“Are you having fun? Have you enjoyed this run for mayor?” That’s the
question The New York Sun’s A.R. Hoffman put Thursday to Governor Andrew Cuomo toward the end of an hour-long meeting with the Democrat-turned-independent mayoral candidate and the Sun’s editors.

It may seem like an innocuous question — aren’t campaigns less about fun than about winning? — but Mr. Cuomo’s response gets to the heart of why he’s struggled to inspire city voters and build a movement, or even momentum, like 34-year-old frontrunner, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.

“It’s a mix. This whole dumbing down of politics and campaigning to TikTok videos is frustrating,” Mr. Cuomo tells the editors of the Sun. “Back in the day, but back in the day like only eight years ago, reporters would drill down — like you couldn’t just say ‘Freeze the rent,’ and they say, ‘Thank you very much.’”

“Look, I am a very substantive person, and I focus more on the government policy than the political triteness,” he said.

In other words, Mr. Cuomo is having about as much fun as a visit to the dentist. The three-term governor — who first won the governorship in 2010 and faced easy re-election bids in blue New York — seems to have been blindsided by the rise of the far left of his party and its Trumpian wielding of social media to masterful effect. He himself notes that the political game has changed since President Trump rode down the escalator in 2015.

Mr. Cuomo seems to be just awakening to this lesson — and doing so too late. Mr. Mamdani holds a double-digit lead over Mr. Cuomo in polls. The Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, is running in third place with less than 20 percent support. Early voting starts Saturday. The election is November 4.

When asked about his loss to Mr. Mamdani, a self-declared socialist, in the Democratic primary, Mr. Cuomo often mentions social media, and how he failed to see the importance of short-form video. The Cuomo campaign hired influencer Zach Sage Fox last month to up its TikTok game. The campaign has released a handful of AI videos recently, though it deleted and apologized for the funniest and most politically incorrect of these — the one that’s gone viral.

“He did it first and better, sure,” Mr. Cuomo told the Sun of Mr. Mamdani.

It’s more than that, though. Mr. Mamdani may loathe Mr. Trump, but he’s mastered the president’s art of not only political communications but movement building. When Mr. Trump started holding sold out rallies during his first presidential campaign, political pundits said he could fill a stadium but the infrequent voters who attended these events wouldn’t come out on Election Day. Sound familiar?

Mr. Mamdani built a movement with simple slogans about affordability, packaged in well-produced vertical videos to TikTok and other social media platforms. His campaign puts out merchandise that supporters want to wear to show their standing in the in-group. “Hot Girls for Zohran” T-shirts are the left’s version of “Make America Great Again” red hats.

The Mamdani campaign hosted a citywide scavenger hunt in August, a “Cost of Living Soccer Tournament” this month, a paper shredding day, and countless Democratic Socialist of America-sponsored debate watch parties and social events. He uses these events to recruit canvassers, campaign volunteers, and get supporter phone numbers and email addresses to mobilize voters to the polls.

A reporter who covered a Democratic Socialists of America debate watch party during the primary still gets multiple email messages a week about events, Mamdani merch releases, canvassing, and getting to the polls. More importantly, the attendees at these events were drinking, mingling, hitting on one another, and having fun. It was the place to be. Politics as identity and social club, a new religion for a generation with epidemic levels of loneliness.

It’s harder to find Cuomo supporters who wear his merch enthusiastically and are voting for him because he inspires. The Cuomo logo, unveiled with a celebratory campaign press release, looks like it was designed by a 50-year-old McKinsey consultant. “To build a new NYC” is his campaign slogan, which is about as memorable as “Good manager,” which he represented, in the meeting with Sun editors, as one of his virtues.

Many of the supporters with whom the Sun has spoken are reluctant Cuomo voters, who occasionally fret about his baggage — the sexual assault allegations and Covid nursing home scandal — but say he’s the most viable alternative to prevent a socialist from occupying Gracie Mansion. 

When Mr. Cuomo met with the Sun’s Editorial Board, he was high off his debate performance the night before. In that debate, he landed effective blows at Mr. Mamdani for really the first time in this race. “I found the debate last night tremendously rewarding, because it was my way of saying this is all BS. It’s all BS,” Mr. Cuomo said.

The former governor told reporters ahead of the debate that it’s difficult to balance going on the attack with not sounding like a bully. The bully reputation has dogged him throughout this campaign and his time in public life.

Perhaps, though, sensing that he needs a Hail Mary if he has any shot at winning this race, Mr. Cuomo brought his fight back Wednesday night. He attacked the state assemblyman for never having held a job, for having the worst attendance record in the assembly, and for voting to give himself a raise.

The sweat was visible on Mr. Mamdani’s face. He spouted a word salad when asked about education policy and wouldn’t take a stance on affordable housing construction ballot measures, when affordability is the signature issue of his campaign.

“Tell the truth. Answer the question for once,” Mr. Cuomo pressed.

“As soon as you peel away the top layer, you see there’s nothing there,” is how Mr. Cuomo put it to the Sun. “It was all celluloid.”

Mr. Mamdani, for his part, played a signature Trump move by bringing one of Mr. Cuomo’s sexual harassment accusers to watch the debate in the auditorium audience. Mr. Mamdani arrived at the debate on an MTA bus — a gimmick taken from Trump’s shift-at-McDonald’s or ride-in-a-garbage-truck playbook. Politics is indeed celluloid.

With just more than a week until Election Day, Mr. Cuomo appears to be waking up. He may have deleted a controversial AI campaign ad, but he is not apologizing for asking listeners of the Sid Rosenberg radio show on Thursday morning to “imagine Mamdani in that seat” as mayor if there were another 9/11.

“Yeah, I could. He’d be cheering,” Mr. Rosenberg said on air. Mr. Cuomo chuckled.

Now, several Democratic Party officials are calling the exchange Islamophobic and demanding an apology. Despite multiple news articles on this exchange in the New York Times, framed as Cuomo campaign desperation, and in other outlets, Mr. Cuomo isn’t giving in.

“Go talk to the host,” he told reporters, referring to Mr. Rosenberg.

It’s the Trumpiest move he’s made this year, but that’s not the point — it’s that it feels authentically Cuomo.  

“You have a civil war in the Democratic Party between the extreme far left and what’s called the moderate mainstream Democrats,” Mr. Cuomo told the Sun.  

The Republican Party faced a similar crisis in 2016. MAGA won. The far left learned from the populist right how to employ memes, social media, rallies, and social identity to activate a hungry base.

This race could be a lesson to moderates. Mr. Cuomo has a tough uphill battle if he wants to win. Mr. Mamdani is holding a get-out-the-vote rally on Sunday with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders at Forest Hill Stadium. If you want to be the Comeback Kid, don’t employ a Hillary Clinton, consultant-safe strategy. Have a little fun.