Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he's confident he could defeat Democratic Party nominee and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani in a two-candidate race for New York City mayor.
"I believe I beat the assemblyman," Cuomo said in a recent interview with Bloomberg News, as he pointed to Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist state lawmaker from Queens who shocked the political world in June by topping Cuomo and nine other candidates in the Democratic primary.
But Cuomo, the former three-term governor who resigned in 2021 amid multiple scandals, said in order to defeat Mamdani, there must be a successful effort to "winnow down" the current five-candidate mayoral field in the nation's most populous city.
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Nearly every recent poll in the New York City mayoral race indicates that Mamdani holds a healthy double-digit lead over Cuomo and the other contenders in November's general election.
Mamdani stood at 37% support in the most recent survey, a small-sample Siena Research Institute poll conducted Aug. 4-7, with Cuomo at 23%.
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Guardian Angels co-founder Curtis Sliwa, who for a second straight election is the Republican mayoral nominee, grabbed 12% support, with Mayor Eric Adams, the embattled incumbent who announced earlier this year that he would seek re-election as an independent candidate, at 7%.
Also on the ballot in the general election is Jim Walden, a former federal prosecutor running as an independent.
Walden earlier this summer proposed that an independent survey be conducted in September to determine which candidate would have the best shot of defeating Mamdani, with the other candidates agreeing to drop out.
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While Cuomo has partially embraced the proposal, saying he would drop out if Adams were ahead of him in pre-election surveys, Adams and Sliwa have not signed on.
"The people who are running - they are harmful to our city and the progress we've made. And I owe it to New Yorkers to get my story out to them and to run a campaign," Adams said this week in a Politico interview as he once again pledged to stay in the race.
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Sliwa, in a FOX Business interview Wednesday, dismissed "this idea of everybody dropping out" and argued that "if we debate the issues, we are going to weaken Zohran Mamdani."
Mamdani surged to a primary victory thanks to an energetic campaign that put a major focus on affordability and New York City's high cost of living. It was fueled by a grassroots army of supporters and backing from top national progressive champions, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
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Mamdani made smart use of social media platforms, including TikTok, as he engaged low-propensity voters. He proposed eliminating fares to ride New York City's vast bus system, making CUNY (City University of New York) "tuition-free," freezing rents on municipal housing, offering "free childcare" for children up to age 5 and setting up government-run grocery stores.
Mamdani, enjoying a lead in the polls, is now training his political fire on the biggest boogeyman in Democrat-dominated New York City - President Donald Trump.
The candidate this week is crisscrossing New York City on a "Five Boroughs Against Trump" tour.
"My administration will be Donald Trump's worst nightmare," Mamdani declared last week, ahead of launching the tour.
