Marc Molinaro says his rival Josh Riley is even worse than this ex-politician

Andrew Cuomo is the lesser of two evils, said House newcomer Mark Molinaro about his current opponent.

A first-term Republican lawmaker said Democrat Josh Riley is running an even more dishonest and deceitful campaign in Congress than the one he faced in his 2018 matchup with the disgraced ex-governor.

“Any day, it’s Josh Riley, any day,” Molinaro said when asked to compare his opponents during a meeting with The Post editorial board.

“I mean, the worst thing Andrew Cuomo could come up with was that I was a mini-Trump, which was funny at the time, but it’s… completely dishonest. It’s just that, and I’ve really never seen anything like it,” he added, specifically pointing out Riley’s statements that he would support a national abortion ban.

Molinaro, 49, says he does not support a national ban or any federal action for that matter.

“I said this two years ago, that I would not take any action in support of a national ban,” Molinaro said in the same interview.

Molinaro defeated Riley in 2022 with 50.8% of the vote—by about 4,500 votes.

“They’re running ads saying I’ll be the deciding vote on a national ban. “I don’t know if they know this, but the House is split about 50-50. I’m already the swing vote, and I’ve used it to continually oppose any attacks on abortion access in New York State,” he continued. .

Despite this, Molinaro still described the former governor, who resigned in August 2021 amid a slew of scandals, as “horrible.”

“I could have been absolutely terrible and you just wouldn’t have noticed it because (Cuomo) was even worse,” Molinaro, then the Dutchess County executive, said of his 2018 bid for governor.

Cuomo, 66, who is believed to be considering a political comeback, defeated Molinaro in 2018 with nearly 60% of the vote in a blue wave of support following President Trump’s 2016 victory.

“Governor Cuomo has legalized marriage equality, enacted the nation’s strongest gun safety and paid family leave laws, and completed construction projects previously declared impossible, such as the new LaGuardia and JFK airports, the Metro Second Avenue and the Kosciuszko Bridge, while cutting taxes and reining in spending, and as a result received the most votes of any candidate in New York history,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi wrote in a statement to The Post.

In the meantime. Riley’s spokesman repeated the candidate’s claim that Molinaro “voted 13 times to limit access to abortion.”

“These are just the facts,” the spokesman said. “Marc Molinaro’s track record speaks for itself,” Riley’s rep said in a statement to The Post. “These are just facts.”

New York’s 19th Congressional District is rated as a failure by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.