Political Amnesia and Scandal Fatigue Emerge as Frontrunners in the 2025 New York City Mayoral Election

Andrew Cuomo in Queens New York in 2019—before his fall from grace. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Forced out of the world of politics following scandal and disgrace in 2021, former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo largely disappeared from the public eye until recently. The announcement on March 1st of his return to politics through the 2025 New York City Mayoral election, while controversial, did not altogether come as a surprise to most New Yorkers, myself included. What I do find shocking about Cuomo’s attempted comeback, however, is the unsettling reality that it might succeed. Although Cuomo’s mayoral campaign is certainly opportunistic—an unfortunate reality I doubt many would contest—it should not be written off with a simple eye-roll. Cuomo’s political revival is best regarded as a revealing and unfortunate case study of systemic political amnesia: a litmus test for collective forgetting, shaped by scandal fatigue and a toxic media environment that continually fails us.  

There is no doubt that Andrew Cuomo’s political career has been volatile. Punctuated by alternating acclaim and controversy, Cuomo’s historically fluctuating popularity has worked to significantly blur public memory, making his return to politics appear more familiar than alarming to many voters. For example, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, people worldwide gathered together and tuned in to the then-beloved governor’s daily coronavirus briefings. I remember feeling deeply comforted as I performed my civic duty of staying home, entranced by his matter-of-fact demeanor, no-frills PowerPoints, and sensitive yet aggressive approach to the unprecedented pandemic. Constituents embraced #NewYorkTough—a tagline used during Cuomo’s briefings to encourage and celebrate the resilience and resolve of New York’s residents—and rallied behind their governor. According to a 2020 Marist Poll, Cuomo’s approval ratings were at an all-time high during this period. His briefings, which lasted 111 consecutive days, earned him an International Emmy Award, and his popularity even led people to self-identify as “cuomosexual”—a title that many celebrities paraded around proudly on goofy sweatshirts and mugs. 

Governor Cuomo’s rapid rise to fame, accelerated by his charismatic media presence and the public’s pandemic-induced vulnerability, made his subsequent fall from grace all the more shocking. The scandal emerged in February 2021 when a report by the New York Attorney General and registered Democrat, Letitia James, revealed that Cuomo had deliberately underreported the number of COVID-related deaths in New York nursing homes by as much as 50 percent. His efforts to reduce COVID-hospitalizations directly endangered New York’s most vulnerable population as he directed nursing homes to accept more patients, even those suspected of being infected with the virus. This effort to strategically obscure data to frame his policy more favorably cast a dark shadow over what had previously been praised as decisive crisis management and honored as effective leadership. 

Just a few months later, several women—the first of whom was a former advisor, Linsey Boylan—came forward with credible allegations against Cuomo of sustained patterns of sexual misconduct. The result of yet another investigation by the New York Attorney General was a 165-page report concluding that the Governor had, in fact, “engaged in conduct and conversations that were offensive and sexual in nature.” Repeated accounts of non-consensual sexual contact, ogling, unwelcome sexual comments, gender-based nicknames, and comments on physical appearances evidenced his seemingly unforgivable harassment of eleven different women while in office. While his reputation now seemed irreparably damaged, Cuomo was committed to salvaging it. He continuously denied the allegations, apologizing only half-heartedly and pointing to generational and cultural differences as justification for blatantly inappropriate and unprofessional behavior. This defense mechanism, whereby Cuomo made vague appeals to reframe misconduct as a misunderstanding, is part of a broader pattern that enables public figures to deflect responsibility. 

Democratic and Republican politicians alike, however, called for his resignation. Eventually, in a rare moment of political clarity, bipartisan cooperation held Cuomo responsible for his misdeeds and forced him to step down as Governor. At the time, his resignation felt final. After all, how could anyone possibly recover from such damning legal investigations and extremely public reputational collapse?  

Who knew that just four short years later, the 2025 New York City Mayoral Election would help answer this critical question? In the first round of ranked-choice voting in the primary election, it is anticipated that a previously disgraced Cuomo will come out on top, with a promising 39% of votes, followed by only 15% for his competitor, State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, according to voter survey results. One might rationally assume that Cuomo’s renewed support would result from the emergence of new and favorable facts—perhaps the uncovering of evidence disproving his prior misconduct, or even simply evidence of remorse. Instead, Cuomo has publicly expressed regret surrounding his 2021 resignation, and his campaign appears to be betting almost entirely on fading public memory. 

However, it would be unjust to simply blame voters for their forgetfulness. The reality is not only much more intricate, but ultimately institutionally derived. Political amnesia doesn’t occur because people stop caring; rather, it happens because people are overwhelmed with content, overarchingly susceptible to manipulation, and thus overall distrusting of sensationalized media.

In a fast-paced media environment dictated by relentless news cycles and driven by the monetization of public outrage, the daily emergence of new scandals is unprecedented, and quite frankly, hard to keep up with. Consider the following headlines “Ex-US Rep. George Santos sentenced to over 7 years in prison for fraud and identity theft” and "Judge Dismisses Corruption Case Against New York City Mayor Eric Adams"—both published in AP News within just a few weeks of each other—as evidence of the seemingly constant scandal that unfortunately informs the public’s perception of current New York politics and politicians. 

I am by no means advocating for the censorship of scandal; I believe wholeheartedly in full media transparency. Instead, I intend to draw attention to the flawed media culture whereby the prioritization of sensationalism over accuracy, exacerbated largely by the pace of the internet, has resulted in what can best be described as cultural numbness and media mistrust. According to a 2024 Gallup poll, American’s trust in mass media emerges at an all time low, with only 31% of Americans expressing a “fair amount” of confidence as opposed to 68% when the question was first posed in 1972. When New York voters are constantly bombarded with repeated accounts of corruption—some more accurate than others—on both the local and state government levels, scandals that may initially have been met with shock and frustration emerge as tired narratives and the cynical impression that all politicians are compromised is normalized. 

Cuomo has certainly capitalized on this scandal fatigue. Not only does he consistently position himself as a victim of exaggerated “cancel culture” (and in so doing carelessly dismisses his very real misconduct), but the timing of his re-entry into the political sphere is also no coincidence. The scandals surrounding current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was accused of five separate criminal counts less than a year ago, include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and the receipt of campaign contributions by foreign nationals. Cuomo’s flashy campaign videos, for example, portray New York City, under current Mayor Eric Adams, as a city in crisis that can only be saved by an “experienced” leader capable of restoring order. The emergence of new scandals doesn’t just help to replace Cuomo’s older scandals in collective memory; it reflects a media cycle that disincentivizes long-term accountability. In exacerbating public distrust, the sense that politics and corruption are deeply entangled is reinforced, allowing Cuomo to re-enter the political sphere with minimal scrutiny.

Cuomo’s return to politics after a brief hiatus exploits the current climate of distrust and disillusionment. His renewed leadership, rather than offering a restoration of faith, offers only the illusion of stability through familiarity. As a New Yorker and a woman aspiring to have a career in politics, I find Cuomo’s political comeback deeply upsetting, but I feel it is important to recognize that Cuomo’s career trajectory is only a symptom of a much larger problem. If someone with Cuomo’s track record can reclaim power successfully, what does that mean for the integrity and accountability of our political and media systems? We deserve honorable leaders who take responsibility for their actions, not familiar faces who strategically wait out news cycles.

If Andrew Cuomo wins the mayoral election this upcoming fall, it won’t be because we have all collectively forgiven him; it will be because we have all collectively forgotten his wrongdoings and succumbed to collective fatigue in the face of new and sensationalized scandal. 

Carina Rudolph-Math (GS ‘26) is a Staff Writer in her first semester with CPR. She is majoring in political science and European studies in the Dual BA Program with Trinity College Dublin.