It’s 93 degrees in New York, and despite the comforts of air-conditioned black cars, the city’s elite are breaking out into hot sweats over the real possibility that 33-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani will topple Andrew Cuomo’s front-running campaign tomorrow for mayor. According to a new Emerson poll, Mamdani could leapfrog Cuomo in the hypothetical eighth round of ranked-choice voting, since Cuomo’s lead has shrunken to just three points over Mamdani and neither of the men are expected to hit that 50 percent majority, kicking in ranked choice.
Back when I covered city hall for the New York Post, the progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio was their worst nightmare—in fact one of my big scoops was the holdup on his security clearance due to a prior life hanging out with Sandinistas.
After going in hard to support Mayor Eric Adams in the last election, who’s so disgraced that he can only run as an Independent, I can only imagine the panic inside of the New York Post newsroom today, and the frantic calls from Rupert Murdoch. They hate Cuomo, but everything Mamdani stands for—free buses, rent-freeze and rent-stabilized apartments, universal childcare, five city-run grocery stores, pro-Palestine, and at one time, defunding the police—would make their skin crawl.
Now billionaires, like they always do, are threatening to leave the city … but to where? Ron DeSantis joked that Palm Beach’s home prices would surge. But if New Yorkers can’t make it out to vote tomorrow in 99 degree weather, they are certainly not made for Florida summers.
Cuomo needs these same New Yorkers to withstand the heatwave for him, since early results show that Mamdani’s supporters are charged up and voting early.
So, how did Cuomo go from a months-long front-runner to a coin-toss candidate?
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