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The race for mayor won’t really pick up steam in New York until after Labor Day, but all four challengers have issues they must address if they want to find the votes that put them over the top in November. Republican challenger Curtis Sliwa has an uphill battle in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Incumbent mayor Eric Adams has the taint of scandals and ineffectiveness on the job. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo looked lackluster and unenthusiastic campaigning for the Democratic nomination, and the man who did capture the Democratic bid, self-professed socialist Zohran Mamdani, has scared away many voters and endorsements with cries of everything from “inexperienced” to “anti-Semitic.”
What do the candidates need to do and what should the general public expect as the dog days of summer approach? 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program asked two veteran pundits who know the inner workings of city government well to provide their observations on what they see happening to their summer campaigning while much of the electorate is planning their summer vacations.
Joe Borelli is the former New York City Council Minority Leader who penned an op-ed piece in Tuesday’s edition of the New York Post about the dystopian vision he sees for the city if Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral bid is successful. He told host Larry Mendte that the Adams-Cuomo-Sliwa trinity must eventually whittle down to one choice to beat Mamdani. “I personally think that Eric Adams has the best chance and will be in the better position down the road; that’s just my prediction. But, whoever is leading of those three come late September, October 1st, I think there’s gonna be a lot of pressure to get behind one person. And even though the three candidates have not decided as a group, ‘Hey, we’ll all bow out for the person who’s in the lead’, I think the public is actually going to enforce that rule, no matter what they say.”
Joe Bartlett is the former WOR news director who covered all three of Mamdani’s challengers in his capacity in that slot. He figures Mamdani can win the vote simply by making promises he knows he can’t fulfill: “I see Cuomo staying in the race- he is tired. This is his last shot; if he doesn’t get this, he is done for the rest of his life. And I think people have grown tired of that old message that they get from politicians. They promise this, promise that, and then nothing gets done, and I think Mamdani’s tapped into that. There’s a lot of dissatisfaction out there.”
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