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    Republican in New York’s mayor race: eccentric street vigilante who could secure Mamdani’s win

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    With less than a month to go, the race to be New York City’s mayor is continuing to fascinate and bemuse: and in an election that could have political ramifications across the country, it’s a beret-wearing, cat-loving vigilante who seems like he could have the final say.Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the crime-fighting group the Guardian Angels and the Republican candidate to run the largest US city, has little chance of winning the election in November. But his presence may be the thing that helps confirm Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist, as New York’s next mayor.Polling shows Mamdani, who was little known a year ago but has arguably become one the most talked-about politicians in the country, leading Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor running as an independent, by as much as 20 points. With Sliwa attracting up to 18% of the vote, an emerging theory popular among some of Cuomo’s wealthy backers is that Sliwa should drop out, allowing his voters to flock to their man.There’s just one problem. The 71-year-old isn’t going anywhere.“Curtis Sliwa never dropped out of anything in his life,” Sliwa told the Wall Street Journal, the Rupert Murdoch-owned, rightwing newspaper that has made it pretty clear it wants Cuomo to triumph, last week.Asked by others if he will exit the race, Sliwa has offered more visceral rebuttals.“A Mack truck hits me and I get turned into a speed bump, and they can’t recover me in the ICU. That’s the only way,” Sliwa said in an interview with amNewYork.It is an attitude that comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed Sliwa’s decades in public life. His role with the Guardian Angels – Sliwa wears the group’s distinctive red beret almost permanently – led to him being shot several times in 1992 after he criticized a mafia boss, and he stubbornly stayed in the mayoral race in 2021, winning 30% of the vote.Sliwa has never faced the pressure he has now come under, however, with Donald Trump and billionaire mega-donors calling for him to quit. According to Sliwa, some of the pressure has been of an illegal nature, with wealthy figures connected to Cuomo offering him money to drop out.View image in fullscreen“They all think that everybody has a price, that’s the way they talk. ‘Come on Curtis, everybody has a price,’” Sliwa told reporters recently. “Curtis Sliwa doesn’t have a price. I came into this world with nothing, I’m going to leave with nothing, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”Sliwa has avoided naming names but insists he has been offered “bribes”.“Seven different people, a total of $10m when you bifurcate it out over the years,” he told Fox5 New York.“Car, Jeep, chauffeur, headquarters to operate out of, helping the Guardian Angels, helping animal welfare – and you know something? If you’re watching out there, you can’t bribe me, buy me, lease me: I’m not for sale.”Sliwa accompanied his words with a chin-flicking gesture, which the New York Post translated as meaning “fuck outta here”. Cuomo’s campaign denied the claims and pointed to Sliwa’s track record with the truth, which has, at times, been patchy: in the 1990s Sliwa admitted he had faked some of the Guardian Angels’ crime-fighting exploits.That hasn’t stopped Sliwa from talking about the alleged bribes – and last week he began campaigning with a private security detail after he said he had received “very credible” threats against him and his wife.Whether Sliwa’s claims are true or not, the pressure on him to quit is undeniable.John Catsimatidis, the billionaire Republican mega-donor and a close friend of Sliwa’s, recently said he should drop out “if he reaches a point that he feels that he’s not turning it around”. In a separate statement last week, Catsimatidis said: “In two weeks from now, if he hasn’t shown any progress, how did Sgt Schultz say it? Machine kaput!”Joe Lhota, who was deputy mayor under Republican Rudy Giuliani, endorsed Cuomo, describing Sliwa as a “fruit loop” to the New York Post. Anthony Carbonetti, Giuliani’s former chief of staff, was more diplomatic, but said “the numbers aren’t there for him to win”. Bill Ackman, the billionaire who backed Trump in 2024, called out Sliwa directly on social media on Thursday.View image in fullscreen“A vote for Curtis Sliwa is a vote for Zohran Mamdani. Curtis Sliwa, it is time for you to leave the race,” Ackman wrote. “Every day you wait to leave the race reduces the probability of stopping Mamdani. I know you don’t want to hand the City to him.”Sliwa has responded to the attempts at coercion as one might expect.“I believe the people have a right to vote and determine who the next mayor is,” the Guardian Angels founder added. “They don’t get picked by billionaires or the professional political class. That’s not how our elections work.”Ackman claimed in his social media post that Cuomo could beat Mamdani in a “one-on-one election”. But it’s not a given that Sliwa’s Republican voters would automatically flock to Cuomo, who has criticized Trump and resigned as New York governor under a cloud after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. Head-to-head matchups show Mamdani comfortably beating Cuomo in November.Still, national Republicans want Sliwa gone. Asked about his fellow Republican in an interview with Fox and Friends, Trump described Sliwa as “not exactly prime-time”.In a typically chaotic answer, Trump said Sliwa “wants cats to be in Gracie Mansion”, referring to the mayor’s official residence.“The magnificent home of the mayor, it’s beautiful. Gracie Mansion, to me, is like a fabled place if you’re in New York. No, we don’t need to have thousands of cats living in it,” Trump said.Sliwa has not said he wants thousands of cats living in the Gracie Mansion, although he has suggested using some of the 11 acres the building sits in to house sheltered cats and dogs that would otherwise be put down. Cats hold a particular place in Sliwa’s heart – he and his wife, Nancy, have rescued and fostered hundreds of cats. When the Guardian visited the couple’s studio apartment in 2021 they were sharing the tiny space with no less than 16 cats.Given New York is an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Sliwa is very unlikely to see his Gracie Mansion plans come to fruition. But his willingness to defy the billionaires, and the president, could see him have a big impact on the identity of the mansion’s next resident. More

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    If a four-year-old can pronounce a name correctly, so can a politician | Arwa Mahdawi

    Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who is likely to be New York City’s next mayor, became a household name this year – but that doesn’t mean Andrew Cuomo knows how to pronounce it. The disgraced former New York governor, who is running as an independent candidate against Mamdani in the mayoral election next month, has repeatedly mispronounced “Mamdani”, even causing Zohran to spell it out for him during a debate in June. And Cuomo isn’t alone: Kathy Hochul, the current governor of New York, has also butchered Mamdani’s name, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has called the politician “Zimdami”.I’ve mispronounced plenty of people’s names; struggling with an unfamiliar word is perfectly understandable. During a recent chat with Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan, Mamdani said as much himself, noting he isn’t bothered if someone initially gets his name wrong. “What’s inexcusable, however, is the repeated intentional mispronunciation,” Mamdani stressed. More importantly, he said, his experience is far from unique: “This is the experience of so many … There are so many of us who are seen as if we are forever others.”Kamala Harris, who gave Mamdani a half-hearted endorsement last month, would certainly know what he means. Conservatives have long taken great pleasure in othering the former vice-president. “Kamala? Kamala? Kamala-mala-mala? I don’t know. Whatever,” David Perdue, who was then a Republican senator, said during a campaign rally in 2020. Perdue is now Trump’s ambassador to China, a job he’s clearly earned through diplomacy and respect for other cultures.Of course, Trump himself repeatedly mispronounced “Kamala” while running against her. Although, to be fair, he does have trouble getting his mouth to work properly and has botched basic words like “origins” (oranges in Trumpspeak) and “suspected”. Still, hard to give Trump the benefit of the doubt when, at a campaign rally last July, he said: “I couldn’t care less if I mispronounce [Kamala], I couldn’t care less.”As someone with a “difficult” name, I’ve met plenty of Trumps in my lifetime. People have no trouble pronouncing names like Tchaikovsky but act as if “Arwa Mahdawi” is beyond them. You know what’s funny, though? None of my four-year-old daughter’s friends have any trouble with it: they call me “Arwa” with zero issue. Pretty sure they could all pronounce Mamdani as well. It’s a sad state of affairs when preschoolers are more respectful than politicians. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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    Eric Adams says he’s staying in New York mayoral race amid dropout talk

    The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, announced Friday that he is going to stay in the fall’s highly anticipated mayoral race, just days after reports that Donald Trump was encouraging him to do so in order to help fellow independent candidate Andrew Cuomo gain more votes against the frontrunner, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.“I am running for re-election,” Adams confirmed to reporters during a news conference outside the Gracie Mansion mayoral residence.“There has been so much speculation, communications, announcements of what I’m doing, no matter what I have stated over and over again publicly. So I want to be clear with you. I am in this race, and I’m the only one that can beat Mamdani,” Adams remarked.The announcement came as the US president – a native of New York City – had reportedly been pushing Adams, who has been polling in the single digits, to ditch his campaign for re-election. Trump had reportedly even floated a potential ambassador post in Saudi Arabia to Adams in order to convince him to drop out.Adams denied those claims, saying Thursday: “I have never been promised a job.” At his renewed campaign pitch Friday, Adams did not take questions from reporters.He instead pointed at a mayoral polo shirt and said he intended to wear it “another four years”. He also insulted his rivals as “spoiled brats” who were not working-class New Yorkers like he and voters were.Sources told ABC News that Trump’s team has been hearing from Republican donors in the city pleading with Trump aides to get involved in the New York City mayoral race, citing fears that Mamdani, who has had a commanding lead in polling, could win the November election.There is a suggestion that Cuomo could consolidate enough support to challenge Mamdani if Adams – who won the 2021 race to become mayor of one of the world’s biggest cities as a Democrat – and the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, were to drop out of the race. The New York Times reported that there have been talks in the Trump administration about also finding a job for their fellow Republican Sliwa to get him out of the race.Mamdani’s team on Friday issued a statement saying: “Zohran’s running to serve New York, not do the bidding of an authoritarian president and his billionaire friends.“City hall should belong to the people – that’s what our city deserves and what Zohran’s campaign is all about.” More

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    Adams denies being offered Trump job in exchange for quitting mayoral race

    Eric Adams, the embattled mayor of New York, has denied having conversations with Donald Trump about being given a government job in exchange for dropping his re-election campaign.Politico reported on Wednesday that Adams has been offered a position at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, citing a person with direct knowledge of the offer. The mayor met with the president’s team during his visit to Florida on Monday, according to the person.The New York Times also reported that advisers to Donald Trump “have discussed the possibility” of giving Adams a position, in an attempt to thwart Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic socialist who is currently the frontrunner to be elected mayor in November.According to the Times, “intermediaries” for Trump have spoken to “associates” of Adams about leaving the race. Adams, who has proved to be deeply unpopular among New York Democratic voters and is running as an independent candidate, is trailing Mamdani in the polls, and is draining support from former governor Andrew Cuomo, also running as an independent.There is a suggestion that if Adams, a centrist Democrat, and the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, were to drop out of the race, Cuomo could consolidate enough support to challenge Mamdani. The New York Times reported that there have been talks in the Trump administration about also finding a job for Sliwa to get him out of the race.“Mayor Adams has made it clear that he will not respond to every rumor that comes up,” said Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams, told the Guardian.“He has had no discussions with, nor has he met with, President Donald Trump regarding the mayoral race. The mayor is fully committed to winning this election, with millions of New Yorkers preparing to cast their votes.“His record is clear: crime is down, jobs are up, and he has consistently stood up for working families. Mayor Adams is focused on building on that progress and earning four more years to continue delivering for the people of New York.”Sliwa told Politico he had not spoken to the White House and would not want a job anyway.“I have not been contacted by the White House, and I’m not interested in a job with the White House,” he said in a statement.“My focus is right here in New York. I’m the only candidate on a major party line who can defeat Mamdani, and I’m committed to carrying this fight through to election day. The people of New York City deserve a mayor who truly cares.”Mamdani, meanwhile, has been keen to underline his rivals’ associations with Trump, who is deeply unpopular in true-blue New York City.“Today’s news confirms it: Cuomo is Trump’s choice for Mayor. The White House is considering jobs for Adams and Sliwa to clear the field,” he wrote on X. “New Yorkers are sick of corrupt politics and backroom deals. No matter who’s running, we will deliver a better future on November 4.”On Tuesday a poll found Adams with 9% of the vote in the election – Mamdani was at 42%, Cuomo 26%, and Sliwa 17%. More

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    Trump casts home-town shadow as he weighs role in New York mayor’s race

    Millions of people will go to the polls in New York City in November, but in a closely watched election for mayor it’s a high-profile, highly unpopular former New Yorker who is attracting most of the attention.Donald Trump, who spent nearly seven decades in New York before leaving town after his first term as president, is the ghost at the feast in America’s biggest city, a looming presence as he weighs whether to insert his considerable heft into the race.In recent weeks, Trump has taken an increased interest in his home town’s mayoral election and is considering whether to back a candidate, according to reports. It’s a development that adds another layer of complexity to a race that has already seen it all: from the leading candidate, Zohran Mamdani, being threatened by Trump with deportation, to an apparent attempt at bribery via cash stuffed into a bag of potato chips.Trump had a phone call about the race with Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic New York governor and Mamdani’s rival, in recent weeks, according to the New York Times. It came as wealthy New Yorkers are seeking to thwart Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic socialist who delighted the American left when he defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid a sexual misconduct scandal, is attempting to revive his dream of becoming mayor by running as an independent.The president also has links to the incumbent, Eric Adams, who has benefited more than most from Trump’s re-election. Adams, a Republican turned Democrat turned independent, was charged in September last year with accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish officials in exchange for favors. In April this year, the justice department, headed by Trump loyalist Pam Bondi, successfully lobbied for the case against Adams to be dropped – a move which came after Adams took a more hardline, Trumpian stance on immigration.So far, neither man has successfully won over Trump, and a White House official told the Guardian that the president has said he does not intend to get involved. But the speculation of a presidential incursion just won’t go away.Trump has said Cuomo should stay in the race, and even praised Adams in a recent press conference – during which he also described Mamdani as a “communist”.“You have a good independent running: Mayor Adams who is a very good person. I helped him out a little bit. He had a problem and he was unfairly hurt,” Trump said.The intrigue comes as Mamdani, who has terrified New York’s powerful real-estate lobby and billionaire class by promising to freeze rent prices and raise taxes – slightly – on the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers, is on the verge of running away with the race.For weeks, polls have shown Mamdani ahead of Adams, Cuomo and the Republican Curtis Sliwa. A survey this week showed Mamdani winning 42% of the vote, with his nearest challenger Cuomo on just 23%. The poll, published by AARP, showed that Mamdani’s support would increase if Cuomo or Adams dropped out.Cuomo and Adams have shown signs that they may be open to Trump. In audio obtained by Politico, Cuomo told Trump-friendly donors in the elite enclave of the Hamptons that the president was likely to intervene in his favor in the election.Cuomo predicted to donors that Adams would drop out, and said that they could negate the impact of Sliwa, who has said Trump should stay out of the race.“Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani. And you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa,” Cuomo said. A spokesman for Cuomo, whose lawyer turned governor father at one point worked for Fred Trump, the wealthy real-estate developer who handed over his business to his son, Donald Trump, in the 1970s, told the Guardian the story was “overblown”.“The governor was asked what he heard to be a hypothetical about how it could become a two-person race and was speculating,” Rich Azzopardi said.“We’re not asking for or expecting help from anyone – he [Cuomo] also said the mayor would have to drop out and the mayor said he wasn’t going to. Governor Cuomo is the only chance to beat Mamdani and ensure the greatest city in the world stays the greatest city in the world.”View image in fullscreenStill, with Mamdani comfortably leading in the polls, and Adams and Cuomo seemingly cannibalizing each other’s support, the rightwing elite in New York are becoming increasingly desperate for a Trump intervention.The New York Post, the rightwing tabloid that Trump is known to read, sent a message directly to the president earlier in August, running an editorial with the headline: “President Trump, do what’s right for NYC and endorse Mayor Eric Adams for re-election.”But that wouldn’t necessarily be helpful, said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist and founder of Trip Yang Strategies.“Donald Trump is one of the least popular individuals in New York City history. Anyone who Donald Trump wants, supports, is automatically going to be a loser in the New York City mayor’s race. He is beyond toxic,” Yang said.Trump won just 30% of the vote in New York City in 2024, a remarkable low for someone born and raised in the city. Although, it does suggest he is more popular than Adams, whose job approval was at a record low of 20% earlier this year.Adams and Cuomo are deeply flawed candidates. Cuomo was plagued by scandal in his final term as governor, stepping down after he was accused of sexual harassment by 11 women, most of whom worked for him. He attempted to defy the odds by entering the New York mayoral election, and was originally the frontrunner, but ran an anonymous race, relying on tightly controlled press conferences over in-person appearances. Despite wealthy backers – some of whom had donated to Trump – pumping millions into his campaign he finished a distant second to Mamdani.While those corruption charges against Adams were dropped, questions remain over the kind of people the mayor surrounds himself with. Multiple people linked to Adams have been charged with corruption, and in a bizarre incident just this week, a volunteer on his campaign, Winnie Greco – who until last year served as Adams’s liaison to the Asian community – handed a reporter from the City a bag of Herr’s ripple potato chips containing a red envelope full of cash. A lawyer for Greco, who has been suspended by the Adams campaign, told the City that the money-in-a-potato-chip-bag ruse was a misunderstanding.“In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude,” the lawyer said.In a statement to the Guardian, Adams said: “I have not been accused of any wrongdoing, and my focus remains on serving the 8.5 million New Yorkers by making our city safer and more affordable every day.”Earlier this month, Adams left some wiggle room when asked if he would accept an endorsement from Trump, telling 77 ABC: “I want New Yorkers’ endorsement. I think the president’s going to make a determination on what he’s going to do in his race.” Cuomo has said he would not accept an endorsement.That’s probably wise given Trump’s unpopularity, but there have been suggestions that the president could weigh in behind the scenes, with the New York Times reporting that donors and allies of Adams and Cuomo have “pined” for Trump to intervene.Yang thinks that wouldn’t work.“Sometimes you could pull that off in a very local race that doesn’t get any attention. But look: the New York City mayor’s race, for us here in New York, this is our Super Bowl. Any type of private phone call, private meeting, it’s already shown that it gets leaked immediately to the press,” he said.“It would actually be net negative. It would be a good thing for Mamdani. You can buy a lot of things, but you cannot be associated with Donald Trump in New York City if you’re trying to win an election.”What is clear is that if the election happened today, rather than on Tuesday 4 November, Mamdani would win. And so far the questions about Trump’s links with Adams and Cuomo have seemed to be a blessing for the frontrunner.Mamdani responded to the leaked Cuomo audio this week, writing on Instagram: “This is not just a shady backroom deal by a cynical politician, it is disqualifying. It is a betrayal. Donald Trump is sending masked agents to rip our neighbors off the street, gutting the social services so many New Yorkers rely on, and threatening to deport me for having the audacity to stand up to him and his billionaire friends.”Mamdani added: “The job of New York City mayor is not to be a jester for a wannabe king, it is to protect the people of this city.”With less than three months to go, it remains to be seen whether Trump will move to select a jester, or whether he will leave the people of New York City, the city that spurned him, alone. More

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    Zohran Mamdani leads in fundraising for New York City mayoral contest

    Zohran Mamdani pulled in almost double the funds of his nearest rivals for New York City mayor between early July and mid-August, as the candidates prepare for the crucial post Labor Day push to the November poll.New York’s City’s campaign finance board said on Saturday that the democratic socialist, who won the Democratic party nomination in June against former state governor Andrew Cuomo, raised $1,051,200, with an average donation of $121 recorded equally from donors in and outside the state.Cuomo raised $541,301, with an contribution size of $646. The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, running as an independent, raised $425,181, with an average donation of $770. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa brought in $407, 332.Mamdani’s fundraising dominance is mirrored in a polling advantage. Last week, a Siena poll placed him at 19 points ahead of Cuomo, his nearest rival, who is also running as an independent. A 12-poll average from Decision Desk HQ puts Mamdani ahead of Cuomo by 13 points.Mamdani, who has proposed rent freezes on almost a million rent-stabilized apartments in the city, free buses and childcare, city-run grocery stores, and elevated taxes on Columbia and New York University to subsidize city colleges and trade schools, has been consistently ahead in fundraising over rivals.In March, he asked his campaign’s grassroots supporters to stop donating, and directed his primary campaign staff to encourage supporters’ focus to volunteering efforts. His campaign funds on hand are put at $4.4m, and his campaign is eligible for $2.2m more in matching public funds.Last week, it was revealed that the anti-billionaire candidate had received a donation of $250,000 to a political action committee from Elizabeth Simons, the daughter of late hedge fund billionaire Jamie Simons.Adams is barred from receiving matching campaign funds, the city campaign finance board having found he had violated related laws. Cuomo has begun transferring money from a $7.5m state campaign account to his city campaign account and has $1.2m on hand. Cuomo is in line for a payout of about $400,000 from public funds.Pressure on the two trailing candidates, Adams and Sliwa, to step out of the race is likely to increase next month, but both have said they are unwilling to do so.Last week, Adams repeated his resistance to dropping out after a close adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was indicted for allegedly running a political-favors scheme that included receiving seafood and an acting role opposite Forest Whitaker.Politco reported last week that Cuomo told supporters at a fundraiser he expects Republican leaders, including Donald Trump, to urge Republican voters to switch from Sliwa to stop Mamdani, whom Trump has branded “a 100% Communist Lunatic”. Mamdani has said he is “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare”.Cuomo said on Friday that “a lot is going to happen” between now and the November vote. “I don’t think the public even knows who the assemblyman is, what he represents, what his positions are. So I think the more they find out about him, the less they’re going to like him, and … his appeal is going to drop dramatically.”Mamdani, meanwhile, has accused Cuomo of lying about his coordination with Trump and says the former governor, who bitterly clashed with Trump while in office, is now seeking the president’s help.“It’s par for the course for Andrew Cuomo,” Mamdani said on Tuesday. More

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    New York mayor frontrunner Mamdani trains fire on Trump as Cuomo attacks

    New York City’s mayoral race is heating up, with Zohran Mamdani, the young progressive who leapt ahead of establishment figures in the primary to win the Democratic party nomination, appearing to widen his lead over his main rivals this week.Mamdani, 33, edged further ahead of the former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, with the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, far behind, in advance of the election this November to pick a leader for the largest city in the US.In a metropolis that leans Democratic, he was also far ahead of the Republican talkshow host Curtis Sliwa, and also another independent, the sky-diving former federal prosecutor Jim Walden.According to a poll released on Tuesday, Mamdani, who has been endorsed by fellow leftwingers on the national stage such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, held a 19-point lead over Cuomo, his nearest rival.It was however, a small-scale survey, in which the Siena poll sampled just 317 registered voters and cited an unusually wide 6.7% margin of error.Mamdani is a Muslim, which garnered some negative attacks ahead of the primary, and a member of the Democrat Socialists of America’s nine-member “State Socialists in Office” bloc in New York’s state assembly.Cuomo had been expected to win the Democratic primary, but despite his almost universal name recognition, he was beaten after being weighed down by an overly conventional campaign and a damaged political past having resigned as governor in a torrent of accusations of sexual harassment and bullying on the job.Mamdani was deemed on Tuesday by Siena to be 32 points ahead of Sliwa and held a 37-point lead over Adams, who has been plagued by allegations of corruption.With Mamdani as the candidate to beat, his credentials are now under attack and he has just four years under his belt as a state legislator. Cuomo has hit Mamdani for living in a rent-stabilized – or rent-regulated – apartment – where the rent is $2,500 a month when the market rate would be $8,000, while he earns $147,000 a year and is campaigning on housing affordability and calling for higher taxes for the wealthiest New Yorkers.Cuomo has accused Mamdani of “callous theft” and proposed a new means-test law, “Zohran’s Law”, that would control who gets to live in the city’s 1m rent-stabilized dwellings. The Mamdani campaign has said their candidate would have met Cuomo’s proposed qualify 30% rent-to-income standard when he moved in and was earning $47,000 a year, and described Cuomo’s proposal as “petty vindictiveness”.However, the Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said the issue was an opening for New York City voters who are leaning against Mamdani.“It won’t move the numbers for younger people who are the base of his support, but the argument could benefit both Cuomo and Adams because it makes Mamdani look like a hypocrite,” he said.Mamdani, meanwhile, has launched a “Five Boroughs Against Trump” tour of the city, shifting his focus to what many Democratic New Yorkers could agree is the common enemy, the Republican US president.Trump has threatened to intervene in New York – a threat made vivid with the national guard now patrolling Washington DC’s streets – if Mamdani is elected, and Cuomo posted that that was likely to happen and that “Trump will flatten him like a pancake”.Sheinkopf said Mamdani’s switch to attacking Trump was a wise political strategy because it deflects from his lack of governing experience. “He can be beaten but the problem is will any of these guys be able to figure it out? Cuomo’s numbers have to be much lower for Adams to win, and Adams has to pick up momentum.“The only way he [Mamdani] can get the Black vote back is offer a mea culpa that he made some mistakes early on but argue that crime is down, education and job numbers are up, tourist numbers are great, but what I need is more time to make sure 85,000 new housing units already budgeted for come through,” Sheinkopf says.Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, a state assembly Democrat whose district includes much of eastern Brooklyn, is among moderates who are coming aroundto the leftwinger and attended a Mamdani-led anti-Trump meeting on Tuesday.“Democrats, both moderate and progressive, are uniting around urgent issues like affordability, housing, and protecting our democracy,” Hermelyn said. More

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    New York City mayoral race: Mamdani leads Cuomo by 19 points, poll shows

    The closely watched New York mayoral and governor’s races appear to be forming into shapes that will bring little comfort to centrist Democrats, with both elections happening in November.A new Siena Institute poll released on Tuesday shows New York City’s Democratic socialist mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, leading former New York governor Andrew Cuomo by 19 percentage points – while the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik is chipping away at incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul’s lead in a hypothetical contest for the New York governor’s mansion in 2026.Hochul’s lead over Stefanik, who was nominated to be US ambassador to the United Nations before withdrawing to help Republicans maintain a majority in Congress, has now dropped from 23 points in June to 14 points.Stefanik has not officially decided on whether to seek the governor’s office, but she has been noticeably attacking Hochul’s record. The poll found that 49% of voters in the state said it would be bad for New York if Stefanik were elected governor.In the mayoral race, the poll found 44% of registered New York City voters backing Mamdani, followed by 25% for Cuomo, 12% for the Republican party nominee, Curtis Sliwa, and only 7% for the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams.However, Cuomo leads among Black and Jewish voters, two groups that Mamdani underperforms with. But Mamdani holds a towering lead with younger voters, leading Cuomo by 49% among voters aged 18 to 34 but trailing Cuomo by 6% among voters 55 years and older.Mamdani is the Democratic party candidate in the race. Cuomo and Adams – who are both Democrats – are running as independents.Tuesday’s poll also signaled that outside New York City, surveyed voters have a negative impression of Mamdani, with 37% having an unfavorable opinion and 28% positive. But Cuomo scored lower, with 61% of voters polled statewide holding a poor impression.Yet leading centrist New York Democrats, including the US Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, US House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and Hochul have yet to throw their weight behind Mamdani.“We still have many differences,” Hochul said two days earlier on Fox News Sunday. “I don’t know how you whitewash that away.”But she said she was willing to work with “whoever the voters elect” in New York City.On Monday, Mamdani kicked off a week-long tour titled Five Boroughs Against Trump, highlighting what he maintains are the dangers posed to the city by the presidential administration.Cuomo, meanwhile, is attempting to highlight what he sees as a flaw in Mamdani’s position on the key issue of housing and affordability.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCuomo’s campaign has pitched a state law to keep the rich out of rent-stabilized apartments that it calls “Zohran’s Law”. Cuomo has been bashing his rival for living in a $2,300 rent-stabilized, one-bedroom while making more than $140,000 a year as a state assembly member.Cuomo proposed that rent-stabilized apartments should go to individuals who pay no less than 30% of their income in rent to qualify. The Mamdani campaign has said their candidate would have met this standard when he moved in and was earning $47,000 a year.Mamdani responded to Cuomo’s accusation that he is too wealthy for his rent-stabilized apartment on Monday, saying: “I live rent-free in his head.”The Mamdani campaign also hit back in a video with insinuations of links between Cuomo and Jeffrey Epstein, the late disgraced financier who pleaded guilty in Florida to charges of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008.The video demanded that Cuomo release his list of consulting clients, noting the ex-governor once worked on a yacht marina project in Puerto Rico with Andrew Farkas, a former partner of Epstein on Caribbean marinas. More