Andrew Cuomo’s run for mayor has attracted monetary assist from a few of the nation’s richest people — and the Rockefellers are the newest addition to that checklist.
Three members of the Rockefeller household, which has deep roots in New York politics and ranks as one of many wealthiest dynasties in American historical past, lately pumped $75,000 right into a pro-Cuomo tremendous PAC that’s boosting the previous governor’s marketing campaign for Metropolis Corridor, filings launched this week present.
Businessman David Rockefeller, Jr. and his spouse, Susan Rockefeller, every gave the PAC, Repair the Metropolis, $25,000 on April 24, the information present. Their contributions got here after David’s youthful cousin, environmental lawyer Laurance Rockefeller Jr., chipped in $25,000 to the PAC on April 16.
The PAC has raised greater than $6.2 million thus far, per disclosures. It has already spent greater than $2.5 million of that on TV and social media adverts touting Cuomo as a examined chief who’d put “the city back on track.”
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Susan Rockefeller and David Rockefeller Jr. every gave a pro-Cuomo PAC $25,000. (Getty)
By regulation, PACs can increase and spend as a lot cash as they need so long as they don’t coordinate with the candidates they’re supporting.
Nevertheless, a report in Politico lately stated that the restriction hasn’t stopped Cuomo’s staff from utilizing a way often called “red-boxing” whereby his marketing campaign’s web site lists off proposals for adverts that may sign what sort of messaging the PAC may push. Cuomo marketing campaign spokesperson Wealthy Azzopardi characterised the web site entry to Politico as a “broad message to voters.”
The PAC money infusion comes at a vital time for Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid sexual harassment accusations he denies. Final month, the Marketing campaign Finance Board denied Cuomo’s request for almost $3 million in public matching funds resulting from paperwork errors.
Along with donating to the PAC, Rockefeller relations have contributed on to Cuomo’s marketing campaign.
Laurance Rockefeller, Jr., a registered Republican who as soon as mounted a failed bid for U.S. Senate, gave $2,100, the max authorized quantity, to Cuomo’s marketing campaign on March 1, the day he launched his mayoral run. He tried giving one other $2,000 to Cuomo’s marketing campaign on March 12, however that contribution was returned because of the donation cap, information present.
One other Rockefeller member of the family, Lucy Rockefeller Waletzky, gave $2,100 to Cuomo’s marketing campaign on March 1, too, information present.
A rep for Rockefeller Capital Administration, the place David Rockefeller Jr. serves on the board, didn’t return a request for remark. Repair the Metropolis spokeswoman Liz Benjamin stated the PAC “is gratified by the support we continue to receive from a growing number of donors.”
The Rockefellers are among the many most storied households within the nation, with its patriarch, oil baron John D. Rockefeller, extensively seen because the world’s first billionaire. Nelson Rockefeller, Laurance Jr.’s uncle, served as governor of New York for greater than a decade, the identical job each Cuomo and his father, Mario Cuomo, held.
The Rockefeller money for Cuomo’s mayoral bid is a part of a wave of monetary assist billionaires are offering the ex-gov as he vies to switch the embattled Mayor Adams.
AP Photograph/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, pictured at a marketing campaign occasion in March, is polling as the favourite to win the Democratic mayoral main. (AP Photograph/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Different enterprise titans who’ve flocked to Cuomo embrace Invoice Ackman, the Trump-supporting hedge fund supervisor, who gave Repair the Metropolis $250,000 in April. Alice Walton, the billionaire Walmart heiress, donated one other $100,000 final month, and scores of executives in the actual property and monetary sectors have given much more to pro-Cuomo efforts.
Cuomo is polling as the favourite to win June’s Democratic mayoral main.
A few of his main opponents have argued his reliance on billionaire donors is problematic.
“Andrew Cuomo: Trump-praised, scandal-ridden, billionaire-backed,” reads a textual content blast despatched to voters final month by New Yorkers for Decrease Prices, a brilliant PAC that backs Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral run.
In distinction to Repair the Metropolis, the pro-Mamdani PAC is struggling to boost cash, having pulled in simply over $64,000 as of the top of April, filings present.
