The son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Andrew Giuliani has announced on Tuesday that he’s officially running for the Republican primary for New York Governor in 2022 – and he is feeling confident that he can not only knock out veteran GOP contention, but can also go against the scandal-ridden Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
According to the New York Post, Giuliani, 35, said “I’m a politician out of the womb. It’s in my DNA.”
“Giuliani vs. Cuomo. Holy smokes. Its Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier. We can sell tickets at Madison Square Garden,” he said, referring to the famous 1971 heavyweight title prizefight.
Giuliani, 35, who served for four years as a White House aide to former President Donald Trump, insisted that he is qualified to run – despite having never running for public office before – and that he has the best chance to topple embattled three-term incumbent Andrew Cuomo.
“It would be one of the epic showdowns in the state’s history,” said Giuliani, saying he will run as a change agent as did Trump and his father. His playbook will be pro-business, pro-police, and pro-school choice.
“I know we can defeat Andrew Cuomo in 2022. I am going to be the 57th governor of New York,” he said.
Giuliani called the Cuomo administration’s controversial decision to require nursing homes to accept recovering COVID patients discharged from hospitals “the worst” in state history. Cuomo and state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker defended the controversial decision and the months of undercounting COVID nursing home deaths that have now come under investigation and disgraced Cuomo’s reputation.
“It was Andrew Cuomo’s actions that killed 9,000 senior citizens in nursing homes in New York. He should have resigned,” Giuliani said.
“Cuomo didn’t use the USS Comfort ship or the Javits Center to house seniors with COVID. He didn’t want to give President Trump a political victory.”
This gubernatorial race would be a match up of two political dynasties, Andrew’s father, Rudy, was mayor for a year while Andrew Cuomo’s father, the late Mario Cuomo, was serving the final year of this three-term run as governor in 1994.
Giuliani would first have to compete with two other contenders in the GOP primary, they are Rep. Lee Zeldin, of Long Island and Westchester County executive Rob Astorino, who lost to Cuomo as the GOP nominee in 2014.
Zeldin was the first to announce his bid for governor and has already secured the support of many Republican county leaders and committees to be the party’s primary candidate.
Giuliani said he’s unfazed, vowing to raise enough money to mount a credible campaign and will greet voters in all the state’s 62 counties.
A Republican has not won a statewide race since George Pataki, who denied Mario Cuomo a fourth term, was elected to his own third term as governor in 2002, a year after the Sept. 11 attacks.
However, politics wasn’t a main driving force for Giuliani, who spent five years as a professional golfer after graduating from Duke University in 2009, where he majored in management and sociology.
A few years later he landed a job at the Trump White House as Trump’s liaison, for whom his father served as Trump’s personal attorney.
In response to critics who may question whether or not he is qualified or has the experience to run for governor, Giuliani said being in the White House under Trump and learning from his father has prepared him for the governorship.
“My four years in the White House has prepared me for this moment,” he said.
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