Cuomo Was A Same-sex Marriage Champion. He’s Not Courting Lgbtq+ Votes Now.

NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo counts same-sex marriage among his top accomplishments as governor, but he’s not targeting LGBTQ+ voters in his bid for New York City mayor.

Cuomo, the front-runner in the Democratic primary, has charted his path to political redemption through Black churchgoers and Jewish centrists for whom public safety and antisemitism are chief concerns. He’s taken a Rose Garden approach to campaigning and limited his appearances, which has contributed to cutting out crucial Democratic clubs that help drive LGBTQ+ voters to the polls.

Most notably, the former governor skipped a mayoral forum cohosted by the Stonewall Democratic Club of NYC, Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn and other LGBTQ+ clubs in March. And he declined to partake in the clubs’ candidate questionnaires and interviews.

“We interpreted it to mean that the LGBTQ community doesn’t mean jack shit to him,” said Joe Jourdan, Lambda’s president. “Ignoring Lambda and Stonewall both is about as subtle as an atom bomb.”

Aside from Lambda and Stonewall, the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club has taken umbrage as well. In recent weeks, all three clubs have voted to keep Cuomo off their slates and are advising New Yorkers against including him at all on their ranked choice ballots this June. They’ve endorsed more left-leaning candidates, including City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, City Comptroller Brad Lander and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.

To be sure, the club leaders weren’t Cuomo fans before the endorsement process. They say that he dodges venues where he may face tough questions and that they’re assessing him on his full record. They’ve also accused him of inflating his advocacy for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers and allege he’s no ally now as transgender rights are under attack by the Trump administration.

“It’s really troubling that he has hired people who worked against trans rights, that he has not engaged with any of the modern LGBTQ issues that matter in 2025 and that he’s still relying on a victory from over a decade ago to claim he’s standing with our movement,” Stonewall President Gabriel Lewenstein said in an interview, referencing how Cuomo’s campaign treasurer worked for an anti-trans group.

Cuomo’s decision to appeal to a broader swath of Democrats through law-and-order and economic messaging — with little focus on LGBTQ+ rights — reflects a broader shift among establishment Democrats away from culture war issues after last year’s election. The former governor appeared to agree with labor leader Sean O’Brien in a recent podcast that focusing on “social justice” priorities hurt the Democratic Party.

Still, advancing gay rights is part of Cuomo’s political legacy.

He signed the Marriage Equality Act into law in 2011, making New York the largest state at the time to allow gay and lesbian residents to wed — four years before the U.S. Supreme Court effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. He made combating HIV and AIDS a priority, advanced the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act and signed legislation to ban so-called conversion therapy. Cuomo also backed a law ensuring those who attack gay people can’t claim they panicked over the person’s sexual identity.

“We need marriage equality in every state in this nation,” Cuomo said in 2011 at an Empire State Pride Agenda gala, urging the rest of the country to follow New York’s lead. “Otherwise, no state really has marriage equality, and we will not rest until it is a reality.”

The former governor is seeking a comeback in New York City after resigning in Albany four years ago amid allegations of sexual misconduct. He is seizing an opening left by the politically weakened incumbent, Mayor Eric Adams, who was beset by since-dropped federal fraud charges. Cuomo’s campaign and its allies say he has built a diverse coalition that includes LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.

“Andrew Cuomo is talking directly to voters. His path to victory doesn’t run through activist clubs,” said Democratic strategist Jon Reinish, a Cuomo supporter and fundraiser. “The community knows what he’s done. The community knows they have no greater champion.”

Cuomo campaign spokesperson Esther Jensen said the former governor will win LGBTQ+ votes citywide “because New Yorkers know Andrew Cuomo doesn’t just pay lip service to the LGBTQ community issues, he delivers.”

His stump speeches to receptive audiences, including labor unions that have endorsed him, do not omit mentions of the Marriage Equality Act, but they don’t linger on it either. Instead, he uses themes more broadly appealing to moderate and centrist voters, painting himself as the experienced leader who will wipe away a dystopian landscape of homelessness, shuttered storefronts and random violence.

“He wants Eric Adams voters in Southeast Queens. He’s going to every church in Brooklyn that he could get into,” said Allen Roskoff, the gay rights activist who leads the Jim Owles club. “He knows where he’s going to get his votes, and he has other things he wants to say. He wants to give a message that’s more law-and-order.”

Roskoff said he remembers Cuomo for his “heroic” push to legalize same-sex marriage but also as the young aide who, while campaigning for his father, Mario Cuomo, was accused of slurring political rival Ed Koch in the 1977 mayoral primary. The former governor and his team have denied he’s behind the “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo” slogans. Koch went on to endorse Andrew Cuomo for governor in 2010.

“Most of the organized gay community is not with him,” Roskoff said. “He has the typical Boss Tweed-type gays with him.”

Democratic consultant Chris Coffey, who advises the Cuomo campaign, argued otherwise. He lauded the then-governor for building families by ushering in same-sex marriage and making gestational surrogacy possible for same-sex couples.

“He used his political capital to get it done. And it was a really, really, really big deal,” Coffey said. “The fact is, my husband and I got married because we were able to thanks to Governor Cuomo. There are thousands of gay and lesbian families across the city that have benefited. That is the point of government.”

Among Cuomo’s highest-profile supporters is Rep. Ritchie Torres, the first gay Afro-Latino elected to Congress.

“Governor Cuomo succeeded where others failed — delivering marriage equality in New York long before it became the law of the land,” Torres told POLITICO. “His success in advancing LGBTQ equality remains unequaled in New York City.”

Cuomo enjoys a sizable lead over his more progressive rivals in public polling. But amid an effort encouraging voters to opt against him — known as DREAM, or “Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor” — LGBTQ+ political club members are spreading the word that the crowded Democratic field includes allies ready to fight today’s fight. They include Adrienne Adams, Lander and Mamdani.

“The leader of New York City should be ready to stand up for all New Yorkers,” Lewenstein of Stonewall said. “And if you’re afraid to do that, it’s a problem.”