Andrew Mark Cuomo was born on Dec. 6, 1957, and is the second child of Mario Cuomo and Matilda Raffa Cuomo. He grew up in Queens, where his grandparents ran a small grocery store after emigrating from Salerno, Italy, in the 1920s. He three children -- Mariah, Cara, and Michaela -- with Kerry Kennedy. He was married to Kennedy, the daughter of late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, from 1990 to 2005; and was in a relationship with TV chef Sandra Lee from 2005 to 2019.
Cuomo graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx in 1979 and got his law degree from Albany Law School in 1982. After college, he worked as the campaign manager for his father Mario Cuomo, who served as governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994; the younger Cuomo headed the Transition Committee for his father’s first term and served as an advisor to the Governor taking a salary of $1 a year. “Mario Cuomo instilled in him the belief that government was the vehicle to make change and do justice,” his biography says. According to the Rolling Stone, his father was considered “one of the great political orators of his generation, an intellectual whose bookshelves contained works by Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, and Teilhard de Chardin.”
Cuomo then served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for the final three years of former President Bill Clinton's administration. He was an assistant secretary in the department earlier in Clinton's time in office. Cuomo made his first run for the New York governorship in 2002 but withdrew from the race after making a controversial comment about then-Governor George Pataki's lack of leadership following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was perceived as a major gaffe for the Democratic hopeful, and Cuomo dropped out of the public eye for a few years to work in real estate. He then returned to the spotlight as New York's attorney general in 2006.
In 2010, he was elected governor of New York and has been reelected twice. As governor, Cuomo he passed some of the strictest gun control laws in the U.S.; introduced, oversaw paid family leave; an increase in the minimum wage; legalization of medical marijuana; the creation of the United States Climate Alliance, a group of states that agreed to follow the Paris Climate Accords in fighting climate change, and passed a new tax code that raises taxes for the wealthy and lowered taxes for the middle class. But Cuomo managed to upset a lot of people in New York. “He perturbed the left (by his deals with state Senate Republicans), the right (by supporting a slew of liberal initiatives) and even clean government folks,” according to CNN.
Cuomo’s favourable ratings in New York were near their all-time low earlier this year, after serving nine years in office. But following the confirmation of the first coronavirus patient in New York on March 1, 2020, he surfaced the national spotlight as the number of confirmed patients exploded in the coming weeks, turning New York into the centre of the pandemic. One poll reckons 87% of New Yorkers like the way Cuomo's handled the coronavirus crisis. The New York Post has dubbed it "Cuomentum". He has even received support from past critics, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, a Republican who ran against Cuomo in 2018. “It’s uncharted waters, and he’s providing the leadership necessary in what is a very trying time for us all,” Molinaro told the Wall Street Journal. His daily televised news conferences have become appointment-to-view. US television networks have carried them in full, almost unheard of for a state governor, and it's reported the White House changed the time of their daily television briefings to avoid colliding with him on air.
Meanwhile, Cuomo hasn’t been afraid to clash with President Donald Trump. Although the governor has praised the President and the efforts of the federal government, tensions have been rising between the two. In one news conference last month, Cuomo attacked the White House for its failure to address the dire shortage of medical supplies in New York. Cuomo harshly has also criticised the president on several morning news shows. He took issue with the president's claim of "total authority" over the states, which Cuomo — and legal experts — said is unconstitutional. Cuomo vowed to challenge in court any presidential order to reopen the state against his will.
Cuomo has won so much praise that many have said he should consider a run for President. His name was floated as a potential 2020 candidate before the race got underway but across a bunch of state and national polls, the most frequent share Cuomo got was 0%, and he averaged just 0.4%. Though Cuomo has vociferously denied harbouring presidential ambitions, it is telling that speculation about a future Cuomo run for the White House is now one of the hottest topics in US politics.
