Days before losing the Democratic mayoral primary to Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo’s campaign called on the city’s election watchdog to investigate Mamdani over alleged illicit coordination with another politician, the Daily News has learned.
In a June 20 letter to the Campaign Finance Board that hasn’t been previously reported, Cuomo’s team — who were themselves under CFB investigation at the time over suspected coordination with a supportive super PAC — claimed Mamdani had violated rules by not disclosing a mayoral race poll to the board’s regulators.
The June 11 poll, commissioned by city comptroller candidate Justin Brannan’s campaign, marked the first mayoral race survey to show Mamdani beating Cuomo, causing a stir in political circles just before early voting started in the June 24 primary.
In the June 20 letter, a copy of which was obtained by The News this week, Cuomo campaign manager Brian O’Donoghue argued the poll, conducted by the Public Policy Institute on Brannan’s behalf, amounted to an “illegal contribution” by Brannan to Mamdani “that has gone undisclosed.”
Donoghue argued that was the case because days after the poll was conducted, Mamdani released a video on X in which he urged his supporters to donate to Brannan’s campaign. In addition, Donoghue claimed, without citing specific evidence, that the Brannan and Mamdani campaigns had “together” provided a copy of the poll to Politico, which first reported on it.
“The commissioning of the poll, the subsequent fundraising appeal for Justin Brannan and the publication of the Politico story on June 11, 2025, raise a host of issues as to whether or not there was a quid pro quo between the two candidates,” Donoghue wrote.
Brannan, who ultimately lost the comptroller’s race, blasted the Cuomo camp’s claims as “paranoid” and “ludicrous.”
“It’s clear some people watch too much Netflix,” Brannan, a term-limited City Council member, said Thursday. “The only thing Zohran and I ever conspired to do was build a more affordable city. I look forward to doing my part to ensure Zohran wins again in November and becomes our city’s next mayor.”
Mamdani spokesman Andrew Epstein said his campaign will respond to the Cuomo letter by a July 16 deadline. A CFB spokesman declined to comment, while Cuomo rep Rich Azzopardi said he won’t offer additional comment until the CFB makes a ruling.
Donoghue’s letter came as the CFB had for weeks withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars in public matching funds from Cuomo’s campaign after finding it had likely illegally coordinated with Fix the City, a pro-Cuomo super PAC, on an ad it released touting the ex-governor’s record. Super PACs are under the law strictly forbidden from working with candidates they support on political messaging.
There are no laws barring candidates in the same race from fundraising for each other. However, Donoghue made the case that the CFB has never “gone so far as to bless the coordinated expenditures and campaigning of other candidates on the ballot in other races without disclosure.”
Ultimately, Mamdani, a democratic socialist Queens Assembly member, defeated Cuomo in the June 24 mayoral primary by 12%, an upset that surprised many observers, given the ex-governor’s near-universal name recognition.
As the Democratic nominee, Mamdani is heading into November’s general election as the likely favorite to become the next mayor, running against incumbent independent candidate Eric Adams, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and independent Jim Walden. Cuomo’s name will also be on the November ballot on an independent line, but his team says he hasn’t yet decided whether he’s going to mount a genuine general election campaign.
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