NYC Campaign Finance Board withholds $1.3M in matching funds from Cuomo, awards Adrienne Adams $2M
New York City's Campaign Finance Board dealt a blow to mayoral frontrunner Andrew Cuomo on Friday, withholding $1.3 million in matching funds from him — but gave a big lifeline to his opponent Adrienne Adams, clearing her for $2.4 million in critical public cash as the Democratic mayoral primary election looms weeks away.
Adams, the City Council's speaker and a moderate Democrat with appeal among Black, outer-borough voters, is seen as having the potential to chip away at some of Cuomo's base, especially as her standing in the polls has increased lately. The infusion of matching funds, her first this election cycle, allows her to start spending heavily on things like campaign ads in the final weeks before the June 24 primary.
'With these funds, the campaign anticipates an aggressive, on-the-ground and over-the-airwaves blitz in the final stretch as momentum continues to build for Adrienne's effective leadership,' Adrienne Adams campaign spokeswoman Lupe Topp-Medina said.
After voting to award the speaker $2.4 million in matching funds, the board members revealed they will withhold another $675,419 in public cash from Cuomo due to their suspicion that his campaign improperly coordinated with Fix the City, a super PAC boosting his run, on a television ad it aired earlier this month. That comes on top of more than $620,000 it earlier this month denied Cuomo for the same reason, meaning he's now being deprived of nearly $1.3 million in public money.
'The board continued an investigation into this matter, and based on the findings of this investigations thus far, continues to find reason that the expenditure was not independent,' board member Richard Davis said of the ad.
Still, the CFB also voted to approve a fresh infusion of $1.76 million for Cuomo's campaign. The $1.3 million he's being denied corresponds to how much money Fix the City spent on the ad found to be the product of improper coordination between the campaign and the PAC.
Earlier this month, the board gave Cuomo another $1.5 million in matching cash, meaning he has now raked in more than $3 million on top of the $3.9 million he has raised in private cash. That puts him close to the $7.9 million spending cap on the primary.
The board's decision to give Speaker Adams matching funds could not have come at a more critical time for her campaign.
While Adams' 11th hour mayoral bid has gained some momentum, with endorsements from Attorney General Leticia James and powerful municipal workers union DC37, she was denied matching funds at the board meeting earlier this month for not yet reaching the threshold, making it difficult to get the campaign fully up and running.
Whether or not the speaker received matching funds was a key question heading into Friday's board meeting. If she didn't qualify Friday, she would not have gotten another shot until June 20, just four days before the primary.
The paperwork she submitted in the previous filing period to the CFB was riddled with errors, with about 70% of the claims the speaker submitted rejected as 'invalid' because of paperwork snafus. Her team said this week they were confident she'd receive the money after raising nearly $400,000 in the latest fundraising period.
Without the matching funds, Adams has so far been unable to significantly ramp up her campaign with TV ads.
Spokespeople for Cuomo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The matching funds program is designed to put more weight on local campaign contributions by giving an 8-to-1 match for donations of up to $250 from city residents.
Mayor Adams sued the CFB on Tuesday for repeatedly denying him matching funds for his re-election bid in part because of concerns about his federal corruption indictment on campaign finance fraud charges. Adams, who has dropped out of the Democratic primary and is instead seeking reelection as an independent in November's general election, said in the suit those denials are in part the reason he's not running in the Democratic primary.
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