“Look at his career, look at his work in New York,” said Jonathan Cowan, the president and founder of Third Way, a centrist think tank, and a former Cuomo advisor. “He is laying out a model for what it means to be a 21st-century Democrat. Our party is in a deep hole. You have to look around and say, ‘Who is succeeding? Who is doing it differently?’”

It’s not just Democrats who see Cuomo showing up on the radar. “I would say Cuomo is the one I am most nervous about,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime advisor to Trump who helped put together for an aborted Trump gubernatorial run against Cuomo in 2014, and helped lead the campaign for Carl Paladino, Cuomo’s 2010 Republican opponent. “Hillary Clinton wouldn’t take the gloves off. There isn’t a counterpunch Andrew Cuomo won’t throw.”