Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks to Native 237 teamsters throughout a rally for Mayor on March, 6, 2025.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is selecting up assist within the borough that raised him with the rollout of his first endorsements from Queens lawmakers within the 2025 NYC mayor’s race on Thursday.
Queens Democratic Meeting Members Stacy Pheffer Amato, Vivian Cook dinner, and Sam Berger are all backing Cuomo’s run for Metropolis Corridor, in response to an announcement his marketing campaign shared first with New York News Metro.
Cuomo — who typically refers to himself as a “Queens boy” for his upbringing within the borough, however has spent a long time residing upstate — has been racking up endorsements from elected officers, unions and political golf equipment since launching his mayoral marketing campaign on March 1. He’s trying to make a political comeback after resigning as governor in 2021 amid a number of accusations of sexual misconduct, which he denies.
The three lawmakers cited Cuomo’s deal with combating crime, potential to handle the state authorities, and assist for New York’s Jewish group as causes for backing his candidacy.
Pheffer Amato, whose district covers Howard Seashore and far of the Rockaway peninsula, lauded Cuomo’s proposal to extend the NYPD’s ranks by 5,000 officers.
“Our City is struggling with recruitment and retention of our police officers,” Pheffer Amato, who chairs the Meeting’s Governmental Workers Committee, mentioned in a press release. “The NYPD’s uniformed headcount is at its lowest in decades, and we need a mayor who will stand up for our men and women in blue. Andrew Cuomo is that candidate.”
The endorsements construct on Cuomo’s ongoing pattern of eradicating assist from embattled Mayor Eric Adams, whose probabilities of profitable re-election are wanting more and more dim.
Pheffer Amato is defecting from the mayor after endorsing him within the 2021 Democratic mayoral major. Cook dinner, who backed businessman Ray McGuire 4 years in the past, represents a part of southeast Queens, a voter-rich portion of town that solidly went for the mayor in 2021.
Berger didn’t make an endorsement within the 2021 race as he was not but in elected workplace.
The announcement is also a slight blow to Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who has represented a big swath of southeast Queens since 2017. The speaker kicked off her mayoral marketing campaign in southeast Queens’ Rochdale Village Purchasing Heart on Saturday with the assist of different World’s Borough elected officers, together with Democratic Meeting Member Andrew Hevesi.
However Cook dinner mentioned she is backing Cuomo as a result of she believes his 11 years as governor gave him the administration abilities to handle town’s most “serious problems.”
“Before he was governor, Albany was a dysfunctional laughingstock,” Cook dinner mentioned. “He kept our neighborhoods safe, made government work for the working and middle class, and ensured our city was affordable enough that owning a home was an attainable dream.”
Against this, Cuomo’s opponents have made his remedy of town as governor, when he was engaged in a years-long feud with former Mayor Invoice de Blasio, one in every of their central traces of assault towards him. They cost his cuts to the MTA and housing packages, in addition to his dealing with of the COVID-19 pandemic, all induced large harm to the 5 boroughs.
In the meantime, Berger mentioned Cuomo will probably be a “strong partner” in Metropolis Corridor.
Moreover, the Meeting member — who represents orthodox Jewish components of Flushing — described the previous governor as a “steadfast ally” to town’s Jewish group and Israel.
“Whenever antisemitism reared its ugly head, he stood up and fought back,” Berger mentioned. “With antisemitic hate crimes on the rise in our city and around the world, we need a mayor like Andrew Cuomo who will combat it with both words and actions—just as he always has.”
