Why do Black voters currently seem to prefer Andrew Cuomo over Eric Adams?

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ political and legal future is mired in rumor and doubt amid a federal indictment and cratering approval ratings. His rise to power relied on a broad base of support among the city’s Black voters. However, with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo expected to enter the Democratic primary for mayor at any point, that community, historically a strength for Cuomo, could all but decide to end Adams’ future in politics. 

Recent polling has shown Adams underwater compared to Cuomo, and worse, bleeding support from the Black base that helped put him in Gracie Mansion. A late January survey of likely primary voters from Honan Strategy Group found that 74% of Black voters have an unfavorable opinion of Adams, while 79% have a favorable opinion of Cuomo. Just 6% of Black voters said Adams should be reelected while 78% said he should not. Just over half of Black voters told surveyors that they supported Cuomo in the mayoral race. Similar findings have been replicated across multiple recent polls, consistently showing that Black voters currently support Cuomo over Adams. Polling months out from a primary doesn’t necessarily promise doom, but it does speak to the larger idea that Black voters expect more from their elected officials than simply looking like them. 

“From what I hear from voters,” said Democratic strategist and former state Democratic Party Executive Director Basil Smikle, “they're disappointed that only the second African American mayor in the city of New York is going through this, and has these scandals hanging over his head at a time when they need someone like him to be able to speak truth to power, with respect to what Trump is doing out of D.C. and how New York can defend itself and be the sort of anti-Trump in this environment.”

Adams is contending with the double whammy of a federal indictment hanging over his head and the optics of cozying up to President Donald Trump, who despite impressive gains in the five boroughs last November, is a boogeyman to the vast majority of Democratic voters and Black New Yorkers. Cuomo has his own issues. The litany of sexual harassment allegations (Cuomo denies wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged with a crime) that precipitated his downfall as governor coupled with his handling of nursing home COVID-19 patients and his heavily scrutinized pandemic book deal don’t leave him with the most glittering reputation. But luckily for him, it would appear voters view his scandals as New York’s political past and Adams’ scandals firmly in the present tense.

“Unfair and unfortunate scrutiny”

Smikle said the battles Adams is fighting on multiple fronts cost him a great deal of political capital, opening the door to a contested multi-candidate primary. It just so happens that Cuomo appears to be expressing interest at a time when he’s still a known quantity and popular. That doesn’t make securing the Black vote a given though. 

“Any challenger is going to have to go get Black votes away from (Adams), and that is not an easy task,” Smikle said.

And while Adams is in for a fight for his political life, he hasn’t been completely abandoned by the Black community and their representatives. Prominent Black leaders, including state NAACP President Hazel Dukes and the Rev. Al Sharpton, have so far stuck with the mayor. Some Black lawmakers participated in his State of the City address. Some in New York still believe he deserves his day in court before judgments, legal and otherwise, are rendered. 

“Black voters are not a monolith. Like any demographic, we often have shared cultures, values (and struggles), but it is a mistake to lump us all together," Adams ally Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn said in a statement to City & State. "While (Adams) has been facing unfair and unfortunate scrutiny, he is continuously and consistently delivering results… he is always in our communities, at our clergies, and celebrating our diverse cultures."

State Sen. Zellnor Myrie and former Assembly Member Michael Blake are the only other prominent Black candidates in the race, but Myrie so far struggles with name recognition outside of his Brooklyn district and Blake is widely considered a longshot. And in this post-identity politics age, some posit that simply having race in common with a constituency doesn’t cut it anymore. 

“We are an educated enough constituency and voting block that it's not just that you are Black, right? It has to be that you are Black. You are confident. You are filled with integrity,” said political consultant Lupe Todd-Medina. 

While one could argue Adams lacks one or more of the qualities she described, they could reasonably do the same for Cuomo. Between former Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, who was reelected after getting caught in a 1990 FBI drug bust, and the extreme example of O.J. Simpson, the Black community has been forgiving of public figures in the past. Some appear to be doing the same with Cuomo, who has maintained a presence in the community since leaving office. On the other hand, prominent Black politicians like Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. have seen the well of good will run dry before, like when he lost his seat after being dogged by scandals and innuendo for years. Adams’ past few months have seen him hew closer to that reception than Barry’s. 

Cuomo’s vulnerabilities

The bullish view of Cuomo’s chances and support within the Black community could also be a symptom of him not officially joining the race. There isn’t yet official cause to detail any mistakes, perceived or otherwise, he’s made in past positions, nor more controversial moments that could affect the racial dynamics of his candidacy. For example, Cuomo ultimately withdrew from a contentious race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2002 after he challenged the state’s first Black comptroller, Carl McCall. McCall hit Cuomo for “divisive comments” after he complained of a “racial contract” between Black and Hispanic voters. Cuomo’s handling of a probe into former Gov. David Paterson, the state’s first Black governor, also ruffled some feathers in 2010. Cuomo was state attorney general at the time, and succeeded Paterson as governor after Paterson committed to not run for reelection under pressure. When he was governor, Cuomo sparked confusion and outrage when he said the N-word in a bizarre 2019 WAMC interview when discussing the plight of Italian-Americans in the 20th Century (he has stressed repeatedly that he was reading the words of a Black man at the time). Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University, said that while the former governor makes a point of maintaining his relationships with the Black community, the concerted effort to remind voters about his record has not begun. 

“We do have short political memories, but we have not seen ads reminding voters about how he handled nursing homes or his allegations about sexual behavior and conduct,” Greer said. 

That being said, Cuomo still hasn’t entered the race, and his representatives continue to stress that such talk is coming very early. 

“This is all premature, but New Yorkers know Andrew Cuomo is a Queens boy who spent a lifetime delivering for them – beginning in the '80s when he founded the nation's largest homelessness provider, to his days at HUD when he took on the KKK and brought billions to public housing systems around the country, to his time as governor when he enacted the country’s most ambitious (minority- and women-owned business) legislation, raised wages for millions of workers and passed the strongest gun violence prevention laws in the nation,” Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in an email.

Greer added that while much of the focus will end up split between Cuomo and Adams, as they represent the moderate options that resonate best with outer-borough Black voters, the failed promise of the Adams administration is helping to drive the discourse around Cuomo’s imminent campaign. 

“When we're looking at Eric Adams, I think that there's sort of a deflation of expectation and a disappointment in some of the deliverables, especially as the second Black mayor of the country's largest city. I think a lot of people see it as a wasted opportunity for Eric Adams to really help the city thrive,” Greer said. 

The options available to New York City’s Black voters, especially presumptive primary front-runners Adams and Cuomo and everything they bring with them, inspire fatigue. 

“Some of it could be just exhaustion from the presidential and that is definitely quite possible, but certainly in the Black community, there is no sense of excitement, and I think some of that has to do with the fact that Eric got into so much trouble,” Todd-Medina said. 

While Adams’ rumored angling for a presidential pardon is pissing off many across the Big Apple, the root issue appears to be his ability to govern. His threatened budget cuts in 2024 were viewed in apocalyptic terms, his approach to the migrant crisis rankled residents across the political spectrum and a tricky record on public safety and education left some unimpressed. But the suggestion that Cuomo is the savior New York City needs and additionally has the support of the Black community reads as premature and inaccurate to some. 

Bertha Lewis, founder and president of the Black Institute, wrote in a scathing Daily News opinion piece that Cuomo threatened to undo the legacy he created with the Black community and that his father, Mario, had left. Lewis thinks his political viability in the Black community at this point comes down to his visibility, and more recently, the lack of negativity associated to him when compared to Adams.

“People think that they know him better, and he does have more name recognition, and people assume he is better than any of the others that are running for mayor,” she said.

And given November’s results, perhaps Black voters in New York City will feel every right to be cynical in the quest of finding a candidate that will address their needs and concerns and reach out beyond election season. 

“Most Black voters don't vote for their ideal pie-in-the-sky choice,” Greer said. “You vote for the choice that's going to do the least amount of harm to you, knowing how white voters are going to behave.”