Gov. Cuomo, long known for his presidential aspirations, won’t enjoy the support of his own Democratic Party if Hillary Rodham Clinton decides not to run for president in 2016, top state Democrats have told The Post.
The Democrats said Cuomo’s worsening relations with his party have led many to look elsewhere for a presidential standard bearer, should Clinton not run.
He has had issues almost daily in recent weeks with Mayor de Blasio, top union leaders, the Working Families Party, former state Chairmen Jay Jacobs and John Sullivan, and key party leaders including state Democratic Co-Chair Stephanie Miner, who resigned abruptly last week.
Last month Democratic activist Bill Samuels — whose father, Howard, was the Democrats’ official choice for governor in 1974 (defeated in the primary by Hugh Carey) — even called Cuomo an “embarrassment’’ to his party and said he should run for re-election as a Republican.
“People don’t like Andrew Cuomo, and if you ask about the presidency, there’s no support there,’’ a prominent Democratic activist and party official told The Post.
“People don’t think he’s principled, they see him supporting people they oppose and not supporting people they support, and they believe he only cares about himself,’’ the activist continued.
A second prominent Democrat who has known Cuomo for years said, “A lot of people will back [Massachusetts US Sen.] Elizabeth Warren, a few like [Vice President] Joe Biden, and some would even love to see de Blasio throw his hat in the ring, if only to give voice to his progressive agenda.”
“But nobody is talking about Cuomo should Hillary decide not to run,’’ he said.
Cuomo’s declining popularity among New York Democrats was reflected nationally in a Fox News poll last week.
Just 2 percent of Democrats picked Cuomo as their preferred candidate for president in 2016, down from 4 percent in December. Biden was backed by 14 percent and Warren by 6 percent.
Cuomo has been widely criticized by left-of-center Democrats for his refusal to back de Blasio’s plan for higher taxes on the wealthy, his support for charter schools, business-tax reductions, restraints on state spending, and his cozy relations with state Senate Republicans.
Cuomo was blistered last week by influential liberal Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson, executive editor of “The American Prospect,’’ under the headline “Democrats need to replace Andrew Cuomo.’’
The Post disclosed last week that influential Democrats for the first time believe Cuomo is vulnerable to defeat by GOP challenger Rob Astorino because of a lack of enthusiasm for his re-election.
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The resignation of co-chair Miner, a onetime aide to former Gov. Mario Cuomo and current mayor of Syracuse, wasn’t a surprise to Democratic insiders since she’s been clashing with Cuomo on several issues for over a year.
While Miner refused to publicly say why she quit, a former state Democratic Party official who knows her well gave The Post a scathing explanation.
“It was to maintain her sanity and to signal that she was not comfortable in playing a supportive role in an organization with diminished capacity,’’ the former official said.
“The state party has become an embarrassment, it has been marginalized, and it has become a virtual shadow of what it once was. The party has been completely subsumed by the governor’s agenda and persona.
“Take a look at the web site. There’s no mention of other statewide Democrats, or Assembly or Senate members. All those officials used to be featured and prominently so.
“Instead, the site is all about one person,” he said.
“The party has become a cult of personality, Cuomo’s personality,’’ added a second senior Democratic leader.