Andrew Cuomo officially entered the mayor’s race on Saturday afternoon with a 17-minute video announcement posted to X. Are New Yorkers ready to forgive the scandal-plagued governor?

Mr. Cuomo is framing himself as a moderate with managerial expertise who can lead the city out of crisis. Crime and public safety are the biggest concerns for city voters, according to polls. Housing affordability and the economy come second and third. Mr. Cuomo starts his video announcement by addressing the crime problem.

“New York City is in trouble,” he says to the camera, accompanied by piano music. “You feel it when you walk down the street and try not to make eye contact with a mentally ill homeless person or when the anxiety rises up in your chest as you’re walking down into the subway. You see it in the empty storefronts, the graffiti, the grime, the migrant influx, the random violence.”

Mr. Cuomo doesn’t name his Democratic mayoral challengers by name, but he does attack their progressive, anti-police policies. There are at least eight Democratic candidates in the mayor’s race so far. Aside from Mayor Eric Adams, all these candidates are running to Mr. Cuomo’s left.

“The founding premise of a progressive Democratic Party is all about serving working men and women, but the cruel irony is they are the ones now paying the highest price for New York’s failed Democratic leadership,” Mr. Cuomo says. “And 75 percent of the victims of crime are black and brown. This is not progressive policy but in fact regressive policy.”

Polls show Mr. Cuomo with a commanding lead in the Democratic field. The primary is in June. In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two-to one, the Democratic nominee is likely to win in November. The only Republican challenger in the race so far is Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.

“He’d be very hard to beat,” former New York governor, David Paterson, tells The New York Sun of Mr. Cuomo. “He was the greatest administrator I ever met.”

Mr. Cuomo lists his legislative and infrastructure accomplishments as New York’s governor for 10 years. He also makes an overture to Republicans. “I will work with anyone who wants to work for the benefit of New York,” Mr. Cuomo says. “We do not harbor criminals but we believe in lawful intelligent immigration because we are a city of immigrants.”

“I have worked with President Trump in many different situations,” Mr. Cuomo says. He also, though, vows to fight Washington and Albany “to protect the values that New Yorkers hold dear.”

“This is a historic name in New York, in New York City, and I think that will very much play to his advantage,” a Republican strategist, Matthew Bartlett, tells the Sun. “This seems much more like a coronation.”

Mr. Cuomo, though, will face tough scrutiny for his past scandals on the campaign trail. The former Empire State governor resigned in 2021 in disgrace, after 13 women who worked for him accused him of sexual misconduct. The office of Democratic attorney general, Letitia James, wrote the 168-page report on sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Cuomo that forced him out of office.

“That he’s Andrew Cuomo is his biggest liability. He has a lot of political enemies,” a Democratic strategist, Hank Sheinkopf, tells the Sun. “The negative ads are going to be pretty vicious, but unless they’re smart they won’t work.”

Mr. Cuomo will also face scrutiny for his handling of nursing home patients during Covid and his sustained attempts to cover up the true number — as high as 9,000 — of patients who died. There is an ongoing ethics commission investigation into his $5 million Covid book deal. The families of these patients are vowing to speak up.

“We’ll be there every step of the way to remind New Yorkers that his decisions have killed in the past, and this time it was our loved ones — next time it could be them,” an assistant director at Voices for Seniors, Tracey Alvino, who lost her father to Covid contracted in a nursing home rehabilitation facility, tells the Sun.

Fox News host Janice Dean, who lost her in-laws to Covid in a nursing home, posted to X shortly after Mr. Cuomo’s announcement, “In times like these, we will find out who our friends are.”

“Andrew Cuomo is for himself and only himself, and is hoping New Yorkers will forget his disastrous record for our city of endless scandals, destroying the subway, and cutting basic services,” a Democratic mayoral candidate, Comptroller Brad Lander, said in a statement on Saturday. “The good news is we will end the Adams-Cuomo nightmare of corruption and chaos, and finally send both to their retirement.”

“As if Trump dropping Eric Adams’ charges wasn’t enough, disgraced former Governor Cuomo just announced his run for Mayor of NYC,” a Democratic mayoral candidate, State Senator Zellnor Myrie, said in a statement. “Cuomo is no friend to New York City.”

Business leaders and moderates in the city who are nostalgic for the pre-pandemic low-crime heyday when Mr. Cuomo was governor, though, may be yearning for his return — or as Congressman Ritchie Torres said when he endorsed Mr. Cuomo this week, “We don’t need a Mr. Nice Guy. We need a Mr. Tough Guy.”

“The real estate industry really likes Cuomo because the city was flourishing and real estate was high during the Cuomo years,” a real estate executive and founder of Empire State Properties, Suzanne Miller, tells the Sun. “The city needs safety. They need law and order.”

There were 11 subway murders in 2024, compared to zero in 2017. Felony assaults are up 40 percent since 2019. “The great mismanagement of New York goes to Andrew Cuomo’s benefit. Why? Because he’s a manager,” a Democratic strategist, Hank Sheinkopf, tells the Sun. “The battle is between whether New York survives or it doesn’t.”