I think you're right. When people who live in NY STATE, not NY CITY, hear "New York", their minds do not go to NYC. I'm one of 'em. If a friend tells me "it's supposed to snow in New York today", I think, "So Mom will be getting snow at the farm." The farm is near Buffalo. So when Cruz makes a statement like that, NYers outside of the City have an immediate negative reaction. Sure, after a while they'll process it and maybe deduce that he meant NYC. But there are two things: (1) DID he mean NY City? We don't know for sure. (2) NYers' -- upstate, western, southern tier, etc. -- first reaction was negative. I guess that's what you mean by "optics". Even if they finally think he might've meant NYC, that negative feeling was first. It's like the saying, "You have only one chance to make a good first impression."
Well yeah, and really, trashing a state or region doesn’t seem to be a smart way to win the primaries anywise.
If Cruz’s strategy is to win on the South and the Midwest...that’s a bad strategy.