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In a city in which the overwhelming majority of voters are registered Democrats, the Republican candidates are often the forgotten option in the field. The 2025 election appears to be heading in much the same fashion, as mayor Eric Adams, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, and City Councilman Zohran Mamdani all have the attention of a sizable chunk of potential voters in the early polls. However, the candidate who went toe-to-toe with Eric Adams in 2021 is throwing his hat- or beret- back in the ring. Curtis Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels in 1980, has raised a platform pledging safer subways. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to highlight why he feels his message will get through to voters in November.
Sliwa laid out his case to host Larry Mendte to separate himself from the Democratic pack: “You’re talking about three Democrats [Adams, Cuomo and Mamdani] who are going to be going at one another, and I’m opposed to almost everything that they’re in favor of, so you almost have to look at me. You mentioned congestion pricing- they’re all for congestion pricing. I’m the only one opposed to it. Andrew Cuomo is the author, the godfather, of no-cash bail; he doubled-down on it a week ago!”
Sliwa also pushed his ability to make the subway safer, which has been stressed by federal authorities as integral to keeping funding: “[The MTA has] cooked the books. There’s not a man or woman or a child in New York City who thinks it’s safer in their neighborhood or safer in the subways. So, you can stop making arrests and it makes your figures look good in the books, and you can tout the fact that crime is at an all-time low level- nobody believes that. And the only one who’s ever fought crime, the only one who knows how to bring crime down, is Curtis Sliwa.”
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