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Photo: Angelina Katsanis/AP Photo/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Andrew Cuomo tried very hard on Thursday night to derail Zohran Mamdani, blasting away at the 33-year-old democratic socialist for lacking the experience to govern. “He’s literally never had a job,” the former governor said at the first mayoral debate of the general election. He attacked Mamdani for previously wanting to defund the police. He accused him of wanting to legalize prostitution as mayor. He brought up, once more, that Mamdani had not initially disavowed the slogan “Globalize the intifada.”

None of it seemed to matter. Mamdani, the clear polling front-runner, was unfazed, and the first poll released since the debate indicates he’s on a glide path to Gracie Mansion: 49 percent of registered voters back Mamdani as opposed to 28 percent for Cuomo and 13 percent for Republican Curtis Sliwa, according to Fox News. Among likely voters, Mamdani rises to 52 percent.

He is winning because he’s the Democratic nominee in a Democratic city and he’s a singular political talent. New Yorkers, on the balance, are hungry for the change he promises to deliver. He is fresh, as was once written about John Lindsay, and everyone else is tired. The latter is especially true: While Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder, isn’t taken seriously by many voters, Cuomo is the definition of a retread. Mamdani is blessed to have Cuomo as an opponent. (Disclosure: In 2018, when I ran for office, Mamdani was my campaign manager.)

What’s remarkable about Cuomo is that, after losing a primary by 13 points that he was long forecasted to win, he’s hardly recalibrated at all. A shock defeat has barely changed his approach. At most, he’d made inconsequential pivots, like embracing a bizarre new social media persona and holding a few more public events. The messaging itself is unaltered from the primary. Belligerently unapologetic for his various scandals—his mismanagement of nursing homes during the pandemic, the sexual harassment allegations that drove him from office—he has continued to reaffirm the same message, again and again: I was governor once, I have accomplishments, so elect me.

There is no greater vision for governing. There is little for the average New Yorker to look forward to, to believe in. Cuomo has been a listless campaigner who appears to have genuine disdain for the city he only moved back to recently. To Cuomo, New York is an incipient hellscape—or a full-blown dystopia—and only he can save it. Except most voters do not see it that way. They know New York has many challenges, including one of affordability, but they like it here and want their mayor to like it too. Cuomo is condescending, charmless, and devoid of any healthy rationale for running other than he’d like to not be known simply as the governor who resigned in disgrace. He craves a redemption arc. He has few hobbies, few friends, or obvious places to be if he’s not rustling around the political world like a ghost. He is not Eliot Spitzer, who has a family real estate empire to tend to. He is a politician without an office. And soon, if the polls are to be believed, he will be a politician with nowhere else to go.

Can Cuomo get back in the race? Or make it one? Anything can, theoretically, happen, but time is fast ticking down for him. Mamdani had a late surge in June and polls showed him in an effective tie with Cuomo by the time voters headed to the polls. For several weeks, there was movement for Mamdani, all of it in a beneficial direction. Cuomo, though, has been stagnant, except for when Mayor Eric Adams dropped out. His problem is that he is an entirely known quantity and he does not have the will to reimagine or reinvent himself or his campaign. What’s new for him since June? Why is he bothering with this independent bid?

He’d argue it’s because Mamdani is dangerous and must be stopped at all costs. But successful campaigns are never exclusively about the opponent. When Donald Trump won, it wasn’t just Americans voting against Kamala Harris or the Democrats. These were votes for Trump, for his promises, broken since, to tackle inflation. They were excited for Trump, just as New Yorkers are now excited for Mamdani. It is almost impossible to find someone who is thrilled about voting for Cuomo. He will have votes because Mamdani is very young, he calls himself a socialist, and some might be uncomfortable with a Muslim mayor. Others may fret he does indeed lack the ability and experience to govern one of the largest and most important cities on Earth. But Cuomo, for them, is merely a default, the least-bad option. They will shrug and vote for him, or not vote at all. For the second time this year, Cuomo is poised to lose an election in crippling, and humiliating, fashion.

Andrew Cuomo Has 18 Days Left

Andrew Cuomo Has 18 Days Left