What if Cuomo just won't go?

Cuomo will head into next year with nearly $17 million in the bank and the most famous last name in New York politics. The most formidable opponent for him, his supporters and detractors agree, would be Tish James, but while detractors think a James candidacy could convince Cuomo to not seek reelection, his supporters doubt that if the governor’s poll numbers have rebounded, James would give up a safe seat for a grueling fight against the incumbent. Several state lawmakers have said that people close to James have been regularly checking in on the efforts to remove the governor legislatively, aware that she would need to pivot to run for governor if Cuomo were impeached. Meanwhile, operatives associated with other potential candidates have been suggesting that James is too close to Cuomo and have signaled that if there there is an open primary next year, they will try to tie her to some of the same scandals that have ensnared the governor. “Where was she on nursing homes this whole time?” said one person close to a potential 2022 candidate. “That is the kind of thing she will have to answer.”…

“The more de Blasio attacks the better,” said one person close to Cuomo. “The public always goes the opposite way of Bill de Blasio.”

As much as the state’s elected leaders have called on Cuomo to resign, longtime allies, particularly among labor-union heads and within the business community, have largely stood by him and could prove critical should he mount another campaign, even as many on Cuomo’s left continue to believe that there is no way he can make it until November of next year, not with the attorney general’s investigation, a federal investigation into nursing-home deaths, and a Albany DA’s investigation into claims that Cuomo groped a staffer at the governor’s mansion.