‘Stop-Mamdani’ movement may fail Cuomo despite recent Eric Adams endorsement

There was Andrew Cuomo, at Madison Square Garden, going wild at a Knicks game.

What was the deposed governor so happy about? He’s fresh off the final New York City mayoral debate, where he landed a few blows against front-runner Zohran Mamdani, but he’s still on track to lose the election.

Ah, but the appearance at an NBA game (the league suddenly tainted by a gambling scandal that includes the Mafia!) – was a photo op, with Mayor Eric Adams, who supported his old rival yesterday.

What if he called Cuomo a “snake and a liar” last month?

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Still, Adams, who had been indicted on corruption charges — until Trump’s Justice Department dropped the case — was down in the single digits. So his support might not generate many votes, although it could give Cuomo some credibility within the black community and among Orthodox Jews.

New York City politics is a nine-dimensional chess game, with shifting alliances, searing rivalries, and conflicting narratives. As a native, you have to understand the melting pot, the boroughs, the ethnic neighborhoods, Wall Street, Albany – it’s an asphalt jungle.

New York City mayors tend to become national figures – John Lindsay, Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg – by ruling over the media capital.

Think it’s a coincidence that Donald Trump, Andrew Cuomo, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are all from New York? Come on ! What’s crazier about you?

Mamdani, a congressman who started at 1 percent, should have been crushed by Cuomo, who led a lazy, legitimate effort and lost the Democratic nomination.

From left, mayoral candidates former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani participate in a town hall debate, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, in New York. (Angelina Katsanis, Pool/AP Photo)

From Harlem to Coney Island, Mamdani proved himself to be a charismatic activist. He will likely win even if Republican Curtis Sliwa, a former member of the Guardian Angels, steps aside, which he has no incentive to do.

So the race has morphed into a Stop-Mamdani movement, primarily because he describes himself as a democratic socialist who in the past has taken far-left positions, like defunding the police. Republicans would love to make it a national symbol of the party; Trump regularly denounces him as a “communist”. Yet even many Democrats worry that he will drive business away from Apple.

Cuomo, as the son of a governor, inevitably comes across as the establishment candidate. And Andrew, who I’ve known since he was 25, before running HUD, has the background of having been forced to resign following allegations of sexual harassment from 13 women – with Mamdani announcing that one of them, Charlotte Bennett, was present in the debate.

The unhinged Cuomo said no charges were ever filed. By the way, Trump did the same thing in a debate with Hillary Clinton.

Andrew Cuomo has also been blamed for nursing home deaths during the pandemic.

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The New York Times offers seven “takeaways,” such as Cuomo having “more energy” and landing “more blows” against Mamdani: “He never led anything, managed anything; he never had a real job.

In a classic New York critique, the ex-governor said Trump would turn on Mamdani: “He thinks he’s a child and he’s going to hit him on his tuchus.” (You can look it up. Mayor Koch once called someone an “asshole” and there was quite a debate among the editors about whether I could print that.)

Mamdani retorted that Cuomo would just be “Trump’s puppet.”

If you have the impression that the president is rather unpopular in his hometown, now abandoned in favor of Palm Beach, you are right.

The two rivals attacked Mamdani in Israel, with Sliwa saying his two young sons, who are Jewish, did not feel safe.

This is one of the key points of the Washington Post, which draws up five “takeaways”.

“He does not believe the country should exist as a Jewish-majority state and should instead focus on equal rights for Palestinians and Jews. In that debate, attacks on Mamdani, who is Muslim, seemed harsher, even though Mamdani insisted he would fight anti-Semitism.

Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani (R), Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa (L) and independent candidate and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo participate in the second New York Mayor’s Debate at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens, New York, October 22, 2025. (Hiroko MASUIKE / POOL / AFP)

Which brings us to a much more personal attack from Times columnist Bret Stephens, under the headline “Why Mamdani Scares Jews Like Me.”

It evokes lesser known positions from the past.

First, when Mamdani founded the Bowdoin College chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, he stopped cooperating with the left-wing Jewish group J Street, which supports Palestinian statehood and opposes Israeli settlements.

“Why? Because J Street supports Israel as a ‘democratic homeland for the Jewish people.’ This was too much for Mamdani… who, to this day, does not support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”

Second, Mamdani wrote a rap song in 2017 declaring his love for “the Holy Land Five…The Holy Land Foundation was an apparent charity convicted in 2008 of funneling $12 million to Hamas,” with the defendants convicted of terrorism and other crimes.

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Third, months before the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Mamdani introduced a bill “that could have jeopardized the tax-exempt status of virtually all pro-Israeli charities.” Stephens accuses the favorite of “monomania”.

This is no small feat in a city with the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel. But Mamdani has met with rabbis and some young Jewish voters are supporting him, either because they are focused on his affordability campaign or because they oppose the damage and death Israel has inflicted on Gaza.

And get this: Cuomo just released an AI ad showing Mamdani supporters as looters, drunk drivers as human traffickers. “Simply disgusting,” Zohran said.

That concludes this piece, right?

Sit down! There’s always more drama in the city that never sleeps.

Curtis Sliwa suddenly quit his job at New York’s biggest talk radio station, WABC (a rock station in my day).

Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa participates in the second New York City mayoral debate with Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani and independent candidate and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens, New York on October 22, 2025. (Photo by Hiroko MASUIKE / POOL / AFP) (Photo by HIROKO MASUIKE/PISCINE/AFP via Getty Images) ((Photo by Hiroko MASUIKE / POOL / AFP) (Photo by HIROKO MASUIKE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images))

“You’ll never see me at the WABC studios again!” he thundered.

Sliwa said the people he hired and trained were betraying him by pushing him to resign in order to stop Mamdani.

Billionaire John Catsimatidis, the station’s owner, who himself ran for mayor a decade ago, also suggested stepping down.

Sliwa told host Sid Rosenberg that WABC was biased in favor of Cuomo. “You’re going to lose and you’re going to lose badly, embarrassingly,” Rosenberg said as their screams grew louder.

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I don’t know why Curtis Sliwa would give up the job. But as politicians know, New York is a lonely, honking place where everyone takes turns getting angry.

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