Two former governors resigned in scandal. Now they want to be mayors.
There's never been a better time to be a disgraced politician seeking a second chance.
A pair of former governors who resigned in scandal are vying to lead major cities on both sides of the Hudson River — attempted comebacks that wager voters fed up with existing options will value their executive experience more than their political flaws.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who stepped down in 2021 following sexual harassment allegations, just launched his campaign for mayor of New York City. Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who exited office in 2004 after admitting to an extramarital affair with a man who he hired, is campaigning to lead New Jersey's second largest city, Jersey City.
While both are Democrats, they are likely to benefit from the Donald Trump effect, where expectations around character have been obliterated.
For their part, neither campaign is eager to acknowledge the other, but both former governors say they are selling executive experience. McGreevey and Cuomo are both talking about bread-and-butter issues: public safety, clean streets, affordable housing and the menace of e-bikes.
"I think folks want a record of getting something done and working hard," McGreevey said in an interview.
Cuomo is sounding a similar note about experience as a chief executive.
'I don't think there's been a governor in modern political history that has accomplished more things than I have accomplished,' Cuomo said during an interview with Stephen A. Smith.
Cuomo also explicitly attacked others who 'never ran anything before.' McGreevey has said governors and mayors share 'the need to get something done, to bring measurable change.'
It's hard not to see these as digs at recent big city Democratic mayors who have fumbled their way into infamy with one thing in common: they were legislators, not executives, before becoming mayor. That list includes New York Mayor Eric Adams, his predecessor Bill de Blasio, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and defeated San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
It goes without saying, none of McGreevey or Cuomo's opponents has the same kind of executive experience they have, even if it didn't end well.
'Their reputation certainly precedes them, right?' said Micah Rasmussen, a former McGreevey aide who is now the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.
It is unusual for governors to be forced out of office. Of the few thousand people who have served as an American governor, Cuomo was only the 56th to resign or be removed, according to the Pew Research Center.
Some in that club have tried to reboot their political careers, to mixed success. Others — Rod Blagojevich of Illinois and Robert Bentley of Alabama — were legally barred from running for elected office.
While McGreevey resigned with a speech remembered for the line 'I am a gay American,' and his fall is often tied solely to his sexual orientation in an era before more widespread acceptance, he was involved in a mix of scandals at the time, most notably putting his lover on the state payroll as a homeland security adviser in the months after 9/11 without proper credentials.
After he stepped down, McGreevey went on a spiritual journey and spent more than a decade helping prisoners reenter society. His campaign launch video in 2023, titled 'Second Chances,' opened with a scene of his resignation speech and a contrite McGreevey of today saying he'd learned his lessons.
Cuomo, by contrast, spent the past few years fighting in court to clear his name and launched his campaign with a 17-minute video that only briefly alluded to the scandal that prompted him to step down — a report released by Attorney General Letitia James found he sexually harassed 11 women. His leadership during Covid-19 also came under a cloud.
Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing on both counts and argued the scandals were induced by his many political enemies in New York and Washington. District attorneys subsequently did not bring criminal charges.
Basil Smikle Jr., a former head of the New York Democratic Party under Cuomo, said former politicians who leave office under a cloud make another go at it by waiting for the right time and doing a mea culpa tour to test the waters. Plus, Trump — who was impeached twice, found liable for sexual abuse and is a convicted felon — has shown certain behavior is more palatable to voters.
McGreevey is running for an open seat in a nonpartisan general election this fall with backing of a major North Jersey power broker.
Cuomo is running in a crowded primary field against Adams, who is under indictment, surrounded by scandal and with polling that shows most voters want Adams to resign. Another opponent, Scott Stringer, was a front-runner in the crowded 2021 Democratic primary before his campaign was derailed by accusations that he sexually harassed a campaign volunteer 20 years earlier. Stringer denied wrongdoing and is suing the woman who accused him for defamation.
Smikle said Cuomo may also be counting on some of the same Black and Hispanic Democrats who moved toward Trump last fall.
"I think the Trump voter and the potential Cuomo voter want the same thing — there is an interest in political disruption, they are OK with overlooking the past if they can get the disruption that helps them today," he said.
The governor-to-mayor pipeline is not unprecedented for those who didn't leave in scandal: Term-limited Delaware Gov. John Carney is now mayor of Wilmington.
If, as former New York Gov. David Paterson has said, Cuomo would rather be governor again, there is some precedent in former California Gov. Jerry Brown, who like Cuomo was a governor's son. After Brown led his state for eight years as a young man, his political future looked bleak following a trio of failed presidential bids. But then Brown ran for mayor of Oakland, won, and climbed back up the ladder to end his career as governor again.
When Cuomo and McGreevey reemerged, both Democrats had major establishment allies.
The city's carpenter's union and Rep. Ritchie Torres, a high-profile Democrat, are in Cuomo's corner. Torres has said the city needs a 'Mr. Tough Guy.'
McGreevey was encouraged to run by Hudson County power broker Brian Stack, who is also a state senator and mayor of neighboring Union City.
While both McGreevey and Cuomo have roots in the cities they are running to lead, both men spent years elsewhere, and both have been criticized for carpetbagging and me-centric campaigns.
When McGreevey launched his campaign in 2023, campaign rival Bill O'Dea said his campaign would be 'about the people,' not 'anything related to my own ego,' a jab at McGreevey.
Stringer, a former city comptroller and mayoral candidate, compared Cuomo to disgraced former state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who tried to resurrect his career with a run for city comptroller but lost to Stringer.
Rasmussen, who was McGreevey's spokesperson through the resignation, wonders if the collapse of local media has something to do with governors playing in local races because it's 'harder and harder for candidates to break through' and governors already come with name recognition — even if the names are a double-edged sword.
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