If Republicans in New York City vote in large numbers for former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for mayor between October 25 and November 4, the greatest city in the world will avoid a plunge into a spiral of collapse on many fronts.
New York City is home to 8.5 million people. 4.7 million of them are active registered voters and over another 700,000 are "inactive" voters.
Democratic Party registrants make up the largest bloc, at nearly two-thirds of the electorate. Unaffiliated voters are the second-largest group, accounting for 21.1% of registered voters. Republican Party registrants make up a mere 11.0%.
FINAL STRETCH: MAMDANI'S LARGE LEAD SHRINKING AS CUOMO GAINS GROUND IN NYC MAYORAL RACE
New York City employs "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 NYC mayoral election and got blown out by Democratic nominee Eric Adams, with Adams receiving 753,801 votes and Sliwa receiving 313,385.)
In the GOP primary for the nomination for mayor that year, Sliwa received 40,794 votes to the 16,719 votes that businessman Fernando Mateo received.
Even an eighth grader with decent math skills should be able to recognize that Sliwa cannot win. It is not possible. There aren’t enough Republicans for Sliwa to even be competitive.
But, Sliwa can hand the leadership of the world’s greatest city to Mamdani, who is, in my opinion, an obvious anti-Semitic communist. Reasonable and even activist, hard-core conservative Republicans should hold their noses and vote for Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo is nobody’s idea of a stellar candidate, or even one remotely 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 the state income tax beginning at 4% and rising to 10.9%, on top of which comes the NYC income tax of between 3.078% and 3.876%. Thus, the highest earners in the City already pay 14.776% on their incomes in state and city taxes. Mamdani wants to raise that rate to 16.8%, by far the highest in the country. Mamdani also wants to "de-commodify" housing.
"If we want to end the housing crisis, the solution has to be moving toward the full de-commodification of housing," Mamdani says. "In other words, moving away from the status quo in which most people access housing by purchasing it on the market and toward a future where we guarantee high quality housing to all as a human right." In other, "other words," public housing for millions more New Yorkers.
Demographics are not going to be decisive in this election: Approximately 10% of New Yorkers are Muslim, 14% are Jewish and 30-35% Catholic. Mamdani’s refusal to reject "Globalize the Intifada" rhetoric should guarantee most of the "Jewish vote" goes to Cuomo, while Mamdani is likely to draw a super-majority of Muslims who would like to see one of their co-religionists elected mayor for the first time in the city’s history.
Sliwa cannot win. It’s a matter of math. There isn’t a serious political consultant who would tell you otherwise.
But Cuomo can. And should — if you care at all about America’s greatest city.
Start with the obvious. Mamdani has run a state legislator’s office, which means he has supervised about 10 employees. It’s the only job in which he has acted as "the boss." (Campaigns don’t count as they run on donors’ dollars and taxpayer funding, not a budget that must be met year in and year out.) By contrast, New York City has a payroll of more than 300,000, which includes the New York City Department of Education, NYPD, Fire Department and many other agencies.
Cuomo as governor had about 187,000 employees working for him — smaller than the employee count in New York City, but a lot closer than Mamdani’s state office staff of 10 or so.
The mayor of New York City appoints the police commissioner and the superintendent of schools. Imagine the radical Mamdani imposing his extreme views on the NYPD and the city’s public schools.
How extreme are his views? Mamdani, to cite just one example, said in an interview with The New York Times that the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was a war criminal who was committing genocide in Gaza, adding that if the Israeli leader were to come to New York, Mamdani said he would honor a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Mr. Netanyahu’s arrest by having him apprehended at the airport.
I’ve only lived in the city for one stretch, visit only when work requires it now, but understand its attraction for young adults and migrants. But, if they fall for electing Mamdani on the promise of free bus rides, universal child care, a rent freeze on "stabilized apartments" and the creation of city-owned grocery stores, they are in for a very rude awakening.
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Public safety will be the first to suffer. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, Mamdani blasted the NYPD as "racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety" and supported calls to "defund this rogue agency." Mamdani has spent the summer and early fall trying to distance himself from himself, but once a radical — it should take decades, not months, to escape the categorization.
Cuomo is hardly the face of a new generation. But, he’s also not going to send property values crashing and capital fleeing to places like Florida and Texas.
At some point — and the election of a radical like Mamdani is indeed such a tipping point — the people who can leave, do.
It was an interesting primary — an opportunity to smack down Cuomo for his many mistakes during Covid. But, this election is for keeps, not social media. At least the former governor has a clue about running a huge operation and how to find normal professionals to staff the top tier of appointments.
New York City is too important to the country to conduct a vast social studies experiment on it. Republicans, you can make a difference in the election. Don’t vote for the ruination of New York City just because you would enjoy the laughs a radical, left-wing Marxist would bring in his wake.
Republicans: Vote for Cuomo. If you try to sell your house or condo if Mamdani wins, lower the asking price in your head right now. The smart money isn’t going to stick around to watch how it doesn’t work out under Mamdani.
Hugh Hewitt is host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
