Since New York City’s mayoral primary in June, the ultrarich have been panicking over how to stop democratic socialist front-runner Zohran Mamdani. Now it seems they have found their answer: a helping hand from Donald Trump.
A major problem for Mamdani’s opponents has been that his competitors — incumbent mayor Eric Adams, former governor Andrew Cuomo, and quixotic Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa — all seem poised to split the anti-socialist vote. The last two months have seen a concerted effort by Republicans, centrist Democrats, and wealthy interests to try to consolidate around a single candidate. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman attempted to find a solution early on, offering to bankroll a new challenger to Mamdani before declaring that Adams had actually been the right man for the job all along.
But in early August, the New York Times reported that Trump himself had talked to close Democratic allies of Cuomo, who attempted to convince the president that the former governor had the best shot at beating Mamdani in November. The Times also reported that Cuomo and Trump had spoken personally. More recently, Cuomo told the crowd at a Hamptons fundraiser that he was optimistic Trump would help convince Republicans to vote for him.
This week, Trump made his strongest intervention in the election yet, offering Adams a job with the administration in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The offer looks like a strong enticement for Adams, who is wildly unpopular and polling in the single digits after his and his administration’s cartoonishly corrupt conduct has come to light, to drop out of the race. It also appears to be the fruit of conversations between Trump and the Cuomo camp — strongly suggesting that Cuomo is using an alliance with Trump to reshape the terrain in his favor.
As Mamdani put it on X yesterday: “Today’s news confirms it: Cuomo is Trump’s choice for Mayor. The White House is considering jobs for Adams and Sliwa to clear the field.” The candidate also held a press conference in response to the news, declaring that Trump’s job offer to Adams “has to do with power. It all has to do with the audacity that we have here to believe that we could pick our own mayor.”
When Trump, Cuomo and Adams scheme behind closed doors, they're not worried about your future or the city you're struggling to afford.
It's only about their own power. pic.twitter.com/Y9Y1qpQ3pn
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) September 3, 2025
Adams has been cagey about whether he will accept the position or stay in the race. What is clear is that Cuomo and other “moderate” Democrats are all too happy to have Trump’s support in beating Mamdani. Trump’s intervention thus underscores something that has been increasingly obvious since the beginning of the mayoral race: Mamdani is the anti-Trump candidate, and Cuomo is the pro-Trump choice.
The more-or-less explicit Trump–Cuomo alliance also represents a heightening of tensions that have now been roiling the Democratic Party for nearly a decade. A progressive and democratic socialist wing — represented by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and now Mamdani — has been attempting to capture youthful energy and disaffected voters by pushing the party in an anti-corporate, economic populist direction. This effort has of course been fiercely resisted by the party’s corporate and ultrarich donors and by establishment Democrats like Cuomo and the Clintons. This factional battle also explains why leading New York Democrats, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and congressional party leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, have so far refused to back Mamdani despite his decisive primary victory.
That Cuomo is making common cause with Trump to stop Mamdani will not be a big surprise to many on the Left, who have long suspected that quite a few centrist Democrats (and the corporate interests they serve) would prefer MAGA to socialism. It may yet scandalize many ordinary Democratic voters though — and it raises the question of whether and how a house so divided against itself can stand.
Trump’s support for Cuomo also bodes ill for what will come after November should they succeed in defeating Mamdani. Adams was able to avoid federal corruption charges by aiding in Trump’s immigration crackdown. It’s not at all hard to imagine Cuomo will be expected to return the president’s favors by doing the same or worse, like welcoming federal police into the city. In that scenario, it will be New York City residents who pay the price for Cuomo’s deal with the devil.