Deadline for ex-NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s shot at comeback passes — without requisite signatures
Don’t call it a comeback.
The deadline for disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to mount a bid for his old job has officially passed.
After declining in April to file petition signatures to compete in the June 28 Democratic gubernatorial primary, Cuomo failed to submit the requisite signatures to run as an independent in the general election.
The deadline to challenge Gov. Kathy Hochul, his former second-in-command, was 5 p.m. Tuesday.
“Andrew is not running this election cycle. He would only run to win,” a longtime Cuomo confidante told The Post Tuesday afternoon. “This is not the cycle for him to run in.”
If he wanted to be on the ballot when voters head to the polls for the Nov. 8 contest, Cuomo would have needed to file 45,000 petition signatures with the state Board of Elections. His campaign would have been required to provide 500 names of registered voters from at least half of the state’s 26 congressional districts.
But they can arrive any time before 5 p.m. on Thursday if the paperwork is delivered by mail and postmarked on Tuesday.
A rep for Cuomo did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The cut-off passing comes as Cuomo — who had a $16.4 million campaign war chest as of January — had recently taken steps toward a resurgence.
In March, Cuomo spoke at a Brooklyn church — his first public appearance since resigning in August under threat of impeachment — where he moaned about “political sharks” in Albany and “cancel culture.”
Less than two weeks after he re-emerged after months out of the limelight, Cuomo told reporters in the Bronx that he was “open to all options” when asked about vying for his old post — including challenging against Hochul in a Democratic primary and campaigning without the ballot line of one of the two major political parties.
The former chief executive also released two separate campaign-style TV advertisements, lunched with a former influential labor union leader as he mulled a comeback attempt, and twice dined in Midtown with Mayor Eric Adams.
Since March, Cuomo had not revealed definitively if he planned on launching a rebound bid.
When asked Sunday if he would again seek an elected post, Cuomo side-stepped the question.
“Today is not about politics; today is about focusing on this issue,” he told a group of reporters after addressing a Brooklyn church congregation address about gun violence in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York.
Sources in the 64-year-old lifelong Democrat’s circle have told The Post in recent days that the former governor isn’t seeking his old job via an independent effort due to fear he would lose the race and play spoiler by taking support away from Hochul — increasing the chance of a Republican moving into Albany’s Executive Mansion in 2023.
A recently released poll backs that belief up.
According to a Emerson College/The Hill survey released May 4, with the former governor as an independent option in a hypothetical, three-way contest, 33% of voters would back the Democratic nominee, 33% would vote for the Republican, and 16% would support Cuomo.
In addition to the potential for a Cuomo longshot campaign helping to elect a Republican governor, polls show that there is little appetite in New York for him to return to elected office.
A survey released in March showed that that two-thirds of voters — and 54% of Democrats — said he shouldn’t run again for governor.
In that survey, 60% of all registered voters have an unfavorable opinion of Cuomo, while just 32% hold a favorable opinion of the scandal-scarred former pol — a similar approval he received in a poll released in October, despite recent efforts aimed at rehabilitating his public image.
Additionally, a Siena College poll released in February showed 58% of New York voters believe Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, while just 21% of respondents believe he was innocent.
Veteran Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf told The Post Tuesday that it’s “no surprise” Cuomo is staying out of the November election.
“It’s too [soon] from his resignation,” he explained. “The public is not ready to let him do that, and running against a woman after the allegations of sexual harassment doesn’t go over well with women.”
