NYC mayor candidate Brad Lander trots out Cuomo's harassment accusers in final campaign push after ICE arrest
New York City comptroller Brad Lander appeared alongside the first two women who accused former Governor Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment as the Democratic primary race for the city's next mayor nears its conclusion.
The women's accusations prompted others to come forward and, in the end, led to Cuomo's 2021 resignation from office.
'No one would let their daughter work for him,' said Lander, who attracted nationwide attention last week after federal agents handcuffed and arrested him inside an immigration court in downtown Manhattan while accompanying an immigrant inside.
He called Cuomo 'morally bankrupt.'
Cuomo, meanwhile, called the accusations a four-year-old 'political ploy.'
'That has been reported, litigated, dissected 270 times since then,' he added. 'And there's no there, there. So if that's all he has to say, he has a problem.'
Cuomo slammed both Lander and the 33-year-old democratic socialist state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani for wanting to divert funding from the police, positions neither of them still holds.
Cuomo initially apologized for having 'truly offended' the women.
However, in the following years, he has launched an effort to defend himself and undercut the credibility of the women who accused him of misconduct. Two of them, Charlotte Bennett and Lindsey Boylan, joined Lander on Saturday.
In December, the former governor accused Bennet of defamation. Victims' rights attorneys argued the lawsuit appeared to be designed to try to silence Bennett during Cuomo's mayoral campaign.
During her appearance with Lander, she said she hasn't 'felt safe to comment' and that 'it's felt like even showing up today was a risk.'
'He's a very powerful, well-connected, well-funded person who has made it clear that he's fine to destroy my life if I get in the way of what he's looking for,' she added.
The New York attorney general's office, the state assembly, and the Department of Justice all produced reports finding the allegations credible.
Even so, Cuomo is polling better among women than other candidates, according to a recent Marist poll. Forty-one percent of women said they would rank Cuomo first, followed by 22 percent for Mamdani, and seven percent for Lander and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
'I could understand how women of a different generation don't necessarily feel like that's the priority at the moment,' said Bennett, regarding the accusations of sexual harassment. 'I'm not surprised that women don't always support women.'
Cuomo has said that if he loses the primary, he will, much like current Mayor Eric Adams, run as an independent in November. Mamdani may run on a Working Families Party ticket should he come up short on Tuesday.
A poll released on Monday by Emerson College shows Cuomo leading with 35 percent backing, followed by Mamdani at 32 percent, and Lander at 13 percent.
However, in a simulation of the city's ranked-choice voting system, which is designed to avoid a runoff election by having voters rank their top five candidates for citywide races, Mamdani came out on top throughout eight rounds, with 52 percent to Cuomo's 48 percent.
'Over five months, Mamdani's support has surged from 1 percent to 32 percent, while Cuomo finishes near where he began,' Emerson College Polling executive director Spencer Kimball said in a statement.
'In the ranked-choice simulation, Mamdani gains 18 points compared to Cuomo's 12, putting him ahead in the final round for the first time in an Emerson poll,' he added.
The progressives in the race have effectively banded together to make sure that Cuomo, and eventually Adams, don't come out victorious. Lander and Mamdani have urged their supporters to rank each other first and second.
Progressive voters have been donating to several left-leaning candidates as they attempt to deny Cuomo the Democratic nomination, according to Politico. Roughly 3,000 New Yorkers donated to Lander, Mamdani, city council speaker Adrienne Adams, and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, but not to Cuomo and Eric Adams.
The donations appear connected to the so-called 'DREAM' campaign: 'Don't Rank Eric or Andrew for Mayor.'
'If you're Brad, Zellnor, Zohran or Adrienne, the theory is: The more of us there are, the more energy people will feel and the more they will turn out to vote,' Democratic strategist Jon Paul Lupo told Politico.
'But the risk is that you have candidates who are too similar, splitting votes and not amplifying them,' he added.
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