Curtis Sliwa Sees the Crowded Mayoral Field as His Ticket to Gracie Mansion

“Andrew Cuomo is a creep, slapping fannies and killing grannies,” the Republican candidate for New York City mayor, Curtis Sliwa, said of one of his opponents on Fox News Wednesday night.The clip of the 71-year-old Guardian Angels founder quickly went viral on X. In it, Mr. Sliwa also attacks Mayor Adams as “damaged goods.”Mr. Sliwa is having a good week. A HarrisX poll released Tuesday shows him in a statistical tie with the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani, and a former New York governor, Mr. Cuomo. Mr. Adams trails in the poll with 13 percent support, with 15 percent undecided.Polling for the Democratic primary proved wildly inaccurate, and the few polls released so far for the general election show support for Mr. Sliwa ranging between 7 percent and 22 percent, from last in a four-person race to a statistical tie. Yet the new poll is giving Mr. Sliwa ammunition to counter calls — even from members of his party — for him to drop out of the race to help a moderate independent candidate, either Mr. Cuomo or Mr. Adams, have a better shot at beating Mr. Mamdani in November.“There is no price or anything that could be offered that would get me to jump out of the race,” Mr. Sliwa told The New York Sun earlier this month. “There’s no way you can get me out.”“Republicans, time to fight,” Mr. Sliwa said Wednesday night, rejecting calls he should step down. “Show some self-dignity. We can win New York City.”Mr. Sliwa says he can win the election in November with about 32 percent of the vote. He sees the crowded general election field — which is causing panic among business leaders over a potential Mayor Mamdani — as a crucial part of his strategy to win with a plurality.Mr. Sliwa ran for mayor in 2021 and lost to Mr. Adams with 27 percent of the vote. He says he won the Asian vote that year and has only expanded his base since. He thinks he can win Gen Z men like President Trump did last year. One problem may be that Mr. Mamdani cleaned up with Gen Z, millennials, and Asian voters in the election last month.Now that the Democratic primary is over, Mr. Sliwa, who won the Republican nomination unopposed, is finally getting some attention. A veteran radio show host, Mr. Sliwa knows how to speak to the camera in pithy soundbites, and his social media team is also upping the ante. He’s had several viral posts on social media in the last week.A native of Brooklyn, Mr. Sliwa is a longtime New York figure, known for his red beret as founder of a volunteer crime patrolling group, the Guardian Angels. Mr. Sliwa came up with the idea for the subway patrol group when he was working the night shift at a McDonald’s in the Bronx in 1979, when the city was in crisis.Mr. Sliwa’s signature issues in the mayoral race are crime and subway safety. He is promising to hire 7,000 police officers and expand the New York Police Department’s gang unit. When a sleeping homeless woman was burned alive by an illegal immigrant on a Q train at Coney Island in December, Mr. Sliwa mobilized the Guardian Angels to patrol the subways.“I am the only candidate who is on the trains,” Mr. Sliwa told the Sun. “Curtis Sliwa has the ability to go into neighborhoods where the only Republican they’ve ever seen is Abraham Lincoln on a $5 bill.”Mr. Sliwa is also running on an independent line he created called “Protect Animals.” Known for his love of cats, Mr. Sliwa is promising as mayor to protect bodega cats, prosecute animal abusers, and bar kill shelters in the city.“It allows a lot of people who would never vote for a Republican to vote for me,” Mr. Sliwa said of the ballot line.Mr. Sliwa says Democrats have become the party of the elites. With his thick Brooklyn accent, Mr. Sliwa is pitching himself as the mayor for working class, everyday New Yorkers. He calls himself the “People’s Mayor.”Yet it is the city’s elites, including Mr. Sliwa’s WABC radio boss, billionaire John Catsimatidis, who are calling on Mr. Sliwa to drop out of the race. The Sun has spoken with several business leaders in the city who say that the field needs to consolidate, that Mr. Sliwa has no executive experience, and that as a Republican he has the least likely path to victory in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than five to one.Despite this, New York Republican Party leaders are backing Mr. Sliwa. “We stand behind Curtis,” the Brooklyn Republican Party chairman, Richie Barsamian, told the Sun.When the Sun spoke with another of the city’s Republican Party leaders in March, he said the party was hoping for a crowded general election field to give Mr. Sliwa a path to victory with about 30 percent of the vote. They expected Mr. Cuomo to run as a Democrat, for Mr. Mamdani to run on the Working Families Party line, and for Mr. Adams to run as an independent, splitting the Democratic vote.What they didn’t expect was for Mr. Mamdani, a self-declared socialist, to win the Democratic primary and become the favorite to win. Now, business leaders, moderate Democrats, independents, and some Republicans are in panic. Some of these business leaders are backing Mr. Adams, while others say they are waiting to see how the race plays out in the fall. They call this the “ABZ” strategy, for “Anybody but Zohran.”“The rich and the wealthy who put all their chips on Andrew Cuomo are upset. They’re embarrassed,” Mr. Sliwa said. “They thought Cuomo would have a coronation, and they were telling me, ‘Curtis, don’t feel bad you can’t win.’”“Now I’m supposed to listen to you that Eric Adams can win or Zohran will win?” Mr. Sliwa said. “How about giving the good person a try.”

Curtis Sliwa Sees the Crowded Mayoral Field as His Ticket to Gracie Mansion

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