Leading New York City mayoral candidate and disgraced former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been grappling with a series of campaign finance blunders in recent weeks.
Cuomo’s campaign had incorrectly reported that Kevin Breslin, a former nursing home operator who pled guilty to health care and tax fraud in January, collected five campaign donations adding up to $2,270, Politico reported on Thursday. In reality, a different man named Kevin Breslin, the son of late writer Jimmy Breslin, collected the donations, according to the outlet.
“I support Andrew,” the Breslin who actually donated to Cuomo’s campaign told Politico in an interview. “He’s a family friend forever! I don’t know about any nursing homes.”
The former governor’s mayoral campaign also had difficulty verifying the addresses of donors who contributed payments digitally, after the New York City Campaign Finance Board had repeatedly told the campaign not to use mobile payment systems to obtain donations without receiving prior approval, the New York Post first reported.
In April, Cuomo’s campaign was denied millions in matching funds after failing to file the correct paperwork, Politico reported.
In March 2020, the Cuomo’s New York State Department of Health issued an order which prohibited nursing homes in the state from denying admission to patients “solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.” At least 4,000 nursing home residents died after the then-governor’s administration issued the rule.
Cuomo was also accused of sexually harassing 13 women between 2013 and 2021. Cuomo, who served as governor of New York from 2011 to 2021, resigned in disgrace in August 2021 amid an impeachment inquiry regarding the sexual harassment allegations. He was promptly replaced by current Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was his Lieutenant Governor at the time.
Still, recent polling has shown Cuomo leading other candidates in the New York’s mayoral race. An April AARP New York City poll conducted by the Siena College Research Institute found that Cuomo was ahead of his closest competition, far-left Democratic New York State Rep. Zohran Mamdani, in the Democratic mayoral primary by 18 points. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, a registered Democrat with his own controversies, is running for reelection as an independent in the deep-blue city.
“The gulf between the insiders and the New Yorkers who are actually going to decide this race, an overwhelming number of whom want Andrew Cuomo to be mayor because they know he will fix what’s broken and put this city back on the track, has never been wider,” a spokesperson for Cuomo’s campaign said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This is a 66-day-old campaign that has already raised more than $2.5 million and these are two mundane clerical errors that are already being amended. My understanding is that none of this is especially unusual with this system.”
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