Radical Communist vs. Trump’s Favorite: The New York City Mayoral Election

Photo: wikipedia.org

On November 4, the elections for the head of New York will be held in America. According to tradition, representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties will compete for this position. It is hard to imagine, but the US leader, Republican Donald Trump, called on the residents of New York to vote not for a fellow party member, but for a candidate who was previously a member of the Democratic Party. What is the reason for this strange phenomenon, who is fighting for the seat of the mayor of the economic capital of the USA, and who will be the winner – read in the article Briefly about.

Why Trump is already criticizing the future mayor of New York In the election campaign, after the resignation of the current mayor of New York, Eric Adams, three candidates remained. Democrat – 34-year-old Zokhran Mamdani. He calls himself a democratic socialist and is the main contender for victory. The second is the former governor of the state, 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo, a former Democrat and now an independent candidate. The third is 71-year-old Republican Curtis Sliva. According to the Quinnipiac poll, 43% of voters are ready to vote for Zokhran Mamdani. Andrew Cuomo has 33% support. 14% of New Yorkers plan to vote for Republican Curtis Slive.

On the eve of the election, Donald Trump made an unusual statement for American politics: he appealed to the city’s residents to vote for former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo. According to CNN, Trump believes that “regardless of how you feel about Cuomo personally, there’s no other option but to support him and hope he can pull through.”

The support of a politician from the opposite party, the Democrats, from the head of the White House, is explained by his extremely negative attitude towards the leader of the race, the de facto representative from the Democrats, Zoran Mamdani. Trump accuses him of radical left-wing ideology, calls him a “communist lunatic” and “a disaster waiting to happen.” As for Republican candidate Curtis Slive, Trump considers voting for him “equivalent to voting for Mamdani.”

Moreover, the US president threatened to cut federal funding to New York if the race leader, mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, “does not behave properly” if elected. And that’s a significant amount, since New York receives more than $100 billion from the federal government.

The president added: “If he wins the election and I remain president, he’s going to have to do the right thing or they won’t get a dime.”

Mamdani is a socialist among the democrats

34-year-old Zokhran Mamdani is the undisputed leader of the race. Photo: FB Zohran Kwame Mamdani

But who is Zoran Mamdani, who is causing such a sharp reaction from Trump? He was born in Uganda, in a family of emigrants from India. His mother, Meera Nair, is a famous Indian-American film director, and his father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a Ugandan scientist of Indian origin. Zohran Mamdani is a Muslim. At the age of 5, his family moved from Uganda to South Africa, and two years later – to New York. He received American citizenship relatively recently – in 2018 through the naturalization process.

Mamdani’s political career developed very quickly. In 2020, he was elected to the New York State Assembly. In October 2024, when he announced his intention to run for mayor of New York, many considered Mamdani an unknown politician with no chance of becoming the Democratic Party candidate. As a result, Mamdani won a convincing victory over his party colleague Cuomo in the primaries with a result of 56.4%.

Before starting political activity, Mamdani was involved in helping poor people who were threatened with eviction. Perhaps this played a role in the fact that the key issue of his election campaign was the problem of affordable housing.

Mamdani is a member of the largest socialist organization in the United States, Democratic Socialists of America. In particular, he favors a tax increase on the rich, raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour (from the current level of $16.50 an hour) and providing universal free child care.

Mamdani’s long-standing support for Palestinian rights in New York has put him at odds with the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. “Clearly, distinctly and formally: I believe that Zohran Mamdani is a threat to the Jewish community of New York,” said Elliot Cosgrove, rabbi of New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue.

Apart from politics, Zohran Mamdani is a fan of hip-hop. He used to write music in this genre himself. He supports several sports teams, including: New York Mets (baseball), New York Giants (American football) and English football club “Arsenal”.

Andrew Cuomo is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat

67-year-old Andrew Cuomo is a Democrat whom Trump is urging to vote for. Photo: FB Andrew Cuomo

Mamdani’s main competitor is 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo, three-time governor of the state of New York. A successful political career for Andrew Cuomo, the son of former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo (who served three consecutive terms from 1983 to 1994), was almost guaranteed from birth.

In 1990, Andrew married Carrie Kennedy, the niece of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Later, this marriage was often described as a rather calculated move to get closer to an influential American dynasty. Shortly after the wedding, Cuomo was promoted to deputy and later Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Bill Clinton. In 2006, he returned to his native state and was elected its attorney general, and then governor, a position he holds for the third term.

In December 2020, Cuomo’s former aide, Lindsey Boylan, accused him of sexual harassment. Cuomo himself denied everything.

According to information on Cuomo’s campaign website, his crime-fighting program also includes bonuses and incentives for serving and recently retired officers, an emphasis on retail theft, shoplifting and repeat offenders, and increased enforcement of traffic violations on e-bikes. At the same time, Cuomo advocates reducing mandatory overtime hours for police officers.

The third candidate in the election is Republican Curtis Slyva is an outsider in the election campaign and has no chance of becoming the mayor of New York.

Why is the position of mayor of New York so important? Considering that the population of New York is 8.5 million people and the annual number of tourists is 65 million, this metropolis is an important cultural and economic center. The city has many problems related to housing, transport and budget financing. New York City’s budget is $116 billion, and its mandate covers a wide range of issues, from school education to policing. The scale of the city and its global status mean that the mayor’s work is conducted both in the domestic political and international arena. Several former mayors of New York ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of the United States.

Source: kp.ua