NYC mayor’s poll tightens – if there were a 2-person race
Only thing is – it almost certainly won’t be a 2-person race.
The newly released report by Gotham Polling and the city AARP found that 44.6% of New Yorkers would vote for Mamdani if Sliwa quit the race, compared to 40.7% saying they’d back Cuomo — with a margin of error of 4 points that puts Cuomo within striking distance.
With all three remaining in the race, Mamdani would continue to trounce the opposition, taking 43.2% of the vote compared to 28.9% for Cuomo and 19.4% for Sliwa, according to the poll.
Notice that the numbers only add up to around 85% in the 2-way race. That leaves a lot of “undecideds,” enough to give a victory to Cuomo if they went his way. Notice also that if Sliwa dropped out, nearly all of his voters who would be “decided” would go to Cuomo.
However, Sliwa is adamant that he’s not dropping out, and I believe him. He seems to think there’s little difference between Cuomo and Mamdani anyway, as he makes clear in the video I just linked.
And it’s true that they’re both abominable. But they’re not identical. For example, I think that if Mamdani is elected, far more NYC police will quit than if Cuomo is elected, and crime will soar. And of course, Mamdani is highly anti-Israel. Now, maybe in a mayor that’s not so important. But it sets an ominous tone and is part of a worrisome trend.
I assume that a lot of you don’t care about New York, or even actively think if New Yorkers elect Mamdani they will deserve what they get. But I know many people who live there, and it’s my home town. I remember when it was a wonderful place, and not all that long ago.
As William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection says in a post titled “How We Got Mamdani,” this is the fruit of many decades of leftist control of education:
I think the left was very savvy and very strategic. They identified the weakness in our society and the weakness in our society is the educational system. And they understood that if they can get control of the educational system, they can change the country.
Indeed.
“And it’s true that they’re both abominable.”
“In Berber, Bedouin and Islamic culture, the Genie is generally considered a malicious being not because they do evil directly, but because they give those they afflict everything they ask for.”
NYC is a key city. While it is less true in recent decades, NYC is a major media and financial hub and that has a huge impact on the rest of the nation.
Plus, I was thinking about the terrible mayors in other major cities. LA, Chicago, and Portland.
The left uses all components of our governmental system to infiltrate, corrupt (eye of the beholder, it is true), and syphon off cash.
In an election several years ago, the trendy little town adjacent to mine stated that they had to raise taxes a lot because virtually all of the current tax dollars were going to pay the pensions of previous employees. Well, why the hell did you politicos let that happen, I thought?
You see, places like UC Berkeley train hundreds or thousands of students on how to be “good government” apparatchiks and then they embed themselves in local governments like the one in the previous paragraph. And folks like myself and probably many others commenting here, are focused on national issues and governance.
Our esteemed Democratic Left has embraced the teachings of Antonio Gramsci, a founder of the Italian communist party, who advocated the peaceful infiltration by the communists of Education, Entertainment and the Media. They did, and the Left has won.
Mussolini had him shot. So fascists are not all bad!
@William Jacobson: I think the left was very savvy and very strategic. They identified the weakness in our society and the weakness in our society is the educational system. And they understood that if they can get control of the educational system, they can change the country.
There is a name which goes with that.
After surfacing from the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers focused his life quite successfully in education with awards including Distinguished Professor University of Illinois at Chicago.
He has written several books on education.
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Teaching is always political. The question is not whether you make a political choice, but whether you make it consciously.
–“Teaching for Social Justice” (1998, ed. Ayers et al.)
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Guess which kind of politics informed Ayers’ teaching.
Math doesn’t work out. Sliwa will not be to blame for Cuomo losing to Mamdani, and disenfranchising Republicans is not the answer to a leftist electorate.
The three-way race adds up to 91.5%: 43.2% Mamdani, 28.9% Cuomo, 19.4% Sliwa, 8.5% undecided.
The two way race adds up to 85.3%: 44.6% Mamdani, 40.7% Cuomo, with 14.7% undecided.
Removing Sliwa increases the number of undecideds. Assuming that nobody in a two-way race changes away from their Mamdani or Cuomo vote in a three-way race, and that the originally-undecideds are still undecided, that means that removing Sliwa moves
1.4% from Sliwa to Mamdani (this must be an interesting group, but maybe Cuomo killed their grandmothers in 2020)
11.8% from Sliwa to Cuomo
6.2% from Sliwa to undecided
There is no plausible way that 6.2% who became undecided when they lost Sliwa are now all going to vote Cuomo. They may sit out. If they sat out, Mamdani would have 48.7% (= 44.6% / 91.5%) of the remaining voters, and he’d only need a small fraction (about 1/7th) of the three-way-undecideds (9.3% = 8.5% / 91.5%) to get an absolute majority! Cuomo can only improve with the remainder, and it’s not plausible that 9/10 of them would go to Cuomo either.
Most New Yorkers are going to like Mamdani just fine. This is who’ve they’ve become and trying to jigger the race into “an echo, not a choice” is not going to change that.
It’s too late. The Democrats rigged the primary and got what they wanted – a race between the primary’s top two. Dems win – NY loses either way. Gov Cuomo led to the conditions that made this race possible.
Incidentally, we do all understand that the 4% margin of error in the two-way race is just as likely to UNDERSTATE Mamdani’s support as overstate it, if the poll is accurate.
And so, there is a 50% probability that Mamdani would ALREADY win a 2-person race, right now, and a 50% probability that Cuomo would fail to win a two-person race without a miracle.
Maybe Mamdani could be found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, but these days that’s no guarantee, the Dems are lining up behind a guy with a Totenkopf tattoo in Maine.
I am a (now expat) New Yorker, and I must sadly say I am not so sure that New York is as important as it once was. A case could be made that New York has already been hollowed out by progressive Leftist policies.
Much of the financial business has moved out of the city due to real estate expenses, advances in computing and network technology, and other pressures.
Manufacturing fled long ago, again due to Left-wing policies. And there are any number of alternate ports of entry for international trade.
The educational system that turned waves of Irish, Italian, Latin, Asian, and Jewish immigrants into leaders in arts, sciences, and business – has been gutted by unionism and identity politics. It started when I was young in the 1970s and 80s.
I think most MAGA conservatives have already reached similar conclusions about NYC and other major cities in the grip of Dem machines. The masks really have dropped lately – with open encouragement of lawlessness and abandonment of residents’ safety to pursue progressive “revolution”.
What exactly do these cities produce that cannot be easily moved elsewhere, or decentralized? They are largely focal points for “the service economy” which can flee with the click of a mouse.
I really don’t understand the vehemence with which some people — probably not New Yorkers — hold the view that Sliwa should stay in the race. Sliwa has never been a serious candidate for mayor (in this race or any past race), he is just in it for the grift (public campaign funding is 8x private contributions) and the publicity for his crummy, mindless radio show. Even if Cuomo still probably loses if Sliwa pulls out, with Sliwa in there is no hope at all. And as bad as Cuomo is, the Hamas supporter from Uganda would be much worse — in terms of letting the police protect people from crime, in terms of taxes that will drive out business and hurt the middle class, in terms of destroying the remaining functional aspects of the school system (such as specialized schools and gifted and talented programs), and numerous other ways. There are millions of us in NYC who see the disaster coming if the Ugandan Hamas supporter becomes mayor and do not want it. We do not appreciate the smug ill wishes of outsiders who seem to look forward to that disaster.
What struck me is Mamdani’s defense this past week of his photo appearance with the radical imam connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He said it was only an issue because he’s a Muslim; all the other Dem candidates since 1993 have also made appearances at that mosque, he said. This tells me that Democrats in NYC have long been willing to pander to America-hating radicals for votes.
As I see it, Sliwa’s dropping out is not a guarantee of Mamdani’s defeat, but the prelude to the only possible scenario of Mamdani’s defeat (sadly with Cuomo’s victory).
The election isn’t being held tomorrow with today’s poll numbers.
Much can happen (or not) between now and election day.
According to Victor Davis Hanson, angry woke metrosexual professionals comprise the NYC swing vote which will give the election to Mamdani.
Could be.
There will be an education!
“With all three remaining in the race, Mamdani would continue to trounce the opposition, taking 43.2% of the vote compared to 28.9% for Cuomo and 19.4% for Sliwa, according to the poll.”
It speaks volumes when 72.1% of a city’s voters are willing to vote for either a mass murderer or a jihadist supporting communist. Cuomo’s past actions are known and to his credit Mamdani is up front about his plans and mindset.
Whichever of the two that is elected, those who voted for the winner will share responsibility for where the new mayor leads them.
People cannot be saved… from themselves for it is not our sins that condemn us but a refusal to recognize them as sins. A prerequisite to learning from them. The ‘ditch’ awaits them for the blind are choosing a blind leader.
I’m a New Yorker and a republican. I hate Cuomo.
I’m voting for him. My husband, too.
Of course, as republicans, we’re outliers here. But my crazy liberal brother and all the crazy liberal friends I’ve discussed the election with are also voting for Cuomo.
I don’t think it matters, but we do what we can.
MrsX, “but we do what we can.”
Amen!
And I’m impressed that your crazy liberal brother & liberal friends are also voting Cuomo.
There’s some thinking going on, in there!
I’m pulling for all of that to matter.
Because it does!
MrsX, Marlene:
Sometimes the lesser of two evils really is the lesser of two evils.
Of course, there is always the Cthulhu Option.
_____________________________________
The Folly of Lesser Evil Voting: Why America Needs Cthulhu
Reject Lesser Evil Voting and embrace the transformative power of Cthulhu. Discover why Greater Evil Voting is the solution to America’s political woes.
https://cthulhuforamerica.com/lesser-evil-voting-america-cthulhu-presisdent/
_____________________________________
Cthulhu isn’t on the ballot, but you can always write It in.
I despise Andrew Cuomo. With his lack of political talent, dreary establishment progressivism, grating personality, and political career based entirely on being related to a much more talented politician, he’s basically a male version of Hillary Clinton. All that said, and acknowledging that Cuomo was a disaster during COVD, I think calling him a “mass murderer” is a bit much. Given that the alternative to Cuomo as the next mayor of NYC is a cheerleader for actual mass murderers, the only prudent and honorable course is to vote for Cuomo.
As MrsX points out, Sliwa doesn’t have to drop out – Republicans can just ignore him.
And what Geoffrey said: “It speaks volumes when 72.1% of a city’s voters are willing to vote for either a mass murderer or a jihadist supporting communist. Cuomo’s past actions are known and to his credit Mamdani is up front about his plans and mindset.”
“NYC is a key city. While it is less true in recent decades, NYC is a major media and financial hub and that has a huge impact on the rest of the nation.”
NYC is only a key city and a media and financial hub because it is beneficial for those industries to be there. That has become decreasingly so over the years and many companies in those industries (and others) have moved to better locations.
If Mamdami gets elected, the city isn’t going to collapse overnight, but the speed of decline will increase and even more businesses and talented people will leave. With the loss of those jobs, that income and that talent base, the city will decline in importance.
In other words, it’s not the city that’s important, it’s the people in it. When those people leave, they’ll take their skills, wealth, motivation and abilities with them; the value will not disappear, it will just relocate.
“There is no plausible way that 6.2% who became undecided when they lost Sliwa are now all going to vote Cuomo.”
Exactly. Expecting a large number of voters who would prefer the Republican candidate to vote for a dedicated leftist if their preferred candidate drops out is unrealistic. A great many would just not vote.
“44.6% of New Yorkers would vote for Mamdani if Sliwa quit the race, compared to 40.7% saying they’d back Cuomo — with a margin of error of 4 points that puts Cuomo within striking distance.”
In other words, even if the poll is inaccurate to the all the way to the margin of error and in the right direction, Cuomo would still lose.
So even under the best scenario, Sliwa dropping out would do nothing except make the finish a little closer.
Final thing: I guess I’m a bad person or something because I hope Mamdami wins. New York deserves him, and apparently a good chunk of the nation needs a visible example of why it’s a bad idea to elect far left radicals to high office…or low office for that matter.
Remember when abandoned properties in Detroit were for sale for $100 and no one would buy them? The future of Manhattan? We can always hope.
@ Sailorcurt > “Remember when abandoned properties in Detroit were for sale for $100 and no one would buy them? The future of Manhattan? We can always hope.”
I hope that is NOT the fate of NYC, even under Mamdani.
So many wonderful public and private institutions are there that are NOT “portable” – Central Park, Carnegie Hall, museums and libraries in general. Many other things, but I’m not a native or even transplanted New Yorker so don’t have names at my finger-tips.
My hope, if (when) Mamdani is elected, would be for the decline to be so sharp that the Democrat voter base (aside from the socialist-communist-anarchists) gets bashed around enough to change their ways by the next election, before too much damage is done.
However, if it’s just a case of moving slightly more centrist (as with Cuomo) the decline will only be slowed, not stopped, much less reversed.
Silver lining: look at the cities around the world devastated by WWII and their come-back stories (mostly in Europe, but including Japan). It would take work, but could happen.
On the gripping hand, look at what the governments of those cities and countries are doing to get back (or stay) on the slippery slide to new destruction.
In the political cycle, it seems that the trope about prosperity-decline is not so much about “hard and soft men” as about conservatives getting things shaped up and in working order, then leftists tearing things down again.
When you have the largest teachers union in Colorado voting to “abolish capitalism”, well, there’s your problem right there. When a Marxist La Raza public school teacher in LA is threatening armed resistance to the deportation of illegal alien criminals, Houston, we’ve got a problem.
@William Jacobson: I think the left was very savvy and very strategic. They identified the weakness in our society and the weakness in our society is the educational system. And they understood that if they can get control of the educational system, they can change the country.
It’s been argued before (and for decades) that the entire point of the government-run education system was to set up just this sort of scenario. It is legitimately what Dewey and his fellow-travelers were trying to achieve.
Yes, the march through the institutions with education being on the top of the list.
This is all that Italian Commie’s idea and the leading “scholar” on Gramsci was Mayor Pete’s dad at Notre Dame.
Thanks Notre Dame!