Andrew Cuomo Is Whispering To His Super Pac

NEW YORK — New York City mayoral campaigns aren’t allowed to strategize with super PACs that support their candidates, but Andrew Cuomo has found a way around that.

With significantly less cash on hand than he’d hoped due to a paperwork error, the Democratic frontrunner is relying on a legal practice known as redboxing to communicate his preferred messaging to anyone squinting at the bottom of his website. And if the reader happens to work for a super PAC backing Cuomo, that messaging could find its way into the TV ads the group is airing on his behalf.

He would love an ad highlighting his messaging against antisemitism, and one noting he’s a progressive who stood up to President Donald Trump on abortion. Ads should target voters between 40 and 55 years old. And Cuomo doesn’t just want videos, but also door-to-door canvassing. The campaign also provides 14 video clips of Cuomo talking — some as short as five seconds long — that could be used in ads.

It’s all featured surreptitiously in a page on Cuomo’s campaign website, accessed by scrolling past a donation link button, an issue page and some of his biography and finding the words “Message for Voters” in small font, next to the campaign’s privacy policy.

That’s because the page is actually meant to be found, read and used by any operatives working for independent expenditure committees — the New York City version of super PACs — which can raise unlimited funds ungoverned by the strict donations limits placed on campaigns, according to political operatives and rival camps. Cuomo’s team isn’t denying it.

The name of the practice is a nod to a bright red line campaigns often draw around the guidance on the website, though Cuomo’s team opted not to follow that custom. And it’s an increasingly common campaign tactic to circumvent campaign finance laws.

“The whole point of an independent expenditure is it is supposed to be independent,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of election reform group Common Cause New York, in response to Cuomo’s website. “It’s a message to the voters, if you are always on the line. And that tells you something about the people who are willing, always, to go to the end of the envelope and push.”

The Federal Elections Commission has effectively endorsed the practice, releasing a statement in 2022 concluding that laws barring coordination aren’t triggered by web pages available to the general public.

Eric Adams’ campaign provided similar guidance during his successful 2021 mayoral campaign — guidance super PACs used to strategize spending millions of dollars on his behalf, said an operative who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign strategy.

Cuomo is not the only mayoral candidate this year hoping to guide a super PAC — in his case, a group called Fix the City has raised more than $6.2 million in less than two months, led by donors in the real estate and finance industries. It’s run by Steve Cohen, a former top aide to Cuomo, and has already reported spending $1.9 million on ads highlighting his record.

Scott Stringer, the former city comptroller, has a “message to New York City voters” on his website and a graphic-free video that could easily be remixed. Campaign consultant Bill Hyers launched an independent expenditure committee to support him this month, POLITICO first reported, but it hasn’t raised or spent any money yet.

Another super PAC, New Yorkers for Lower Costs, has reported raising $64,000 to support Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. Mamdani doesn’t have similar guidance on his website.

The New York City Campaign Finance Board denied Cuomo as much as $2.5 million in public matching funds because the campaign failed to submit complete paperwork of donor information. He won’t be eligible to get the payout until May 12.

”When you don’t have matching funds, you need somebody to pay for all of the ads,” said Andrew Epstein, a spokesperson for Mamdani.

The campaign updated its messaging guidance right after Mamdani launched his first TV ad last week, adding more direct instruction to what had been a bare-bones message.

“It’s a broad message to voters,” Cuomo campaign spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said of the page.

Fix the City spokesperson Liz Benjamin declined to comment on whether the super PAC has reviewed the page and was planning to use it, instead sharing a statement that the PAC is “led by a diverse and experienced board and an independent staff.”

Other opponents were hesitant to criticize Cuomo for the tactic, but took issue with the messaging.

“A decade in office and zero mention of bringing down housing costs — because Cuomo’s got no record to stand on,” said Olivia Lapeyrolerie, spokesperson for state Sen. Zellnor Myrie.

A spokesperson for City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said she didn’t appreciate that the page claimed Cuomo is “the only major candidate who did not support the defund the police movement.”

“Even ChatGPT could have told the Cuomo campaign that Adrienne Adams opposed defunding the police,” Lupe Todd-Medina said in a statement, in a jab at Cuomo’s team using the artificial intelligence program to research a portion of a policy paper. “It’s a shame they have to make things up rather than just make their case to New Yorkers.”

But one political operative who works for super PACs said every candidate “who has half a brain” knows that the tactic of redboxing helps. “The best way to get messaging out to an IE is to make a website, put pictures, put videos, and we will find it,” said the operative, who was granted anonymity to speak freely.