michael Finnegan … Joyce Kazadi ... Eli Zupnick ... FICO's Dan Archer … Matt Wolking … former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham … Matt Mowers … former Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) … Peter Schechter … Mort Rosenblum … Coco Pannell Smith … Julie Andreeff Jensen … Luis Miranda … Morgan Viña of National Security of America and Invariant … Bryce Bozadjian … Abigail Ross Hopper of the Solar Energy Industries Association Send Playbookers tips to playbook@ or text us on Signal here. 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New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Flailing Dems vying for NYC mayor likely to take aim at Trump in final debate tonight—after attacks on frontrunner Andrew Cuomo fall flat
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Vox
an hour ago
- Vox
LA protests: Why Trump is suddenly ordering immigration raids
covers politics Vox. She first joined Vox in 2019, and her work has also appeared in Politico, Washington Monthly, and the New Republic. Protesters denounce the ongoing raids and deportations by ICE during a demonstration in Columbia Heights on June 10, 2025, in Washington, mass protests in Los Angeles began as a rejection of President Donald Trump's new blitz of immigration raids. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on locations throughout LA on Friday, including Home Depot and the city's garment district. During the raids, immigration authorities reportedly arrested more than 200 people, though the Trump administration has not yet released official figures. Some of them have already been deported, according to the Washington Post. But why did Trump order the raids in the first place? This is not just a matter of routine immigration enforcement, but a significant escalation of his deportation tactics. For Trump, it means getting closer to his goal number of daily deportations after falling short during his first few months in office. For undocumented immigrants, it means more fear in their communities, driving them further into the shadows and leaving them further vulnerable to labor exploitation. Any benefit to Americans is unclear, especially given how much the US economy relies on undocumented labor, including in industries such as construction and agriculture. 'This approach certainly doesn't make us any safer,' said Debu Gandhi, senior director of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. 'It is focused on large numbers of people, including lots of folks who are working and don't have a criminal record, as opposed to targeted enforcement, focusing on those who actually pose a public safety threat to the American people.' Undocumented workers will bear the immediate cost, while Trump, who has himself employed undocumented workers at his hotel and golf club properties, seeks little accountability from their employers. The approach suggests a wariness on the administration's part to upend the status quo in which American companies benefit from undocumented labor. But the administration, clearly, also has a political imperative to deliver — or at least give the appearance of delivering — on Trump's promise of mass deportations. Trump is trying to get his deportation numbers up As a candidate, Trump repeatedly promised to deport 'millions and millions' of undocumented immigrants. To do so, he would need to exceed the record deportations set by former President Barack Obama in 2013, when he averaged more than 35,000 per month. But in the first few months of Trump's second term, he was far off from that pace. In February, his first full month in office, ICE deported about 11,000 people; in March, it deported a little more than 12,300. In April, the most recent month for which data is available, deportations increased to 17,200 for the first time, surpassing the number of deportations during the same period last year under the Biden administration. Trump has reportedly expressed frustration that the number of deportations remains low in spite of his efforts to mobilize federal resources from the National Guard to the IRS to identify and arrest undocumented immigrants. And now, Trump has broadened the scope of the immigrants he's targeting for deportation. While the administration initially stated that it was prioritizing the approximately 1.4 million of them who have final orders of removal — essentially the final step in legal proceedings before deportation — it has become clear that the administration is not just targeting them alone. One reason that the number of deportations isn't higher is that Trump's immigration policies appear to have driven down new arrivals at the border. New arrivals have accounted for a significant share of deportations in recent years. Instead, Trump now seems to be turning to selective workplace raids to find and deport undocumented immigrants. He may also soon have a bigger budget to carry them out: The House spending bill, which is now under consideration in the Senate, allocates $185 billion for immigration enforcement, including $27 billion for ICE operations such as raids. That's an increase of about $150 billion over the current funding levels for immigration enforcement. Trump seems to be deliberately targeting workers over their employers Trump hasn't invoked the enforcement tool of immigration raids in an equitable manner. Worksite immigration enforcement under Trump has focused on undocumented workers in blue states like California rather than their employers. 'We haven't seen employers who hire undocumented workers being arrested and charged in red states the same way that we're seeing workers being targeted in blue states across the country in these actions,' Gandhi said. The Logoff The email you need to stay informed about Trump — without letting the news take over your life, from senior editor Patrick Reis. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. A more effective means of discouraging the hiring of undocumented workers might be pushing for mandatory employment eligibility verification for all new hires. Noncitizens need authorization to work in the United States, whether that be through a visa, green card, or humanitarian protections. Currently, however, only the federal government and its contractors are required to confirm an employee's work authorization via a program called E-Verify. While there have been proposals in Congress to make E-Verify required for all US employers over the years, they never went anywhere — in part because a robust business lobby opposed it. Instead of pushing for such legislation that would place responsibility on employers, Trump is making undocumented workers pay the price. Though it seems unlikely that he could deport all 8.3 million of them, selective workplace raids may have enough of a chilling effect to deter them from seeking critical social services or labor protections, leaving them more vulnerable than ever. 'Protecting workers and making sure that abuses of workers are addressed is certainly not a priority of this administration,' Gandhi said. Undocumented workers power key sectors of the US economy — and without them, those sectors would face labor shortages. For instance, American farms are already facing a critical labor shortage, and according to the Center for Migration Studies, 45 percent of all US agricultural workers are undocumented. Deporting them would also mean that they would no longer contribute to the economy as consumers supporting the jobs of American workers. That means Americans could also see job losses, and according to an analysis by Robert Shapiro, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, national wage and salary income could decrease by $317.2 billion. 'It's going to shrink the economy,' Gandhi said. 'Deporting millions of workers and families could hurt the supply of food. It could hurt the supply of housing Americans need. It could drive up inflation.'
