NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 New York City Mayor Eric Adams will endorse Andrew Cuomo in the city\u2019s mayoral election, a spokesperson said Thursday, throwing his weight behind a bitter rival he recently called a \u201csnake and a liar\u201d as the former governor tries to defeat Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n
Adams\u2019 spokesperson Todd Shapiro said the mayor will endorse Cuomo and intends to campaign alongside him. Adams also told reporters at an unrelated new conference that he \u201cwould be with Andrew later today\u201d but declined to answer other questions on the race.<\/p>\n
The two leaders met Wednesday night \u2014 at Madison Square Garden for the New York Knicks\u2019 opening game of the season \u2014 right after the city\u2019s final mayoral debate<\/a>. They were photographed looking chummy, fueling speculation of an incoming endorsement.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not immediately clear if Adams\u2019 endorsement would help Cuomo in the city\u2019s November election. Adams, who abandoned<\/a> his reelection campaign late last month, has seen his political capital crumble under the weight of a federal corruption case that was ultimately dismissed following an extraordinary intervention<\/a> from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n Cuomo, a centrist, has cast himself as the only candidate who could beat Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist and state assemblymember who shocked the political establishment by soundly defeating the former governor in the June primary<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a statement Thursday, Mamdani said \u201cAndrew Cuomo is running for Eric Adams\u2019 second term.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no surprise to see two men who share an affinity for corruption and Trump capitulation align themselves at the behest of the billionaire class and the president himself,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n Cuomo\u2019s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n Cuomo\u2019s path to victory rests on his ability to win over moderates and Republicans, but in recent days he has admitted that it is becoming \u201charder mathematically\u201d for him as long as Republican Curtis Sliwa remains in the race. At the same time, the former governor has significantly amped up his criticism of Mamdani, appearing on conservative media to claim the city would descend into chaos if Mamdani were to win.<\/p>\n Sliwa<\/a>, the colorful founder of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, has steadfastly refused calls<\/a> to drop out from both Cuomo and his supporters.<\/p>\n The endorsement would mark a reconciliation between the two longtime New York politicians, each of whom had escalated attacks against the other before Adams ended his campaign.<\/p>\n Shortly before dropping out, Adams accused Cuomo making \u201ca career of pushing Black candidates out of races,\u201d referring to the former governor\u2019s past state races.<\/p>\n Cuomo, meanwhile, has described Adams\u2019 management of the city as a \u201cnever-ending series of government corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNew Yorkers had turned off on his management of his city,\u201d he said earlier this year.<\/p>\n The days after Adams\u2019 exit brought some signs of a thawing of tensions, with several of the mayor\u2019s allies and deputies coming out in favor of Cuomo.<\/p>\n In a video announcing he was leaving the race, Adams mentioned neither candidate by name, but warned of \u201cinsidious forces\u201d using local government to \u201cadvance divisive agendas\u201d \u2014 which many interpreted as a reference to Mamdani.<\/p>\n ___ Izaguirre reported from Albany, New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 New York City Mayor Eric Adams will endorse Andrew Cuomo in the city\u2019s mayoral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[80,7022,154,153,416,81,417,9,24,56,63,65,64,10406,87,4627,421,82],"class_list":["post-13804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-andrew-cuomo","tag-corruption","tag-curtis-sliwa","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-eric-adams","tag-general-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-political-endorsements","tag-politics","tag-todd-shapiro","tag-u-s-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}