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NYC mayoral race: Cuomo gets no public campaign funds; Zohran Mamdani takes home $4M
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Apr 15, 2025
Modified Apr 16, 2025
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Apr 15, 2025
Modified Apr 16, 2025
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New York City’s two leading Democratic mayoral candidates took home very different hauls from the New York City Campaign Finance Board on Tuesday.
Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani of Queens received nearly $4 million in public matching funds, the largest single payment to any candidate in the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary race to date.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo received nothing.
He’d raised more than $1.5 million in just 13 days before filing his first fundraising statement with the Board and claimed more than $330,000 in matching funds. If he’d qualified for the match, that sum could have been multiplied by eight, bringing his campaign to nearly $4.2 million – on par with Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams.
Cuomo’s campaign is blaming a software error from one of its vendors, which it said neglected to collect one field of donor information required by the Board.
“We have since fully addressed the software issue and have complied with all requirements and will be submitting the proper documentation to the Board,” Cuomo campaign spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement.
The campaign expects to receive eligible matching funds on the next payment date, May 12.
As Gothamist previously reported, Mamdani’s campaign maxed out its fundraising and planned to stop collecting donations until after the primary. With the latest matching funds payment, he has already hit the $8 million ceiling that he can spend ahead of the June 24th election. Candidates running in the general election can spend another $8 million between late June and November.
The city’s matching funds program, administered by the New York City Campaign Finance Board, matches the first $250 of eligible donations from New York City residents to participating candidates $8-to-$1. To qualify for matching funds, candidates must hit a dual threshold of a minimum of $250,000 in matchable contributions raised from at least 1,000 city donors.
Campaigns must also rigorously document information about their donors and track specific details about their expenditures.
Tuesday’s payments went out the same day the Siena College Research Institute released a new poll that continues to show Cuomo leading the Democratic field. In a poll of 556 registered Democratic voters, Cuomo leads with 34% support on the first round ballot. In second place, Mamdani has 16% support, with the rest of the candidates in single digits. A fifth of respondents said they didn’t know their top choice for mayor or declined to answer.
The poll has a margin of error of 4.9 points.
Spokespeople for both Cuomo and Mamdani’s campaigns cited the poll as evidence that their campaigns were in a strong position.
“Zohran is breaking away as a clear second place and the alternative to the disgraced ex-governor Andrew Cuomo whose campaign is a house of cards,” Mamdani spokesperson Andrew Epstein told Gothamist.
He said Mamdani’s campaign has been successful thus far by “being everywhere all of the time,” with more than 10,000 volunteers knocking on over 100,000 doors, while also building a robust social media presence.
Other mayoral candidates who received payments on Tuesday include City Comptroller Brad Lander, who received $861,831, bringing his campaign total to $5.9 million; former Comptroller Scott Stringer, who received $696,942 for a total $4.5 million; and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, who received $527,147 for a total of $3.5 million.
Attorney Jim Walden, who is running as an independent candidate in the general election, received $1.9 million to bring his campaign to a total of $3.3 million. (The total includes $500,000 he loaned to his own campaign, which he will have to return.) Walden will not be eligible to receive any new public funds payments until July after the primary election.
One mayoral candidate who did not get any matching funds Tuesday was the incumbent.
In December, the Board announced its decision to withhold any additional public funds from Mayor Eric Adams’ reelection campaign, citing evidence he accepted illegal foreign campaign contributions and straw donations. The board cited discrepancies in an audit of his 2021 campaign and evidence in the federal corruption case against the mayor, which was formally dropped earlier this month.
In February, the Board issued a no payment letter listing additional reasons for withholding funds from Adams, including a failure to submit a financial disclosure statement with the Conflicts of Interest Board and a gap between what his campaign reported raising and what was in his campaign account.
Adams is also still resolving open issues related to the audit of his 2021 mayoral campaign. Vito Pitta, the campaign’s compliance attorney, did not respond to questions about the mayor’s reelection campaign fundraising, but he confirmed that the 2021 audit is ongoing.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Tagged
new york city
Politics
andrew cuomo
Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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