Metro

Gov’s new course takes ‘center’ stage

Gov. Cuomo plans a “major course correction” when he seeks re-election next year, shifting from the left-of-center agenda that has dominated his actions this year to the political center, The Post has learned.

The dramatic change, aimed at winning over increasingly skeptical moderate and upstate voters who were strongly approving of Cuomo’s centrist policies during his first two years in office, will emphasize more “bread-and-butter moderate issues” like taxes and jobs, according to a senior Albany Democrat.

“No more pandering to the left of the Democratic Party next year, as he did this year,” said the Democrat, who has knowledge of the planned change.

The shift is aimed at delivering what Cuomo hopes will be a huge re-election victory next year that could serve as a springboard for a 2016 presidential run — should Hillary Rodham Clinton not enter the race, sources said.

As part of his move back to the political center, Cuomo will hire former Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno’s top fiscal strategist, Mary Louise Mallick, in an effort to send a friendly signal to an increasingly wary business community, two high-level sources said.

“The governor and his people are looking for a huge victory next year, with maybe close to 70 percent of the vote, and they don’t believe this can happen unless Cuomo sweeps moderates throughout the state, including in the suburbs,” the senior Democrat said.

“They’re worried that if they have another session that is heavy on left-wing issues, like the one we just had, a lot of suburban voters will feel significantly let down after Cuomo’s first two big years.’’

A second source said Cuomo’s “major course correction” resulted from disturbing private polls showing the governor could lose most upstate counties next year because of the passage of his anti-gun Safe Act, which has enraged hundreds of thousands of upstate residents, and because of high unemployment and steady job losses.

Cuomo’s trouble with upstate voters explains his recent emphasis on a new “tax-free New York” scheme, supposedly designed to attract jobs to SUNY campuses, and his late insistence, after two years of claiming otherwise, that casino gambling should be used for upstate economic development.

Cuomo shifted sharply to the political left in January in the wake of criticism from Democratic activists that he was unfit to run for president because he was too close to the Republicans who controlled the state Senate, had worked to keep the GOP in power, had taken on the powerful teachers unions and had pursued a course of fiscal moderation rather than increased spending.

His backing of a business-opposed higher minimum wage, a sweeping “women’s agenda,” the Safe Act, a $300-a-family election-year political giveaway and higher taxes on the wealthy, plus his buckling to radical environmental activists who oppose fracking for natural gas, were also widely seen as major concessions to the Democratic left.

fdicker@nypost.com