The abandonment of Andrew Cuomo: Unions, party leaders and deep allies

Five weeks ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s most stalwart supporters paid $10,000 a head to mingle with him on the 32nd floor of a luxury skyscraper in Rockefeller Center, in the heart of Manhattan.

Even then, as the subject of multiple state and federal investigations, the governor exercised an ineluctable gravitational pull. The fundraiser at 75 Rockefeller Plaza was teeming with business and political leaders, including the Brooklyn and Staten Island Democratic Party bosses and the head of one of the state’s largest unions, who made opening remarks.

But that all seems to have changed since Tuesday, when the New York attorney general released a report that concluded that Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women, violated federal and state law and fostered an office culture of unusual toxicity.

By Wednesday, the two Democratic county chairs at the fundraiser had demanded Cuomo’s resignation. The union leader, George Gresham, has yet to renounce the governor, unlike many of his colleagues, but he was reticent about Cuomo’s future — which is about all the governor can hope for from his friends at the greatest moment of political vulnerability in his career.

Read | Biden says New York Governor Cuomo should resign after damning harassment report

The pillars of Cuomo’s political base now appear to be cracking beneath him, as he suffers consequential defections from core constituencies, including labor, white suburban lawmakers and Black political leaders.

His only apparent hope is that, during the time it takes to draw up impeachment papers as the state Assembly advances its investigation, the reservoir of public goodwill he earned early in the pandemic will stifle the sentiment against him in the Legislature and elsewhere.

Certainly, in interviews on Wednesday across the state, not all voters saw the report as decisive.

“He is a single man, he is a human being, so mistakes can be made,” said Melissa Edwards, 39, as she began her workout routine in Southeast Queens, suggesting that the accusations paled in comparison to those by women who “are being raped and molested by people — look at Jeffrey Epstein or Bill Cosby.”

“Without him as our governor, I think New York would be in a different and difficult predicament,” she said.

Bernice Diaz, 56, a longtime supporter of Cuomo and a South Bronx resident, said she believes Cuomo was set up by Republicans and former President Donald Trump.

“He took charge of everything when nobody else would,” Diaz said as she sat in St. Mary’s Park. “I have a lot of respect for Gov. Cuomo.”

Cuomo’s future may hinge on whether those forgiving views are widely held — and it is far from clear that they are.

In fact, a Marist poll conducted Tuesday found that a majority of New Yorkers believe the governor should resign. That includes most registered Democrats.

Read | Criminal probes launched against New York's isolated Cuomo

Among the only public figures inclined to defend Cuomo publicly are conservatives: former mayor Rudy Giuliani; Newsmax host Greg Kelly; and John Catsimatidis, the colorful supermarket magnate who is a regular donor to Cuomo’s campaigns.

Echoing Cuomo, Catsimatidis suggested that the attorney general’s inquiry was politically motivated. (The investigation was spearheaded by two outside lawyers.)

“Letitia James I know very well, but everybody wants to grow up to be governor or president,” Catsimatidis said.

Kelly, who has himself been accused of sexual misconduct, said Cuomo was the victim of a “freaking witch hunt.”

The governor’s usual cast of defenders was wracked by defections. On Wednesday, the New York state Democratic chairman, Jay Jacobs — once one of Cuomo’s most committed allies — called on him to resign, and Hazel N. Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference, who was a vocal surrogate earlier this year, declined to offer him support.

“No, I’m not defending him at this point,” said Dukes, who, after the initial allegations, appeared with Cuomo at a Black church in Harlem and referred to him as her son. She said on Wednesday that she had to read the report herself before she could assess it more fully. But what she saw in the newspapers, she said, was “damaging reporting.”

Cuomo has also lost the support of the civic groups on which he has long relied to get out his message and validate his policies.

Kathryn Wylde, the chief of the Wall Street-backed Partnership for New York City, all but called for the governor’s resignation.

Read | Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, investigation finds

“The findings of the A.G. investigation would be cause for any business or nonprofit CEO to step down, and we should hold public-sector leaders to at least the same standard,” she said.

Steven Rubenstein, whose Association for a Better New York serves as a regular venue for Cuomo’s major speeches, voiced a similar opinion. “If the governor does not resign, we fully support the Assembly immediately initiating impeachment proceedings,” he said.

Cuomo has also lost the support of nearly every major union in New York state: the unions representing hotel workers, teachers, building service workers, transit workers, retail workers and municipal employees, as well as the head of New York’s umbrella labor organization, the AFL-CIO.

Laura Curran, whom Cuomo backed for Nassau County executive and whose swearing-in he memorialized on his website, has also called for him to resign. In an interview, she suggested that his defense on Tuesday was tone-deaf and fell flat in her suburban county, which backed him in the 2018 primary with nearly 78% of the vote.

“I’m hearing, you know, his tone of his own victimhood, and his tone of self-pity, was the wrong note to hit,” she said. “That’s what people found really off-putting. Along with, of course, the findings. But that on top of it — that this was something that was being done to him — is a turnoff to many people that I’m speaking to.”

Those who have not demanded the governor’s head — some of them longtime allies who have business before the state — are avoiding making public statements on his standing.

Gresham, the president of 1199 SEIU, a powerful health care union, declined multiple requests for comment. A spokesman for the New York State Public Employees Federation also said nothing. Gary LaBarbera, the president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, was similarly circumspect.

According to his spokesman, Jordan Isenstadt, the union is “letting the process play out.”

On Tuesday evening, the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist, met with New York City leaders at the National Action Network, then had a Wednesday-morning call with leaders from upstate New York.

“We have not come to a consensus,” Sharpton said Wednesday afternoon. “But I can say it is leaning heavily toward calling for his resignation.”

Several lawmakers who had previously withheld judgment on whether Cuomo should resign said they could no longer do so, saying the report had made that position untenable.

“Most of the people I represent probably looked at it early and said, ‘Hey, accusations are just that, accusations, let’s let the process move forward,’” said state Sen. Diane J. Savino, a moderate Democrat who represents parts of Staten Island and southern Brooklyn.

After seeing the report herself, Savino called for a resignation. “It isn’t just ‘he said, she said.’ And it’s time for us to see the reality: that the governor’s behavior towards women who work for him is just unacceptable, and you can’t govern like this anymore,” she said. “It’s enough already.”

A day earlier, Cuomo invoked the memory of his father, Gov. Mario Cuomo, as he sought to appeal to New Yorkers. Savino on Wednesday invoked the elder Cuomo, too — as a reason for his son to step aside.

“If nothing else, he should do this for his father’s memory,” she said. “Like, please, think about the good his family has done for this state. Don’t drag the family’s name through the mud.”