The Dream Is Real: Progressive Donors Hedge Against Cuomo, Adams In Nyc Mayoral Race

NEW YORK — The campaign against ranking Andrew Cuomo for mayor — and supporting Mayor Eric Adams, in general — has been quietly playing out for months in New York City.

A POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data shows progressive voters have been hedging their bets since the early days of the Democratic mayoral primary by donating to multiple left-leaning candidates. Their hope? Deny the moderate frontrunner Cuomo the Democratic primary and avoid the MAGA-curious incumbent Adams, who dropped out of the contest to run in the general election as an independent.

POLITICO pored over donations to top contenders in the primary, including contributions before the mayor exited the race, through early-June. The findings show nearly 3,000 New Yorkers gave to candidates like City Comptroller Brad Lander, state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams — but not to Cuomo or Eric Adams.

The contribution pattern is reminiscent of a strategy for ranked-choice voting that was initially popularized by the “Don’t Rank Eric or Andrew for Mayor” or DREAM campaign. In New York City primaries, voters are able to rank up to five candidates. The idea behind the slogan was to maximize the chances of left-leaning hopefuls, while minimizing the number of second-place votes going to Cuomo and Adams.

“If you’re Brad, Zellnor, Zohran or Adrienne, the theory is: The more of us there are, the more energy people will feel and the more they will turn out to vote,” said Democratic strategist Jon Paul Lupo, who is not affiliated with any of the mayoral campaigns. “But the risk is that you have candidates who are too similar splitting votes and not amplifying them.”

With the mayor out of the race, New Yorkers for a Better New York Today, a super-PAC opposing Cuomo, changed the slogan to “Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor.”

The message has not resonated.

Cuomo has maintained a solid lead with less than a week until the Tuesday primary, according to the latest Marist survey released Tuesday. And the field opposing him has only begun to embrace ranked choice voting. Adrienne Adams has resisted — urging supporters to rank a slate of candidates backed by the Working Families Party but declining to cross endorse — making efforts to win over her base of Black voters in Queens more difficult for the likes of Mamdani and Lander.

Marist noted, however, that Mamdani has gained ground on Cuomo as the clear second-choice. And neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of multi-donors — progressive and vote-rich enclaves in Brooklyn and Manhattan — will play a deciding role in the race.

Out of almost 72,150 donations from January 2024 to June 2025, POLITICO found 2,944 donors contributed to more than one candidate, excluding the mayor and the former governor, according to contribution data from the Campaign Finance Board. To figure out how many unique individual donors there were, POLITICO looked at each donor’s name and ZIP code.

The results showed multi-donors clustered in Park Slope, Gowanus and Prospect Heights in Brooklyn and on the Upper West Side and in Morningside Heights in Manhattan.

And they were not fans of Cuomo or Adams.

“We need better people in charge, and I think just about anyone that isn't one of those two schmucks would be better,” said Daniel Rothblatt, who lives on the Upper West Side and has donated to five candidates. Rothblatt has also printed roughly a thousand stickers for the DREAM campaign.

In interviews with POLITICO, multi-donors frequently cited Adams’ now-defunct criminal case and his cozying up to President Trump as the primary reasons for not supporting him. For Cuomo, donors felt his pandemic-era directive allowing Covid-positive patients into nursing homes, his handling of the MTA and his resignation as governor after 11 women accused him of sexual harassment disqualified him.

Adams has maintained he committed no crime. And Cuomo’s team has said its Covid orders were consistent with federal guidelines. They have touted projects like the Second Avenue subway extension as proof of the former governor’s management chops. And Cuomo himself has denied allegations of sexual harassment.

The most common candidate to benefit from these multi-donors was Lander, who got money from 1,654 contributors. The longtime progressive has moderated some of his more left-leaning positions in the hopes of building a coalition broad enough to send him to Gracie Mansion — something ranked-choice voting encourages by incentivizing candidates to seek support in neighborhoods that might rank them second or third.

“This is just further proof that Brad Lander has by far the widest coalition of support in the city — and he’s going to win on Tuesday,” spokesperson Dora Pekec said. “The reason is simple: Brad brings people together.”

So far, it hasn’t been paying off. The recent Marist poll found Lander ending the race in third place. And in the seventh round of voting, just under half of the comptroller’s support goes to Cuomo, whom he has spent months relentlessly attacking.

But since that poll was in the field, Lander has had a series of energizing moments that included a breakout debate performance and a dramatic showdown with federal immigration agents that resulted in his arrest. And earlier this month, he cross-endorsed Mamdani — potentially steering more votes to the democratic socialist.

Mamdani is much further ahead in the polls and received the second-highest share of multi-donors, with 1,296 contributions. He’s banking on expanding the electorate to include younger and Muslim voters, and has received endorsements from progressive standard bearers Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“He’s also been clear that defeating the disgraced ex-governor requires a ranked choice strategy, so it’s heartening that so many of our donors have also contributed to other campaigns,” spokesperson Andrew Epstein said in a statement. “This is how you build a coalition to win.”

Myrie, the state senator, received the third highest number of contributions from multi-donors at 1,294. He came in just ahead of Council Speaker Adrienne Adams — a sign that multi-donors do not necessarily translate to first-place rankings. Both candidates have been consistently polling in the low, single digits.

Meanwhile, only 367 people donated to Adams or Cuomo along with one other candidate. The low number of multi-donors reflects that Democratic voters who rank Cuomo do not commonly rank a second-choice candidate, according to Marist.

Despite POLITICO’s analysis showing an appetite for supporting multiple campaigns, the field chasing Cuomo has been unable to parlay that force into denying the former governor the ranked votes he needs to cross the 50 percent threshold. When Lander is eliminated after the sixth round of ranked-choice voting in the Marist poll, for example, almost half of his votes go to Cuomo despite the comptroller relentlessly attacking the former governor and cross endorsing Mamdani.

But the New York Working Families Party, which endorsed a ranked slate of candidates in the hopes of stopping Cuomo, said the multi-donor trend identified by POLITICO shows voters in the party’s strongholds are warming to the relatively new ranked-choice system.

“We’ve specifically told donors that by donating to multiple campaigns you are resourcing the candidates who are aligned,” co-director Ana María Archila said. “And obviously this demonstrates to some extent that adaptation.”

Methodology

To assess unique donors, POLITICO inspected unique pairings of a donor’s name and ZIP code. If a name differed slightly from a previous iteration, POLITICO programmatically assessed names’ similarity, including those with a similarity score of 90 or above, which had a 94 percent accuracy rate, on average. Any individuals who moved from one ZIP code to another during the contribution period are considered separate donors under this rubric.