My Most Heartfelt Sentiments about New York City and the Impending Mayoral Election

On Mamdani and the great emotional uprising that can’t get right to the point when it needs to.

This is not a predictions post. Unless something bigger and more pressing happens this weekend, I plan to profile the races in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia on Monday. These will be looser predictions rather than the hard-and-fast variety you’re used to in which I can use hard data and historical facts and figures to peg precise margins.

Rather, this is my gut on the future of New York City and an expression of my frustration with the political class as Zohran Mamdani closes in on victory in the America’s largest city. First and foremost, I love New York City. I couldn’t live there thanks to how I feel about spending too much time in concrete jungles and because of the politics, but I do love to spend three days there every now and then. There is so much history. You can stand where George Washington dug in against redcoats, zip over to some iconic restaurant in a matter of minutes, and reflect on exactly how you felt on 9/11 in one of the most sobering museums anywhere in the world. Lady Liberty sits right out there in New York Harbor, and for thirty bucks, you can jump on a ferry and ride right past her.

I most certainly do not harbor a sense of “you deserve it” for New York City; I do, however, feel a deep sense of frustration over all the clamoring and panicking that has been going on since it became likely Mamdani would take the reins from Eric Adams, the latest (and outgoing) corrupt Democrat to run the Big Apple.

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Why Am I Frustrated?

Simply put, I am tired of drama and perhaps even more tired of ideology getting in the way of practical solutions. I have heard it all about Mamdani:

• He’s a radical who will bring about Islam’s conquest of America

• He’s a communist who will further destroy New York

• He’s ultimately going to be good for New York and America because he will show how bad their platform is

• He’s what New Yorkers deserve

I will not be entering into the current right-wing holy war in this article, but I’m sure that time is coming. There is plenty of fodder here to write a novel about, but let me make it simple. My military mind immediately goes to, “so which one is the problem?”

If Mamdani is an existential threat, like the asteroid the size of Texas in the movie Armageddon, then there is no ideology, conservative, liberal, or otherwise, that should get in the way of making sure anyone, including grandma-killing Andrew Cuomo, beats him out for the top spot. We can push Cuomo or another guy out in four years if necessary as long as we don’t usher in the end of New York.

The major irritant for me is that this is what the messaging is, but no one wants to act on a legitimate solution. If Mamdani is the existential threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness the consultants say he is, then the only way to stop him is a two-man race. Polls suck, but I’ve learned how to read what is accurate in them and what is not. When they all group together, and different outlets arrive at the same conclusions (that Mamdani has generally less than 50% support in polls but always is at least in the mid-40s, with his opponents combining for over 40%), then I tend to believe they have the pulse of what is going on. Here are three prime examples out of many:

All three of those polls released on Wednesday. Emerson is the outlier, but the reason is not so much Mamdani’s support as it is measuring Cuomo lower than the other two. Either way, Mamdani doesn’t have a commanding margin. Here is what these pollsters have if we were to combine Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa into one candidate (“not Mamdani”):

• Fox News: Mamdani +1

• The Hill/Emerson: Mamdani +4

• Marist: Tie

There is no reason to think Andrew Cuomo is anything in this race other than “not as bad” as Mamdani. There certainly is no reason to vote for him, but only against Mamdani, especially if you are a right-wing/conservative/MAGA American like most people that read this newsletter. Then there is Curtis Sliwa, who doesn’t owe it to anyone to be the guy to drop out. But let’s be realistic here:

Then there is the problem that New York City rolled out like this for party registration in the 2024 presidential election:

• Bronx: D+64.3%

• Brooklyn: D+59.4%

• Manhattan: D+62.5%

• Queens: D+48.8%

• Staten Island: D+6.4%

Staten Island (Richmond County) votes heavily Republican, but the others are still big-time Democrat margin counties even with the solid Trump trend in some of them, especially Queens and the Bronx, over the past two presidential cycles:

Rudy Giuliani was a crime-fighter who became an icon after 9/11. Bloomberg used his fortune to make himself a viable Republican (who later turned Democrat) candidate for mayor. Sliwa comes decades too late to be a viable threat to the seat.

What I’m trying to say here is that Sliwa isn’t going to win. Sorry, but the analysis is clear, and I am trusting you’re not reading this column so I can tell you what you want to hear. I am telling you what you need to hear so you can reconcile reality with what is likely to be the outcome next Tuesday. If Mamdani is truly the threat to society the consultants say he is (and he might be), then every multi-millionaire and tycoon in New York City should have met immediately after Mamdani won the primary in June to decide which single candidate would be his opponent in November. They would have decided on Cuomo, or possibly the incumbent, Adams.

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The Root of the Problem

Being upset that New York City isn’t going to suddenly reverse course and turn completely red, which is a decade-long process for an urban area at minimum (see Miami-Dade County), to elect Curtis Sliwa is about as ridiculous as expecting a German Shepherd to hop down from a meat wagon so he can eat the head of lettuce you’re holding.