Cuomo tries fighting Mamdani at his own housing game

Andrew Cuomo’s once relatively unplugged mayoral campaign has done quite the 180, as the former governor has taken to social media to throw shade at Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani. This time, Cuomo’s trying to back Mamdani into a corner, and it’s in the assembly member’s own $2,300 rent-stabilized Queens apartment.

The quarrel broke out on Friday, Aug. 8, when Cuomo posted to X, “#Rentgate,” using Mamdani’s six-figure annual income against him. The post has clocked 34 million views.

“Somewhere last night in New York City, a single mother and her children slept at a homeless shelter because you, assemblyman @ZohranKMamdani are occupying her rent controlled apartment.”

Cuomo’s attack is an attempt to claim hypocrisy in the name of Mamdani’s “Freeze the Rent” campaign, suggesting that the affordability candidate himself is “stealing affordability from the poor.”

Taking to X again just two days later, Cuomo continued his newfound virality, posting, “@ZohranKMamdani: you say freeze the rent. But for who? Rich people like you?”

Mamdani makes $142,000 as a State Assembly member, but in an interview with the Substack column The New York Editorial Board back in February, he assured that he moved into his current Astoria one-bedroom apartment when he was making $47,000 as a foreclosure-prevention housing counselor.

Cuomo proceeded to propose “Zohran’s Law,” an otherwise direct, Trump-eqsue use of legislation to denounce his political opponent. The law, if ever approved by state lawmakers in Albany, would create an income limit for eligible tenants when a rent-stabilized apartment becomes vacant. More specifically, it would function as a means test to ensure the annual rent makes up at least 30 percent of the applicant’s income.

“We must stop the Zohran Mamdanis of the world from gaming the system and boxing out lower-income New Yorkers who are barely scraping by, and Zohran’s Law will do that,” said Cuomo.

However, the law wouldn’t stop the very Zohran Mamdani that Cuomo is so concerned about. The proposed law, according to City & State, would only apply to newly vacant rent-stabilized units. In other words, current tenants who don’t pay at least 30 percent of their income toward rent—like Mamdani—would not be evicted.

In the same interview with The New York Editorial Board, Mamdani addressed his qualms with means-tested programs, like “Zohran’s Law,” explaining that the evaluation process itself is restrictive.

“If you ask working-class New Yorkers, many of whom have been failed by a bureaucracy, to jump through many more hoops to get relief from that bureaucracy, you will lose about half, or in this case even more than 80 percent of your target population,” said Mamdani, referring to NYC’s Fair Fares program. “Versus, if you make it universal, the benefits are not just fiscal. They’re also public safety. They’re also peace of mind.”

In a 2021 policy brief, NYU Furman Center analyzed the effectiveness of means testing. They found that the regulations necessary to restrict eligible tenants can actually be counterproductive.

“The burdens of certification and compliance might cause landlords to remove units from the rental stock, even if problems of disincentivizing rentals to lower-income tenants are separately addressed,” the brief stated. It also pointed out that those who fall just above the income threshold would face inevitable displacement, “thus undermining rent regulation’s stability objectives.”

“I believe that government’s job is to guarantee dignity for each and every New Yorker, not determine which ones are worthy of it,” said Mamdani, echoing similar views at a news conference in Brooklyn on Tuesday.

Cuomo’s attack on Mamdani’s affordability campaign opens a risky door for the same claims to be thrown right back at him. In 2019, Cuomo signed the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, which ended landlord deregulations and strengthened tenant protections.

But the law’s passing was left contingent on the Legislature, and happened after Cuomo told reporters that Senate Democrats might be “bluffing” about having enough votes to pass it, according to City & State. The former governor also relied heavily on big real estate for both his mayoral and governor races, with super PAC Fix the City donating $25 million toward his mayoral campaign.

It’s no secret Cuomo has deep ties to the real estate industry, and neither is the fact that Mamdani wants a freeze. So it’s a risky move to use Cuomo’s affordability bishop to check Mamdani’s king in a corner, especially as recent polls show Mamdani leading in the mayoral race–19 points ahead of Cuomo.

Mamdani retaliated on Tuesday in classic Mamdani style–being viral and iconic on social media. He posted to X a video with the caption #ReleaseTheCuomoList, starting a counter-controversy to Cuomo’s #Rentgate. The video calls for Cuomo to come clean with the list of clients he’s privately consulted after resigning as governor in August 2021 amid sexual-harassment allegations.

“That’s the thing about Andrew Cuomo: Once you think you’ve found out about all of his scandals, you find out about another, and another, and then another, and then probably another,” requited Mamdani in his video. “But if my friend, the disgraced former Governor of the state of New York, feels that’s unfair, Habibi . . . release your client list.”