If New York Republicans vote in large numbers to elect former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo as mayor between October 25 and November 4, the world’s largest city will avoid spiraling into collapse on many fronts.
New York City is home to 8.5 million people; 4.7 million of them are active registered voters and another 700,000 are ‘inactive’ voters.
Democratic Party registrants are the largest bloc, with nearly two-thirds of the electorate. Unaffiliated voters make up the second largest group, accounting for 21.1% of registered voters. Republican Party registrants make up just 11.0%.
FINAL STRETCH: MAMDANI’S BIG LEAD SHRINKS AS CUOMO GAINS GROUND IN NYC’S MAYORAL RACE
New York City uses “ranked choice voting,” which led to a final result in the Democratic primary of 573,169 votes for Zohran Mamdani and 443,229 votes for Andrew Cuomo.
Curtis Sliwa ran unopposed for the GOP nomination. (Sliwa was the GOP nominee in the 2021 New York mayoral election and was blown out by Democratic candidate Eric Adams, with Adams receiving 753,801 votes and Sliwa receiving 313,385.)
In the GOP primary for that year’s mayoral nomination, Sliwa received 40,794 votes, compared to the 16,719 votes received by businessman Fernando Mateo.
Even an eighth grader with decent math skills should be able to recognize that Sliwa can’t win. It’s not possible. There aren’t enough Republicans for Sliwa to even be competitive.
But Sliwa can hand over the leadership of the largest city in the world to Mamdani, who in my opinion is a clear anti-Semitic communist. Reasonable and even activist, hardcore conservative Republicans should hold their noses and vote for Andrew Cuomo.
No one thinks Cuomo is a great candidate, or even a candidate who comes anywhere close to the values of small government and lower taxes, combined with excellent police and local schools.
New York is already a high-tax state, with income taxes starting at 4% and going up to 10.9%, on top of which New York income taxes range from 3.078% to 3.876%. So the city’s highest earners already pay 14.776% of their income in state and city taxes. Mamdani wants to increase that rate to 16.8%, by far the highest in the country. Mamdani also wants to ‘de-commodify’ homes.
“If we want to end the housing crisis, the solution must focus on the complete de-commodification of housing,” says Mamdani. “In other words, we must move away from the status quo in which most people access housing by purchasing it on the market, and towards a future where we guarantee quality housing for all as a human right.” In other words: public housing for millions more New Yorkers.
Demographics won’t be decisive in this election: About 10% of New Yorkers are Muslim, 14% are Jewish, and 30-35% are Catholic. Mamdani’s refusal to reject the “Globalize the Intifada” rhetoric should ensure that the bulk of the “Jewish vote” goes to Cuomo, while Mamdani will likely attract a supermajority of Muslims who would like to see one of their co-religionists elected mayor for the first time in the city’s history.
Sliwa can’t win. It’s a matter of math. There is no serious political consultant who would tell you otherwise.
But Cuomo can. And you should – if you even care about America’s largest city.
Start with the obvious. Mamdani has headed a state legislature office, meaning he has overseen about a dozen employees. It is the only job where he has acted as ‘the boss’. (Campaigns don’t count because they run on donor money and taxpayer funding, not on a budget that must be met year after year.) New York City, by contrast, has a payroll of more than 300,000 people, including the New York City Department of Education, the NYPD, the Fire Department, and many other agencies.
As governor, Cuomo employed about 187,000 workers — smaller than the workforce in New York City, but much closer than Mamdani’s staff at the state office of about ten.
The mayor of New York City appoints the police commissioner and superintendent of schools. Imagine radical Mamdani forcing his extreme views on the NYPD and the city’s public schools.
How extreme are his views? Mamdani, to take just one example, said in an interview with The New York Times that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a war criminal who committed genocide in Gaza, adding that if the Israeli leader came to New York, Mamdani said he would seek an International Criminal Court injunction against Mr. Netanyahu’s arrest would honor it by having him arrested at the airport.
I only lived in the city for a while, now only visit when work requires it, but understand its appeal to young adults and migrants. But if they fall for Mamdani’s election over the promise of free bus rides, universal childcare, a freeze on rents for “stabilized apartments” and the creation of city-owned supermarkets, they are in for a very rude awakening.
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Public safety will be the first to suffer. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Mamdani labeled the NYPD “racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety” and supported calls to “dismantle this rogue agency.” Mamdani spent the summer and early fall trying to distance himself, but once he became radical, it should take decades, not months, to escape categorization.
Cuomo is certainly not the face of a new generation. But he’s also not about to let real estate values crash and capital flee to places like Florida and Texas.
At some point – and the election of a radical like Mamdani is indeed such a turning point – the people who can leave will do so.
It was an interesting primary – a chance to take down Cuomo for his many mistakes during COVID. But this election is for conservation, not social media. At least the former governor has some idea of how to run a massive operation and find normal professionals for the top jobs.
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New York City is too important to the country to conduct an extensive social studies experiment on it. Republicans, you can make a difference in the elections. Don’t vote for the destruction of New York City just because you would enjoy the laughs that a radical, left-wing Marxist would bring in its wake.
Republicans: Vote for Cuomo. If you are trying to sell your house or apartment if Mamdani wins, lower the asking price in your mind right now. The smart money won’t stand around and watch how things turn out under Mamdani.
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