The 2025 New York City mayoral race is already crowded with seven prominent Democratic candidates jumping in to replace Mayor Adams, whose political future is unclear amid federal indictments. Yet all eyes are on Governor Cuomo and the increasing signs that he will jump in the race early next year.

The former three-term Empire State governor — who resigned in 2021 under the threat of impeachment for sexual misconduct allegations, which he denies — has for months been pitching himself as a moderate centrist with managerial experience who can turn the city around.

He’s made the rounds of black churches, gone on Bill Maher’s CNN show and Mark Halperin’s 2Way program — both popular with moderates — and published a post-2024 election analysis in the Daily Beast that could’ve been written by a moderate Republican operative.

The latest sign, though, that Mr. Cuomo will run is his pitch to the city’s Jewish community as a staunch defender of Israel. The former Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, announced this week in the Wall Street Journal that Mr. Cuomo will be joining his “legal dream team” to defend Prime Minister Netanyahu against alleged war crimes in Gaza, after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him last week.

“This is the moment that counts. This is the moment that is going to be in the history books,” Mr. Cuomo said Sunday night while addressing the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education. “This is the moment that true friends stand up, shoulder to shoulder and fight for the State of Israel.”

“It’s happening,” a person familiar with Mr. Cuomo’s plans told the Jewish Insider of a mayoral run, adding that the former governor is reaching out to leaders in the Orthodox Jewish community. This was one of three insiders who confirmed to JI on the condition of anonymity that Mr. Cuomo is planning to run.

“The 11th Commandment is, of course, thou shall vote,” a Democratic strategist, Hank Sheinkopf, tells The New York Sun. “Jews are high turnout voters. They used to be voters who tended to date to vote Democratic, although many of them — significant numbers in the outer boroughs — did not vote Democrat in this last election.”

Trump won 30 percent of the vote in New York City — the largest share for a Republican since 1988. A look at election result maps shows red pockets in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, as well as working class areas in the outer boroughs and predictably-Republican Staten Island.

“I think the election does show that there is a need or a want from working class voters for a leader, someone who will advocate for them,” a Cuomo insider tells the Sun. “We did an extensive field operation in 2018. We know where the pockets are.”

“Cuomo is banking on a combination of more Israeli-supportive, more conservative Jews, plus a significant portion of outer-borough Catholics and African Americans, should Adams not be there,” Mr. Sheinkopf says.

Mr. Cuomo’s spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, tells the Sun, “This is all premature.” Yet he adds a slew of Cuomo accomplishments designed to paint the same managerial picture Mr. Cuomo is trying to.

Other mayoral challengers are attacking this message as a rewriting of history. “New Yorkers are smart — if and when Cuomo pops his head back up, they will consider his mishandling of Covid-19, the nursing home scandal, and the congressional investigation into his conduct,” a strategist to former City Comptroller and mayoral candidate, Scott Stringer, said in a press release.

A federal judge dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit in September against Mr. Cuomo for his handling of nursing home patients during Covid. Yet his forcing nursing homes to accept Covid-positive patients will not be forgotten by the families who lost loved ones — most notably Fox News host Janice Dean — who are vowing to vocally oppose a Cuomo comeback.

“I think Cuomo knows that the longer he’s in this race, the more difficult it is for him,” a Democratic Socialist New York State assemblyman and 2025 mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, said on Counter Points this week. “That’s why he has yet to announce his candidacy, because he doesn’t want to expose himself to four, five, six months of an actual inspection of his record.”

Mr. Mamdani also attacked Mr. Cuomo for his support of Mr. Netanyahu. “I would take a different approach to war criminals,” the far-left candidate posted to X.

Mr. Cuomo is the frontrunner in the mayoral race, according to an October New York Times/Siena poll, despite not yet announcing his candidacy. His adversary, Attorney General Letitia James, came in second in the poll, though she also has not announced a run.

“He’s being very cautious because the reality for Andrew Cuomo is that he cannot fail nor make a mistake, because this is the last time out,” Mr. Sheinkopf says.