Cuomo Jolts New York’s Mayoral Race as His Challengers Attack

For months, the race for mayor of New York City felt stuck in suspended animation. No more.

The contest burst into motion on Sunday as a new front-runner, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, began a comeback campaign in Lower Manhattan, and Mayor Eric Adams and seven fellow Democrats fanned out across the city to try to stop him.

Fresh off announcing his candidacy, Mr. Cuomo, 67, reintroduced himself to fellow New Yorkers, thinner and grayer after three years in the political wilderness. He presented himself to a crowd of family and loyal supporters as a battle-tested executive ready to reassert control over a city “in chaos” while keeping an eye toward the national stage.

“At this time when the nation is searching for its soul, when it is divided as never before, when it’s questioning our democratic values, it’s questioning the very role of government, it’s questioning the balance of power,” Mr. Cuomo said, “New York must show the way forward and remind this country who we are at our best.”

After collecting endorsements from the carpenters’ and painters’ unions, the former governor wasted little time sharpening lines of attack accusing his rivals of adopting stances too far left on crime, homelessness and Israel.

“These politicians now running to be mayor made a terrible, terrible mistake,” Mr. Cuomo said. “They uttered the three dumbest words ever uttered by a public official: cut police funding. It created a city in chaos.”

He vowed to rebuild the New York Police Department, to move New Yorkers suffering from mental illness off the streets and to pursue policies that would accelerate the construction of new affordable housing.