Disgraced former Gov. Cuomo’s campaign is still marked “active” by the state elections board — and still accepts contributions.
His campaign website, andrewcuomo.com, doesn’t even mention his resignation. Instead, it refers to Cuomo as governor in the present tense.
The site prominently features a “DONATE” button — and a Sept. 29 statement from loyal flack Rich Azzopardi attacking the sexual-harassment report by the attorney general that drove the governor to resign on Aug. 23.
Cuomo’s campaign coffers are overflowing, with a balance of $18.3 million reported as of July 15. The next filing is due in January.
Speculation that Cuomo might run for governor again was spurred by an Oct. 4 letter from him to supporters sent by his campaign. In the letter, Cuomo said resigning was a “very difficult decision.”
“From the beginning, this was an obvious effort by some to use Albany politics to do what the people of the state would not allow them to do at ballot box: remove me from office,” he wrote. “Albany insiders underestimate the people of the state. New Yorkers have seen effective government that works for them and they will not return to the old days.”
Cuomo also criticized Attorney General Letitia James’s sexual-misconduct report as “false: its findings purely politically and personally motivated,” according to the letter.
James is considering a run for governor herself. Her committee reported a balance of $1.6 million as of July 15.
The campaign of Gov. Kathy Hochul — whom Cuomo had planned to dump as his running mate before Cuomo’s multiple scandals handed her the Executive Chamber, had $1.8 million in her coffers as of Aug. 14.
The campaign did not return messages seeking comment.
Susan Lerner, the head of the good-government group Common Cause, told The Post: “It’s clear there needs be campaign-finance regulation of the accounts of disgraced former officials.”
She said the committees should be “limited” in what they can spend their money on — legal fees, for instance, but not transfers for political purposes — and that they should eb “frozen” from taking new money.
If the candidate wants to run again, she said, he or she should have to open a new committee.
Traders on PredictIt, the political predictions market, gave Cuomo a four percent chance of winning the 2022 gubernatorial nomination, as of Saturday morning.