Should Sliwa or Cuomo Drop Out of the NYC Mayoral Race?

Republican New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa has maintained that he will not drop out of the race, despite splitting a significant portion of the vote with independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, drawing media dialogue.

For Context: The socialist Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, who defeated Cuomo in the primary, currently leads both Sliwa and Cuomo by a significant margin in the polls. On Sunday, The New York Post (Lean Right bias) reported that one of Sliwa’s “biggest supporters” switched to endorse Cuomo because “it’s very clear that Curtis can’t win.”

Sliwa Gone Rogue: An analysis from The New York Times (Lean Left) focused on Sliwa as a spoiler to Cuomo and wrote that he “has finally and improbably emerged as a full-fledged protagonist on the city’s biggest stage.” The Times added that Sliwa is “one of the most prominent Republicans in America to openly flout President Trump’s wishes” and mentioned a Fox News interview from October 19 where Trump asked, “Is he really a Republican?” The Times also noted Sliwa appears to “harbor a special distaste for” Cuomo and disagree with his “apocalyptic view of a Mamdani administration,” believing that ultimately voters, not “billionaires,” should decide who is on the ballot.

Cuomo Drop Out: An opinion from Deroy Murdock published in The Daily Signal (Right) opened, “Political experts are right: Rather than today’s three-man muddle, New Yorkers deserve a clear, binary choice for mayor. So, Andrew Cuomo should abandon his campaign for City Hall.” He described the “allegedly moderate” Cuomo as “only about two inches to Mamdani’s Right” and argued he does not provide voters with a clear “Left-Right” choice, as he believes Sliwa does. Murdock spent much of his essay honing in on the “180 degrees opposite” approaches to taxation proposed by Mamdani and Sliwa.

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