What to know about Andrew Cuomo's attacks on rival mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for living in rent-stabilized apartment

Mayoral candidate Andrew M. Cuomo is criticizing front-runner Zohran Mamdani for living in a one-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment for $2,300 a month, calling on him "to move out immediately and give your affordable housing back to an unhoused family."

Mamdani lives in one of the city’s approximately 996,600 apartments — roughly 41% of the city’s 2.39 million rentals — that are stabilized, meaning that a board picked by the mayor periodically decides by what percent, if any, rent is allowed to be increased, and tenants have the right to renew their leases. Rent regulation in the city, which typically is not means-tested, has roots dating back over a century.

On Friday, Cuomo posted to X, describing Mamdani’s apartment incorrectly as "rent controlled," a different program that covers about 24,020 units, with mostly elderly tenants, and typically ends on a unit when the person dies or moves out.

"Somewhere last night in New York City, a single mother and her children slept at a homeless shelter because you, assemblyman @ZohranKMamdani are occupying her rent controlled apartment," Cuomo posted Friday, tagging Mamdani’s X handle.

It's not clear how a homeless mother would be able to afford to pay $2,300 a month.

Cuomo, whose campaign has become more pugnacious, including on social media, since his stunning loss Jun 24 to Mamdani, is trying to shore up what he’s acknowledged was a lackluster primary campaign.

In the post, Cuomo noted that Mamdani "grew up rich and married an even wealthier woman" and as an assemblyman is paid “$142,000 a year plus stipends, and your wife works too, meaning you together likely make well over $200,000."

"No matter which way you cut it: Zohran Mamdani is a rich person. You are actually very rich," the post said.

"Time to move out."

One of Mamdani’s signature campaign pledges — which helped catapult him to win the Democratic primary and beat favored-to-win Cuomo by 12.8 percentage points — is a freeze on regulated rents.

Mamdani, who lives with his wife, Rama Duwaji, pays $2,300 a month to rent the one-bedroom apartment at 32-15 35th St. in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, according to the Board of Elections. The building has six stories and 52 units, was built in 1929 and few frills besides an elevator, according to the real estate website StreetEasy, which Mamdani said he used to find his apartment years ago when he was making $47,000.

The topic of how much each candidate pays for rent came up during the lightning round of one of the primary debates, when a moderator asked the candidates to disclose the figure.

Cuomo — who lived in Queens decades ago but was a longtime resident of Westchester and Albany and sometimes lived on Long Island before moving back to the city a few months before he declared for mayor — said he pays about $8,000 a month for a unit where his daughter had lived at 420 E. 54th St. in Manhattan. The building, 38 stories, is a luxury complex built in 1982 with a fitness center, a playhouse, a rooftop with panoramic views and a recreation center with a climbing wall.

Cuomo followed up his post to X with what he’s calling "Zohran’s Law," which would require state approval and impose means-testing for would-be tenants applying for vacant, rent-stabilized units. Once a tenant moves in, he wouldn’t be evicted even if his income rises, according to published reports.

This week, Mamdani criticized the proposal, which he said amounted to making tenants "a political pawn."

"This proposal, this policy, is indicative of so much of Andrew Cuomo’s politics, where it works backwards from a petty vindictiveness, and it does not care who it harms in the process."

Mamdani has said that he opposes means-testing programs because they tend not to "get close to the target of eligibility."

A search Tuesday of StreetEasy showed apartments in a few block radius of Mamdani’s ranging mostly between $2,100 and $2,700.

In 2019, when Cuomo was governor, Cuomo did the opposite of his latest proposal — signing policies into law that ended a legal caveat permitting landlords to end a property’s status as rent stabilized if a tenant made over $200,000 two years in a row.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.