New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been a fixture in U.S. Democratic Party circles for decades before his downfall and coming resignation amid allegations that he sexually harassed 11 women, including some of his own aides, at the state capital in Albany.
He has been the governor of the fourth biggest U.S. state for the last decade, winning three four-year terms to the same position his father, Mario Cuomo, held for three terms in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Andrew Cuomo had announced his intention to seek a fourth term in 2022. During the earliest stages of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., he was widely applauded for his blunt discussions during almost daily televised news conferences of the advance of the infectious disease in New York.
But his political standing quickly plunged as reports emerged last year that his administration had hidden the true number of coronavirus deaths at nursing homes in the state, and more recently, as one woman after another alleged that he had harassed them with unwanted advances.
At various times in his long public career, the 63-year-old Cuomo was the campaign manager for his father, a New York City prosecutor, U.S. President Bill Clinton’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, and New York state attorney general, before being elected as the state’s governor.
As the state’s leader, he has advanced such reliably liberal causes as legalizing same-sex marriage, the medical use of marijuana and what is said to be the strictest gun control law in the U.S.
He was married to Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, for 15 years before divorcing in 2005. The couple had three daughters, all now in their 20s.
