Moguls to the Rescue: Cuomo Gets Big Bucks Backing in Bid to Stop Mamdani

By: Jerome Brookshire

With just 56 days until New Yorkers head to the polls, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is making a dramatic late-stage push to consolidate establishment support against socialist frontrunner Zohran Mamdani. In a sign of mounting urgency among the city’s power brokers, The New York Post reported on Tuesday that dozens of real estate moguls, hedge fund executives, and prominent philanthropists packed into the Pool Room at the Seagram Building Tuesday morning to hear Cuomo’s case for reclaiming City Hall.

The gathering — hastily arranged by Related Companies CEO Jeff Blau — carried all the trappings of an emergency strategy session. Blau, whose company has defined Manhattan’s skyline with mega-developments like Hudson Yards, bluntly warned his peers in an email, first obtained by The Post and cited by The New York Times, that Mamdani’s election would imperil New York’s economic core.

“If we fail to mobilize, the financial capital of the world risks being handed over to a socialist this November,” Blau wrote. “We cannot — and will not — let that happen.”

The high-powered attendees represented the elite of New York’s real estate, finance, and philanthropic spheres. Hedge fund billionaire Gregg Hymowitz, Seagram Building co-owner Aby Rosen, and philanthropist Laurie Tisch all endorsed the invitation and were present at the nearly hour-long session. The Post noted that members of the Tisch family, excluding current NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, previously funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to a pro-Cuomo super PAC during the primary.

The room also included Neil Blumenthal, CEO of eyewear company Warby Parker, underscoring how the stakes of the mayoral race have transcended politics to touch nearly every major business constituency in the city.

While most attendees declined to speak afterward, one insider did not mince words in drawing the contrast between Cuomo and Mamdani: “There’s no comparison. It’s like being in the ring with Muhammad Ali versus an amateur.”

Cuomo’s meeting with the city’s wealthy elite coincides with an overhaul of his campaign structure. According to the information provided in The New York Post report, the former governor appointed Greg Goldner, a battle-hardened Chicago political operative with a résumé of fighting progressive candidates, as his new campaign manager. Goldner, who worked with Rahm Emanuel and helmed a super PAC that unsuccessfully opposed Brandon Johnson in Chicago’s 2023 mayoral race, has been imported to New York as Cuomo’s last line of defense.

“Greg is a tough-as-nails Chicago operative,” Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi told The Post. “He saw what happened when that city got into the grips of socialism with public safety grinding to a standstill. He doesn’t want that to happen in New York City.”

Alongside Goldner, Cuomo has tapped Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher, a veteran of Barack Obama’s campaigns, and hired North Shore Strategies to lead field operations, while Beacon Media is expected to handle advertising. Yet the campaign’s central inner circle — Cuomo himself, longtime aide Melissa DeRosa, Azzopardi, and strategist Charlie King — remains intact.

Sources told The Post the campaign is still scrambling to recruit a dedicated social media director, frustrated by Cuomo’s inability to match Mamdani’s TikTok prowess. The Queens assemblyman has parlayed his grassroots following into a potent online movement, something Cuomo’s old-school operation has yet to replicate.

The urgency among real estate executives is heightened by Mayor Eric Adams’ increasingly uncertain role in the race. Speculation has swirled that Adams, battered by scandal and languishing in the polls, could withdraw in exchange for a role in President Donald Trump’s administration. The New York Post reported that even a position at Related Companies was floated as a potential off-ramp, though the firm denied any such offer had been made.

“Related has never offered Mayor Eric Adams employment or any position — paid or unpaid — at any point in time, and has no intention of doing so,” a spokesperson said, in comments carried by The Post.

Should Adams exit, Cuomo would stand as the principal establishment alternative to Mamdani — a scenario that many of Tuesday’s attendees hope to engineer.

Despite the high-level support, Cuomo faces steep challenges. A poll cited by The New York Post showed him trailing Mamdani 48–44 in a head-to-head matchup. Worse still, Cuomo has struggled to recover from his bruising primary loss, with his support stuck in the mid-20s in repeated surveys.

“How the hell do you run a campaign and in the fourth quarter decide you need to rebrand — it’s a Hail Mary at best,” one disgruntled Cuomo backer told The Post.

Yet Cuomo’s allies insist the dynamic could shift rapidly in a two-man contest, particularly if Adams bows out and Republicans coalesce around the former governor. For donors, the stakes are existential.

At the heart of the panic lies Mamdani himself. The 33-year-old assemblyman from Queens has campaigned on a platform that terrifies New York’s business establishment: defunding the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, legalizing prostitution, imposing sweeping tax hikes on high earners, instituting rent freezes on private apartments, and creating city-run supermarkets in each borough.

He is also a fierce critic of Israel, an outlier position in what many describe as the Jewish capital of America. His rhetoric — including support for the slogan “globalize the intifada” — has sparked outrage and galvanized opposition from business and political leaders alike.

As The Post has repeatedly emphasized, Mamdani’s ascent has united moderates, conservatives, and progressives wary of turning New York City into a testing ground for radical experiments.

The Pool Room summit epitomized the unease among New York’s financial and real estate elite, many of whom see Mamdani’s potential victory not just as a local political shift but as a profound threat to the city’s future.

For Cuomo, it was both a fundraising opportunity and a symbolic show of force: the former governor, battered by scandal and defeat, once again positioned as the bulwark against socialism. Whether this eleventh-hour realignment can halt Mamdani’s momentum remains uncertain.

As The New York Post report noted, Tuesday’s gathering was less about nostalgia for Cuomo’s three terms in Albany and more about raw survival instinct — a recognition by the city’s business class that their fortunes, and perhaps the city’s, hang in the balance.