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In the closing weeks ahead of New York City’s Democratic Party mayoral primary, as he appeared to be cruising toward capturing his party’s nomination, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo focused his campaign’s spotlight on President Donald Trump. But an unexpected loss to democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani forced his campaign to make an abrupt change in messaging.
“Trump’s coming for New York. Who do you think can stop him?” the narrator in a Cuomo campaign ad said, over images of the June rioting in Los Angeles sparked by Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“Trump’s at the city gates. We need someone experienced to slam them shut,” the narrator said, as he suggested that Cuomo was the most experienced candidate to push back against the president’s agenda.
The former three-term governor, who resigned amid twin scandals in 2021, pledged, if elected mayor, to protect New York City from what he suggested could be a possible future federal crackdown against immigration protests in the city. And he vowed to mount a national campaign to try and thwart Trump’s agenda.
POLL POSITION: MAMDANI’S THE FRONTRUNNER, BUT ISN’T RUNNING AWAY WITH THE NYC MAYORAL RACE
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in a speech to supporters, acknowledges that rival Zohran Mamdani ‘won’ the New York City Democratic Party mayoral primary, on June 24, 2025, in New York, N.Y. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News)
But Mamdani’s stunning victory over Cuomo and nine other candidates last month to capture the Democratic Party nomination rocked the race for mayor in the nation’s most populous city.
And as Cuomo resets as he runs in the mayoral general election as an independent candidate, references to Trump have plummeted as the former governor stands for interviews. He didn’t mention the president once in his video announcing his general election campaign.
Longtime Cuomo adviser and spokesman Rich Azzopardi said “that’s not the case” when asked by Fox News Digital…
