Several Jewish groups endorsed Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor on Monday, a day after Mayor Eric Adams suspended his reelection campaign.
Crown Heights United PAC, a political group “anchored in the Crown Heights Jewish community” which is the center of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, endorsed Cuomo Monday morning.
“We proudly endorse Andrew Cuomo for Mayor of New York City,” Crown Heights United PAC wrote in a statement, which was signed by 13 rabbis and community leaders. “With extremism and antisemitism on the rise, and the city facing an unprecedented crisis, it is more important than ever to make our voices heard and vote.”
The Sephardic Community Federation has gotten fully behind Cuomo. After regularly posting generic messages urging people to vote in the November election, the SCF is now calling for donations to his campaign.
“It’s easy, DONATE NOW! MUST BE DONE TODAY,” the group wrote in an Instagram post Monday, referencing the impending matching funds deadline. “Ask friends and family to contribute $100 to help protect our city and our community. If we lose, the current wave of anti-Jewish sentiment could spread further; a win here can stop that momentum in its tracks.”
The endorsements point to how the race is changing now that Adams has dropped out. Groups and individuals who may have stayed out of the race out of deference to the incumbent mayor are now jumping in to try to tilt the race away from frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani’s criticism of Israel, which has drawn accusations of fueling antisemitism, prompted a number of Jewish groups to seek out his most viable opponent. More broadly, opponents of Mamdani’s democratic socialist politics — including Jim Walden, who recently suspended his own mayoral campaign in an effort to unite against Mamdani’s “antisemitic obsessions” — have been calling for the frontrunner’s opponents to coalesce around one challenger.
Despite Cuomo polling comfortably in second place, there has been hesitance about picking which opponent that would be. Several Jewish groups and individuals had endorsed Cuomo in the primary, but at least three — including the Crown Heights PAC — clarified in July that they had not yet decided who to support in the general election.
Adams’ support among Orthodox Jews had helped him win the 2021 mayoral election, and he’d been making a significant play to Jewish voters this year, petitioning to run on an “EndAntisemitism” ballot line. He racked up three endorsements from rabbis, but his candidacy was clearly flagging.
While many Adams voters are expected to swing to Cuomo, some are also likely to opt for Republican Curtis Sliwa. Former assemblymember Dov Hikind, who is Sliwa’s most prominent Jewish ally, wrote Sunday that Sliwa is “the only alternative to a disastrous Mamdani administration,” adding, “CUOMO CAN NOT WIN!!!”
Cuomo is hovering around 30% in the latest polls without Adams, versus Sliwa at 17-18% and Mamdani at 44-46%.
Cuomo has positioned himself squarely against Mamdani on Israel, saying that he believes Mamdani is “pro-Hamas.” In November 2024, before he entered the Democratic primary, Cuomo joined the legal team defending Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the International Criminal Court issued his arrest warrant. Cuomo has laughed off Mamdani’s plan to arrest Netanyahu if he steps foot in New York. But he distanced himself from Netanyahu earlier this month, saying, “I never stood with Bibi.”
Fighting antisemitism has been a central part of Cuomo’s campaign. He called antisemitism “the most important and serious issue” of his campaign leading up to the primary, and declared in his campaign launch that New York should “be at the forefront” in “leading the fight against the global rise of antisemitism.”
Cuomo stuck to that messaging in his statement Monday, in which he said he was “deeply honored” by the Crown Heights United PAC’s endorsement, and “humbled by the trust placed in me by its leaders and by the broader Jewish community.”
“I pledge to redouble my efforts to lead the fight against antisemitism in every corner of New York City,” he wrote. “We must build a city where everyone, regardless of faith or background, feels safe, respected, and welcome.”
Still, Cuomo has a checkered history with the city’s Orthodox communities. While he cultivated haredi Orthodox votes during his three runs for governor, Cuomo’s relationship with those voters soured in 2020 when he sought to enforce COVID-era public health restrictions in neighborhoods like Borough Park and Midwood — singling out haredi Orthodox communities, critics said. That October, the haredi umbrella body Agudath Israel of America sued him for discrimination.
The next year, the New York Times reported that Cuomo had expressed disdain for Jewish practices: While at an event celebrating the fall festival of Sukkot, he allegedly remarked, “These people and their f—ing tree houses.” His spokesperson denied the allegation and said, “He has the highest respect for Jewish traditions.”
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