Cuomo warns of NYC wealth exodus from 'socialist' tax hike

Andrew Cuomo, the front-runner in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary, said raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents would cause an exodus to states like Florida and Texas.

“You elect a socialist who tries to give everything away free, doubles the taxes on the wealthy, and the wealthy say, ‘That’s it I’m gone,”’ Cuomo, the former governor of New York, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio on Monday.

His comments were a reference to Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, who is currently running in second place in some polls. Mamdani, who has the backing of the New York City branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, has vowed to freeze rents and make city buses free by raising the state corporate tax rate and imposing a new 2% income tax on city residents who earn more than $1 million a year. The moves would require state approval.

“There’s no such thing as a democratic socialist. It’s just a socialist,” Cuomo said. “It’s a socialist who says dismantle the police, the police state is oppressive, everything free, free transportation, free everything, tax the rich, so there’s class warfare in there.”

Mamdani didn’t respond to an immediate request for comment.

With about two weeks remaining until the June 24 Democratic primary, multiple polls show Cuomo as the likely winner, beating a crowded field of at least eight other serious candidates. 

Winning the New York City mayor’s race would crown a remarkable comeback run for Cuomo, 67, the Queens-born scion of a Democratic political dynasty that now spans two centuries. He served nearly three terms in Albany as governor before resigning in August 2021 amid a string of allegations of sexual harassment. Cuomo denies the allegations. 

His closest challenger is Mamdani, the charismatic 33-year-old son of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mira Nair and a Columbia University professor. Mamdani has the backing of US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The number of candidates swelled in the months after news broke in 2023 of a federal corruption investigation into Mayor Eric Adams, who became the first sitting mayor in the city’s modern history to be indicted on federal charges. 

The Trump administration ordered those charges dismissed earlier this year. Adams dropped out of the Democratic primary in April, but he’s running as an independent on a third-party ballot line in the November general election. 

Touting Experience

Cuomo is pitching himself to voters as an experienced government official who can manage New York City’s problems — from crime in the subways to a universally acknowledged affordability crisis. He touts his achievements as governor, including the much-lauded renovation of LaGuardia Airport and the opening of the Second Avenue subway line.

But his lengthy government service comes with significant baggage, too, even beyond the sexual harassment allegations that previously derailed his career. 

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is investigating whether Cuomo lied to Congress in public testimony last year about his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in nursing homes. Cuomo called the investigation “a joke.”

As governor, he signed into law new pro-tenant rent laws that he now says he regrets. And in 2019, he approved bail-reform legislation that some law enforcement officials and district attorneys say have contributed to the city’s post-pandemic spike in crime. 

Cuomo’s competitors have repeatedly pointed out that the former governor lived outside the city for decades until recently, when he starting renting an apartment on Manhattan’s East Side. 

But despite those criticisms and high negative favorability numbers, Cuomo has been the front-runner in every poll since before he even entered the primary. 

He’s sewn up endorsements from many of the city’s influential labor groups, including health-care workers’ union 1199 SEIU and the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, which represents the hotel and hospitality industry workers. 

With the backing of a pro-Cuomo Super PAC called “Fix the City,” which has raised nearly $11 million from a string of wealthy donors, Cuomo is by far the best-funded candidate in the primary race. 

Cuomo, whose father, Mario, served three terms as governor, has granted very few interviews, opting to pursue a so-called Rose Garden strategy that’s drawn criticism from his competitors. 

He has largely avoided answering press questions or appearing at the myriad mayoral forums that have become de rigeur for candidates hoping to win votes in the city’s Democratic primary contests, where typically low turnout can grant outsize power to voters from a single neighborhood, demographic slice or labor union.