There’s never been a better time for a disgraced politician to get a second chance.
A pair of former governors who resigned in scandal are vying to lead major cities on both sides of the Hudson River, betting that voters dissatisfied with current options will value their executive experience over their political flaws.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 after sexual harassment allegations, has launched a campaign for mayor of New York City. Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned in 2004 after admitting to having an extramarital affair with a man he hired, is running for mayor of Jersey City, the state’s second largest municipality.
While both are Democrats, they are likely to benefit from the Donald Trump effect, which has obliterated expectations about character.
For their part, neither campaign is eager to acknowledge the other, but both former governors claim to be selling executive experience. McGreevey and Cuomo are both discussing common-sense issues like public safety, clean streets, affordable housing, and the dangers of e-bikes.
“I think folks want a record of getting something done and working hard,” McGreevey said in an interview.
Cuomo strikes a similar note when it comes to executive experience.
“I don’t think there has been a governor in modern political history who has accomplished more than I have,” Cuomo said in an interview with Stephen A. Smith.
Cuomo also made a direct attack on those who “never ran anything before.” McGreevey stated that governors and mayors share “the need to get something done, to bring measurable change.”
It’s difficult not to see these as jabs at recent big city Democratic mayors who have fumbled their way to infamy with one thing in common: they were legislators before becoming mayor. The list includes New York Mayor Eric Adams, his predecessor Bill de Blasio, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and defeated San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
It goes without saying that none of McGreevey or Cuomo’s opponents have the same level of executive experience as they do, even if it did not go well.
“Their reputation certainly precedes them, right?” According to Micah Rasmussen, a former McGreevey aide who now directs Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.
Governors are rarely forced to resign from office. According to the Pew Research Center, Cuomo is only the 56th American governor to resign or be removed.
Some members of that club have attempted to relaunch their political careers, with mixed success. Others, including Rod Blagojevich of Illinois and Robert Bentley of Alabama, were legally barred from running for public office.
While McGreevey resigned with a speech known for the line “I am a gay American,” and his downfall is frequently attributed solely to his sexual orientation in an era before more widespread acceptance, he was involved in a number of scandals at the time, most notably putting his lover on the state payroll as a homeland security adviser in the months following 9/11 without proper credentials.
After stepping down, McGreevey embarked on a spiritual journey that lasted more than a decade, assisting prisoners in reintegrating into society. His 2023 campaign launch video, titled “Second Chances,” began with a scene from his resignation speech and a contrite McGreevey of today saying he had learned his lesson.
Cuomo, on the other hand, has spent the last few years fighting in court to clear his name, and he launched his campaign with a 17-minute video that only briefly mentioned the scandal that prompted him to resign — a report released by Attorney General Letitia James revealed that he sexually harassed 11 women. His leadership during COVID-19 was also called into question.
Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing on both counts, claiming that the scandals were caused by his many political enemies in New York and Washington. District attorneys later declined to file criminal charges.
According to Basil Smikle Jr., a former head of the New York Democratic Party under Cuomo, former politicians who leave office on shaky ground try again by waiting for the right time and conducting a mea culpa tour to test the waters. Furthermore, Trump — who has been impeached twice, found liable for sexual abuse, and is a convicted felon — has demonstrated that certain behaviors are more appealing to voters.
McGreevey is running for an open seat in a nonpartisan general election this fall, with the support of a major North Jersey power broker.
Cuomo is running in a crowded primary against Adams, who is under indictment, embroiled in scandal, and polling shows that the majority of voters want Adams to resign.
Another opponent, Scott Stringer, was a front-runner in the crowded 2021 Democratic primary until his campaign was derailed by allegations that he sexually harassed a campaign volunteer 20 years ago. Stringer denied wrongdoing and is suing the woman who accused him of defamation.
According to Smikle, Cuomo may be counting on some of the same Black and Hispanic Democrats who supported Trump last fall.
“I think the Trump voter and the potential Cuomo voter want the same thing — there is an interest in political disruption, they are OK with overlooking the past if they can get the disruption that helps them today,” he told the audience.
The governor-to-mayor pipeline is not unprecedented for those who did not leave in a scandal: Term-limited Delaware Gov. John Carney is now mayor of Wilmington.
If, as former New York Gov. David Paterson has said , Cuomo would rather be governor again, there is some precedent in former California Gov. Jerry Brown, who like Cuomo was a governor’s son.
After Brown led his state for eight years as a young man, his political future looked bleak following a trio of failed presidential bids. But then Brown ran for mayor of Oakland, won, and climbed back up the ladder to end his career as governor again.
When Cuomo and McGreevey reemerged, both Democrats had major establishment allies.
The city’s carpenter’s union and Rep. Ritchie Torres , a high-profile Democrat, are in Cuomo’s corner. Torres has said the city needs a “Mr. Tough Guy.”
McGreevey was encouraged to run by Hudson County power broker Brian Stack, who is also a state senator and mayor of neighboring Union City.
While both McGreevey and Cuomo have roots in the cities they are running to lead, both men spent years elsewhere, and both have been criticized for carpetbagging and me-centric campaigns.
When McGreevey launched his campaign in 2023, campaign rival Bill O’Dea said his campaign would be “about the people,” not “anything related to my own ego,” a jab at McGreevey.
Stringer, a former city comptroller and mayoral candidate, compared Cuomo to disgraced former state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who tried to resurrect his career with a run for city comptroller but lost to Stringer.
Rasmussen, who served as McGreevey’s spokesperson until his resignation, wonders if the collapse of local media is related to governors running in local races because it is “harder and harder for candidates to break through” and governors already have name recognition — even if the names are a double-edged sword.
