When only Republicans criticize a cover-up in a scandal involving thousands of deaths, the media can slough it off as pouncing. When Democrats join them in slamming Andrew Cuomo for his “betrayal,” suddenly it looks less like pouncing and more like a serious existential crisis. And that might very well be what Cuomo will shortly face:

Prominent New York state Democrats condemned Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and his administration Friday after reports revealed the state significantly underreported the death toll of Covid in the state’s nursing homes, a move Cuomo aides say were apparently made for political purposes.

Democrats like state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, state Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou and longtime New York City Councilman Brad Lander are among those who’ve publicly blasted Cuomo and his administration.

So far none of the New York Democrats cited by Forbes has gone as far as to suggest impeachment of the Love Gov, but they’re not rallying around his blame-Trump explanation of the nursing-home deaths cover-up. In fact, Rich Azzopardi might have thrown gasoline on the fire with this rebuttal:

My response. https://t.co/tnRKYwuNhT pic.twitter.com/oczhqNIuek

— Rich Azzopardi (@RichAzzopardi) February 12, 2021

It’s not going to take long for everyone to recognize this as the drizzly horses*** that it is. Cuomo didn’t spend the intervening time keeping a low profile and trying to manage the crisis quietly. Cuomo publicly kept insisting that there was nothing to the questions being raised over nursing home deaths, and then published a book praising his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, claiming that he could teach leadership to others on that basis. Cuomo went on a self-promotional tour with these claims, complete with his “COVID Mountain” poster declaring the crisis over in early summer.

So it’s not as if Cuomo covered it up for altruistic purposes. But even if Cuomo hadn’t used the crisis to cash in, what kind of an excuse is “I was afraid of prosecution” anyway? That’s the definition of a criminal cover-up. Small wonder that Cuomo’s fellow Democrats are running away from the Love Gov. The longer Azzopardi talks, the closer Cuomo gets to a potential law-enforcement probe into falsification of public records and obstruction of justice.

That would suit Janice Dean just fine, who has been trying to get the media to demand answers from Cuomo for months after her own in-laws died in the nursing-home outbreak. “This is the most damning” of the revelations so far, Dean told Fox News this morning, and wants “jail time” for Cuomo and others involved in the cover-up.

“This is the most damning, someone admitted it, and it looks like they covered it up the whole time,” Dean said. “Look at this governor’s track record — his leadership book, his Emmy award, protected only himself and his administration and we never got an apology from this governor. I believe he should be in jail.”

At the very least, Cuomo has no business in public office. And it seems that is now dawning on his political allies as well as his opponents.