On July 14, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced the relaunch of his New York mayoral campaign, this time as a third-party candidate, following his defeat in the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani.
Cuomo lost to Mamdani by 12 percentage points on June 24 despite a super political action committee (PAC) spending more than $22 million, the largest amount in the city’s history. Spending is sure to spike as the candidate’s respective campaigns advance towards November 4, and per a recent ARTnews data analysis, prominent art world figures have already gotten involved in the race. Those who made donations to Cuomo’s campaign include:
- Helena Grubesic, SVP at Christie’s, $2100
- Erica Downs, Administrator for Watches at Phillips, $2100
- Fahad Malloh, Director of Business Strategy for the Office of the CEO at Sotheby’s, $1000
- Jennifer Wright, Head of Old Master Paintings at Christie’s, $250
- Micol Spinazzi Richter, director at Gagosian, $250
- Laura Aswad, Producer at The Shed, $2100
- Diane Tuft, mixed-media artist and International Center for Photography board member, $2100
- Art dealers Nathan Bernstein ($2100), Ramin Fallah ($2100), Vito Schnabel ($2100), Lorinda Ash ($1600), Evan Beard ($1000), Sheri Feigen ($1000) and Iris Cohen ($500)
- Art advisors BJ Topol of Topol Childs Art Advisory ($1000) and Laura Smith Sweeney ($500)
- Lisa Phillips, New Museum director, $1000
- Dana Wallach Jones, Associate General Counsel for The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, $1000
- Scott Campbell, Director of Campaign Advancement at the New Museum, total of $400
- Seth Rosen, Chief of Development at the American LGBTQ+ Museum, $100
Loeb also made an individual campaign contribution of $2100.
Mamdani also received campaign donations from notable names in the art industry, including:
- Brenda Coughlin, executive director of the Lannan Foundation, total of $2800
- Aziz Isham, executive director of the Museum of Moving Image, total of $200
- Arsh Raziuddin, VP of Global Creative at Christie’s, total of $250
- Laura Kandle, Director of Museum Operations and Administration at the Asia Society, $129
The following names respectively made donations of less than $100 to Mamdani’s campaign:
- Curators Josephine Graf and Kari Rittenbach of MoMA PS1, Mia Fineman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grace Yasumura of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Yelena Kellery of The Studio Museum in Harlem
- Caitlin Foreht, director at Hauser & Wirth
- Alexandra Tell, interim director at Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, CUNY
- Alexander Ferrando, director of Kurimanzutto
- Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels, senior director at Jack Shainman Gallery
- Lauren Glading, director of Clearing Gallery
- Artists Tauba Auerbach, Thomas Dozol, Joseph Montgomery, Matt Connors, Zoe Leonard, Morgan Bassichis, Salman Toor, Willa Nasatir, Dora Budor, Sanya Kantarovsky, and Chloe Wise
- Andrew Zachery, interdisciplinary artist and assistant arts professor at NYU
- Phil Selway, Los Angeles-based art dealer
Mamdani also received donations from actors Hannah Einbinder (Hacks), Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live), and Cynthia Nixon; as well as Tony-winning playwright Tony Kushner.
In a more general look at major donor involvement, the pro-Cuomo Fix the City superPAC included $5 million from billionaire former mayor Michael Bloomberg, as well as $250,000 from Top 200 collector and hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, reported the New York Times. By comparison, the pro-Mamdani super PAC New Yorkers for Lower Costs raised about $1.4 million.
On March 24, Gothamist reported that Cuomo raised $1.5 million compared to Mamdani’s $1.4 million.
While a large portion of the individual donations to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign were under $100, he also had significantly higher number of donations, with more than 27,600, compared to Cuomo’s 6,500, according to publicly available data from the New York City Campaign Finance Board.
Mamdani’s campaign also raised more than $900,000 from city residents eligible for a $8-to-$1 match program; far more than the just over $330,000 that Cuomo raised that was eligible for the same program from city residents.
