The New York City mayoral race is hitting the home stretch and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D-Astoria) seems to be the favorite according to the polls.
Last week’s debate featured the rising star of the far left, along with disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-Sutton Place), and Big Apple fixture in Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa (R-Upper East Side).
For those who didn’t watch the debate, allow us to give you a summary: Mamdani Vs. Cuomo.
That was about it. The two launched attacks on each other practically every chance they got, while Sliwa had to insert himself and go over his time repeatedly just to get the remainder of oxygen in the room. Even though the two Democratic candidates are clearly at odds, there’s still the likely cooperation in ensuring Sliwa doesn’t get time to advertise himself as the true New Yorker in the room.
But now, as Mamdani is now polling above 50% in the polls, a sought-after threshold in multi-candidate races, Republicans are calling on Sliwa to drop out, arguing he is splitting the votes and essentially promulgating a Mayor Mamdani.
Although Sliwa has been trailing in the polls all summer, what dearth of polling we do have since incumbent Mayor Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) dropped out last month suggests that Sliwa can take more of the former Adams vote.
Cuomo had to resign from office in 2021 amid sexual harassment and further scrutiny of his handling of COVID-19 which saw, in our opinion, an unnecessary level of death among senior citizens. Cuomo had trouble walking these allegations back during the debate, something for which we can thank the moderators for not letting him get off scot-free.
The only thing that stands to be endangered here is Cuomo’s ego. If he loses this election, which seems likely, it’ll only be a further end of his political career. Not to mention, he lost his party’s primary fair and square, and then he decided to pivot to an Independent bid within that week, as if the Democratic voters made the wrong choice. Like a salesman who can’t take no for an answer, what makes him think voters want him at their doorsteps any longer than he has been?
Moreover, we’ve seen instances in which a far-left progressive in a typically safe-blue constituency can get a real challenge. Sliwa seems to be galvanizing palpable support on social media and, we find, making excellent usage of branding Cuomo as the “master” and Mamdani as the “apprentice.”
We’re also hearing rumblings that mainstream insiders are failing to admit that Sliwa is not only within striking distance, but could even be leading. We haven’t seen any numbers or proof otherwise to corroborate those claims, so we’ll treat them as noise for now.
Even so, Cuomo is actually the candidate who is throwing this race to Mamdani – not Sliwa. Sliwa didn’t have a primary since he was the only candidate who qualified on the Republican side. Again, Cuomo lost a very large primary in an upset. He shouldn’t even be a factor in this race had he merely been gracious in defeat.
Cuomo is upset that his attempted return to power was thwarted by a changing party. While we don’t agree at all with Mamdani’s platform – we think he would be disastrous for the city, in fact – we understand why he resonates with the Democrats.
He’s to them what Donald Trump (R-FL) has been to the GOP since he first came down that escalator – a chaos candidate who promises fundamental reforms and to be a champion for the little guy who has been long forgotten by the political machines.
Cuomo didn’t understand that the Democratic Party is going through its own metamorphoses – something he should have picked up on when it was that wing of the party that effectively captured him in 2019 and ended whatever centrist streak he had left. It’s why he won’t win against Mamdani in a two-way race. The Democratic Party, in NYC at least, is not only done with Cuomo as an individual, but done with his brand of politics altogether.
Cuomo should suspend his campaign to increase the chances of Mamdani being defeated.
Otherwise, his campaign slogan might as well be, “If I can’t have it, no one can.”
