New York City
Andrew Cuomo denied millions in public matching funds for mayoral campaign
The former governor’s campaign won’t receive the funds until next month at the earliest.
Andrew Cuomo's campaign has had a rough week. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
With just two months until the Democratic primary election, the New York City Campaign Finance Board denied former Gov. Andrew Cuomo millions of dollars in public matching funds on Tuesday. The campaign attributed the issue to a software glitch with its donor platform.
Shortly after their vote at their Tuesday board meeting, the city Campaign Finance Board said in a release that the Cuomo campaign was denied funds for two reasons – not meeting the threshold for eligible donations and a high percentage of documentation errors for contributors. Candidates for mayor must raise – and properly document – at least $250,000 from 1,000 city residents to qualify for public matching funds.
Cuomo’s campaign said they’d received an email from CFB last Friday informing them that due to “a technical software error,” donations collected on one of their vendor platforms was missing “one of the fields” required by the board.
“While we met the thresholds necessary to receive matching funds, the campaign had to remedy this technical matter,” campaign spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement. “We have since fully addressed the software issue and have complied with all requirements.” CFB has a one-week grace period for campaigns to remedy technical issues, meaning Cuomo could still receive matching funds on May 12. Azzopardi said he expects that this will be the case.
Early on Sunday morning, Cuomo’s campaign sent an email, apparently to their entire list regardless of donor status, that urged supporters to fill out additional paperwork to make sure their donations qualified for city matching funds.
“Please look for a separate email coming from Cuomo For NYC Via DocuSign today. We need you to complete the form included in this additional email, TODAY IF AT ALL POSSIBLE,” the campaign wrote.
The campaign finance documentation snafu was the third embarrassing error for the campaign this week. On Sunday the news outlet Hell Gate reported that Cuomo’s newly released housing plan contained glaring typos, passages that didn’t make sense, and a citation of AI language model ChatGPT. The campaign told The New York Times the plan was written by an aide who uses dictation software because his left arm was amputated.
Then on Monday, in an email touting two major union endorsements, the campaign misspelled the names of both union presidents.
Though it’s a major blow to miss out on the city’s 8-to-1 public matching funds, Cuomo is still in a competitive position. His campaign is boosted by a political action committee called Fix the City that has raised nearly $5 million, as Politico reported this week. Polling continues to place him as the clear front-runner. The campaign also says they’ve raised another $1 million since the last filing period in March.
Five mayoral candidates were approved for the fifth round of public matching funds dispersed on Tuesday, including Comptroller Brad Lander, Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, former comptroller Scott Stringer – all running in the Democratic primary – and attorney Jim Walden, who is running as an independent.
Mamdani received the most matching funds of any candidate with a massive payment of $3.8 million on Tuesday, meaning he has “maxed out,” raising more than the spending limit for the Democratic primary. In addition, Mamdani had the highest percentage of small donors among the mayoral candidates who received matching funds payments.
Mayor Eric Adams, who is now running as an independent, has repeatedly been denied public matching funds by the Campaign Finance Board, and was again denied them on Tuesday. The CFB first made that determination in December, citing details in Adams’ now-dismissed federal indictment, as well as the campaign’s failure to submit documents and information requested by the board. It was also later found that his campaign’s reported and documented receipts varied greatly, adding to the reasons for denial. In the latest vote by the CFB, however, that variance is no longer noted as one of the reasons for denial. Instead, non-compliance and failure to submit personal financial disclosure are the stated reasons for ineligibility.
As of last month, there’s been no record of the Adams campaign appealing the board’s decision to deny matching funds. It’s not clear if the campaign has since appealed the decision.