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It was one of those rare moments when the political crossed over into the genuinely personal and painful. Last week, Adrienne Adams,<\/strong> the Speaker of the New York City Council and a candidate for mayor, was standing at a podium next to a framed photograph of her father, who had died of COVID five years ago to the day after being turned away from the overwhelmed Elmhurst, Queens, hospital where his daughter now stood. Adams, wiping away tears, attributed the pandemic plight of city hospitals to what she said was mismanagement by Andrew Cuomo,<\/strong> who is currently the front-runner<\/a> in June\u2019s Democratic mayoral primary. \u201cI remember begging then governor Cuomo, begging his office to send life-saving vaccines to my community. And for weeks and months, our request was denied,\u201d she recalled<\/a>, while urging voters to \u201cstop electing the politicians who visit and start empowering the people who never left.\u201d<\/p>\n Cuomo\u2019s campaign spokesman calls it \u201cabsolutely false\u201d that the governor denied vaccines to city residents and \u201ca ridiculous assertion\u201d that he weakened hospitals. But in highlighting a specific, contentious episode, Adams was also hitting on a broader mystery in the mayor\u2019s race. Cuomo\u2019s nearly 11-year record as governor includes successes. But it also includes choices<\/a> that were a mixed bag for neighborhoods like Elmhurst\u2014and yet he has maintained a solid polling lead<\/a> with New York\u2019s Black and Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n They are hardly the only New Yorkers who so far seem willing to overlook Cuomo\u2019s flaws. Whether in the people\u2019s republic of Park Slope, Brooklyn<\/a>, or elsewhere, there\u2019s been a significant polling gap between Cuomo\u2019s unpopularity<\/a> and his electability.<\/p>\n Nowhere is the contradiction more apparent than in many of the conventional liberal voters I\u2019ve talked with. They\u2019ll express dismay over the sexual harassment allegations<\/a> against Cuomo made by 11 women (accusations documented in a report from state attorney general Letitia James,<\/strong> though vehemently denied by Cuomo). They\u2019ll say they dislike how Cuomo\u2019s department of health issued a directive<\/a> that required nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients during the pandemic. And then they\u2019ll say they\u2019re planning to vote for him anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cVoters will negotiate with themselves,\u201d says Basil Smikle,<\/strong> a former executive director of the state\u2019s Democratic Party and an MSNBC contributor. \u201cThey\u2019ll ask themselves: What\u2019s more important here, my connection to a movement like #MeToo or Black Lives Matter, which may have run its course, or something that I care about immediately, which is my quality of life and the need to have the city run a different way?\u201d<\/p>\n A frustrated strategist working for one of Cuomo\u2019s opponents puts it more vividly: \u201cYou have people in focus groups who say, \u2018Yeah, I know he killed a lot of people in nursing homes, but I kind of like the guy.\u2019 I don\u2019t know what to do with that.\u201d (Cuomo has argued<\/a> that the New York State Department of Health directive was simply following federal guidance, and his campaign spokesman now claims that no credible report has ever definitively found that the order directly contributed to additional COVID deaths.)<\/p>\n Familiarity is part of the reason for Cuomo\u2019s resilience. He has been a major political presence for more than four decades, following in the footsteps of his father, former governor Mario Cuomo. \u201cFamiliarity should not be mistaken for loyalty,\u201d Adams tells me, heatedly, a week after her hospital speech. \u201cPeople had been thinking, This is the man that was on TV every day, giving us a report. But wait a minute. We also lost so many people.<\/em> Those deaths could have been prevented under his watch as well.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But name recognition doesn\u2019t entirely explain the pattern. For many civilians, records and particulars matter less than many political insiders would like. As Bill Clinton<\/strong> has said<\/a>, people often prefer leaders who are strong and wrong to those who are weak and right. Cuomo has always looked up to Clinton. And he has been nothing if not strong for the bulk of his political career.<\/p>\n That muscular image may be especially handy at the moment thanks to the incumbent mayor and president. Eric Adams<\/strong> won a narrow victory in the 2021 Democratic primary largely on the promise to restore law and order, but he\u2019s fumbled his way through the migrant crisis<\/a> and a series of corruption scandals<\/a>. Donald Trump<\/strong>\u2019s offensives against the city have included seizing immigrants and clawing back<\/a> tens of millions in federal funding. \u201cYes, the nursing home scandal is very real. Yes, Cuomo did have people in his administration who were close to him go to prison,\u201d says Christina Greer,<\/strong> a political science professor at Fordham University and a cohost of the FAQ NYC<\/em> podcast. \u201cBut I think a lot of voters are making a calculus about who can essentially stand up for New York City in the Trump era. What many of them remember was, in a time of extreme crisis, the president was saying, Inject yourself with bleach,<\/em> and the governor was having a daily press conference saying, We\u2019re gonna keep calm and here\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Cuomo has long been a staunch believer in the power of TV ads, and a (supposedly independent) Super PAC<\/a> has raised<\/a> more than $9 million to help his cause. Otherwise, perhaps wisely aware of his high negatives, Cuomo has run an extremely risk-averse campaign<\/a>, agreeing to only a handful of interviews, one of which<\/a> was with the Free Press\u2019s Bari Weiss,<\/strong> and appearing very few times with other candidates. Which greatly raises the stakes for two scheduled primary debates, on June 4 and June 12. It\u2019s been nearly seven years since Cuomo last participated in a debate.<\/p>\n The race appears to be tightening as it enters the final month and voters start paying more attention. In new polling from PIX11, Emerson College, and The Hill<\/a>, Cuomo\u2019s closest competitor, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani,<\/strong> has closed<\/a> the first-round voting gap with Cuomo to 12 points and, in a ranked-choice simulation, to single digits in the final round. Adrienne Adams has some reason to hope as well: Despite entering the race late, the most recent Marist poll<\/a> showed her support about double<\/a>, to 11%, and the city\u2019s campaign finance board just approved<\/a> more than $2 million in public matching funds for her. In the upcoming debates, Adams will talk about policy details. But she will also take square, emotional aim at her main rival. \u201cShowing the total picture of who Andrew Cuomo was during this pandemic is resonating,\u201d she tells me. \u201cHolding your nose\u2014that\u2019s not okay.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n