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For a shrewd political tactician who seldom says or doesnt say anything without political purpose, Mr. Cuomos positioning has raised questions from allies and opponents alike: Is he a savvy politician playing the long game, or being too clever for his own good?

The first and biggest test of his nonaggression approach came on Wednesday, as Mr. Cuomo made his first trip to Washington since the start of the Trump administration. He met with the transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, to lobby for additional federal funding for the states infrastructure needs.

While in Washington, Mr. Cuomo took time to respond to Mr. Trumps directive, announced on Twitter, that transgender people be barred from the military. In his own Twitter post, Mr. Cuomo criticized the policy as wrong and intolerant, but blamed Washingtons directive, not Mr. Trump.

The governors elliptical phrase received some ribbing online. News flash it came from trump. Not George Washington, replied Elizabeth Soto, the executive director of the Hudson Valley Labor Federation. The governors office also issued a news release that cited the Trump administration.

Two of Mr. Cuomos advisers who have spoken with the governor about his choice not to attack Mr. Trump in personal terms said he decided not long after Novembers election to forge a verbal dtente with a president who, like Mr. Cuomo, has a long memory for those who cross him.

Advisers to both Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Trump describe them as aggressive counterpunchers, and Mr. Cuomo seems determined not to throw the first jab.

Those in Mr. Cuomos orbit pointed to two factors in the decision: first, the possibility of working with Mr. Trump to procure federal money for state projects, and second, the fear of alienating working-class white voters upstate whom Mr. Cuomo wants to capture in his 2018 re-election effort.

He decided early on he wasnt going to stick a finger in Trumps eye, said one of Mr. Cuomos advisers, who was not authorized to disclose internal strategy discussions.

Mr. Cuomo has criticized some of the presidents policies. After Mr. Trump announced Americas withdrawal from an international climate accord, Mr. Cuomo helped organize a coalition of states to fill the breach, criticizing this administration and the White Houses reckless decision. He has also spoken out against the administrations immigration and deportation policies.

But the governor has remained loath to go after Mr. Trump by name, even as the presidents popularity has plunged to historic lows, and as other Democrats, who signaled an early willingness to work with the president, like Senator Chuck Schumer, have adopted a harder line. Hours after Mr. Cuomo held a rally against the Republican health care bill last week in Manhattan and did not mention the presidents name in his 15-minute speech, Mr. Schumer branded that days setback a failure of Trumpcare.

In June, when Mr. Cuomo wrote an op-ed lamenting the Trump administrations immigration policies, he blamed the federal government, not Mr. Trump, for having forgotten who we are as a nation. In July, when Mr. Cuomo wrote about the health care bill, he cited the White Houses insistence that the legislation had heart, though it was Mr. Trump himself who had said so.

And when reporters recently asked Mr. Cuomo about Donald Trump Jr.s email with a Russia-linked lawyer, he took a pass. Ive been working, he said. Mr. Cuomo also skipped commenting on Mr. Trumps Twitter attacks on the MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski. Let me read them first, he replied.

The nonanswers sounded more like the comments of congressional Republicans who have grown skilled in the art of the Trump dodge than those of a nationally ambitious Democrat.

In contrast, at the recent rally where Mr. Cuomo left the president unnamed, the Democratic state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, introduced himself as a guy who sues Donald Trump. It earned some of his loudest applause.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, a Democrat, traveled to Germany this month in hopes of casting himself as a foil to the president. And Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, who also could be a 2020 presidential contender, has been buying up online search ads calling herself a leader of the resistance who is standing up to Trump.

Cuomo could, if he wanted, attack Trump 20 times a day and it wouldnt hurt him a bit in the state of New York, said Robert M. Shrum, a longtime national Democratic strategist. Mr. Shrum said the governor had demonstrated a habit of not getting involved in national politics, though he added, Im not saying this would be my strategy.

Some of Mr. Cuomos own allies are privately hoping he will soon take a harder line against Mr. Trump, both to cut off oxygen for any potential 2018 Democratic primary opponents he faced a surprisingly stiff challenge from Zephyr Teachout in 2014 and to energize the progressive base he would need to win over in support of any presidential run.

The political left is frothing with anti-Trump energy, marching by the millions and pouring money into the coffers of leaders of the resistance. Bill Hyers, a Democratic strategist who was Mr. de Blasios 2013 campaign manager and is a frequent critic of the governor on Twitter, called Mr. Cuomos decision to avoid verbally confronting Mr. Trump a million percent tone deaf.

Hes wanting to be Trumps favorite Democrat. It makes no sense that he rips on the mayor of New York with pleasure but wont say one negative thing about Donald Trump, even mention his name, Mr. Hyers said. Thats the cowards way out.

Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Trump have a decades-long personal history, dating to the 1980s, when Mr. Trump was a developer and donor to Mr. Cuomos father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. The day after last Novembers election, the governor called Mr. Trumps election a bonus. He knows New York, he knows the challenges, Mr. Cuomo said then.

In January, when Mr. Cuomo went to Trump Tower to meet with the president-elect, they spoke about New York issues, including infrastructure and local tax deductibility.

It was not adversarial, Mr. Cuomo told reporters in the lobby afterward.

Joel Benenson, Hillary Clintons chief strategist in 2016, who served as communications director for the 1994 campaign of Mr. Cuomos father, approved of Mr. Cuomos restraint because there is ample time before a possible 2020 campaign. I dont think you have to make everything about Trump, he said. My advice would be to stick to your knitting and keep doing what youre doing on behalf of New York.

That is how Mr. Cuomo cast his trip to Washington.

I am a vocal critic of many Trump proposals, such as his health care, environment and tax policies, Mr. Cuomo said in his statement. At the same time, my job is to make progress for our state and improve the quality of life for New Yorkers and the federal government must approve and fund many necessary projects especially transportation and infrastructure which is the subject of my discussion with Transportation Secretary Chao.

People close to Mr. Cuomo say he is aware that transportation issues are a potential vulnerability: A recent Siena College poll showed his approval rating dropping to 52 percent from 61 percent since May, with all the erosion in New York City and its suburbs, areas gripped by problems with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

When it comes to Mr. Trump, Jay Jacobs, a former chairman of the New York Democratic Party during Mr. Cuomos first term, said the governor is walking a fine line because he wants to get re-elected in 2018 and he wants to get re-elected with good numbers and a good part of his popularity has come from Republicans, particularly upstate Republicans.

Last week, Mr. Cuomo reported a re-election treasury of more than $25.6 million among the most cash on hand of any politician in America including another $5 million raised in the first six months of 2017, even as he has yet to draw any serious challenger.

Attacking Mr. Trump might be something in the short term that works and gets everybody up into a lather, Mr. Jacobs added, but Cuomo is about the long game.

A version of this article appears in print on July 28, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: As Democrats Assail Trump, Cuomo Takes a Different Tack.

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