Andrew Cuomo is, or was, one of the most immovable objects in American politics. He began his career as an adviser to his father, three-term New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, then became a member of Bill Clinton’s Cabinet. He succeeded Eliot Spitzer as New York’s attorney general, and has since won three straight gubernatorial races himself—the last of which involved a landslide victory over high-profile progressive primary challenger Cynthia Nixon.

This has all been achieved in spite of a reputation for behind-the-scenes unpleasantness so extreme that New York magazine described it as “staggering” in 2006, before he’d ever even won an election of his own. Since then, without having become any more beloved on a personal basis, Cuomo has also developed a reputation among reporters and activists for protecting and perpetuating a corrupt “pay to play” political system, resisting changes to the state’s arcane and anti-democratic electoral process, and vastly exaggerating the extent of his commitment to attacking wealth and racial inequality.