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Andrew Cuomo is not dropping out of the race for New York City mayor.
Cuomo, the former three-term New York State governor who resigned from office in 2021 amid multiple scandals, has decided, for now, to move ahead and run in the general election as an independent candidate, two sources confirmed to Fox News on Thursday night.
The announcement by Cuomo came two days after progressive upstart Zohran Mamdani shocked the political world, as he topped Cuomo and the rest of the 11-candidate field in heavily blue New York City’s Democratic Party mayoral primary and took a big step toward becoming the first Muslim mayor of the nation’s most populous city.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist state assemblyman from Queens who originally hailed from Uganda, captured 43.5% of the first round unofficial primary results, with Cuomo at 36.4%.
REPUBLICANS USE MAMDANI BOMBSHELL VICTORY OVER CUOMO AS AMMUNITION TO BLAST DEMOCRATS AS EXTREMISTS
Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani takes the stage at his primary election party on Wednesday, June 25, 2025 in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
While he acknowledged Mamdani’s victory in the primary, Cuomo left the door open to a November run as an independent candidate, which election rules in New York State permit.
“I want to look at all the numbers as they come in and analyze the rank choice voting. I will then consult with my colleagues on what is the best path for me to help the City of New York, as I have already qualified to run for mayor on an independent line in November,” Cuomo said in a statement earlier this week.
Cuomo was facing an end-of-the-day Friday deadline for candidates who had already qualified to run as independents to decline that independent ballot line.
The former governor will keep his place that he already secured earlier this year on the “Fight & Deliver” ballot line. But the sources said that Cuomo had not committed yet to running an active general…
