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The race for City Hall in New York was a relatively calm and undisturbed surface, with Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani steadily maintaining his cushy lead in the polls over Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams. As long as all three of Mamdani’s rivals stayed in the race, that seemed destined to be the prevailing condition until Election Day finally arrives. Then came Wednesday afternoon’s announcement by Sliwa that somebody in the Cuomo campaign tried to bribe him to drop out of the race. J.C. Polanco is a political analyst and assistant professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to try and explain the shock waves Sliwa’s campaign strategy releases upon the campaign season.
“This campaign is over,” an apoplectic Polanco told host Larry Mendte. “This helps no one but Assemblyman Mamdani. The allegation of being offered bribes at this point of the campaign, without naming names or going to the FBI, is irresponsible and it’s calculated in a way that inadvertently has completely assisted Assemblyman Mamdani with his rallying cry that rich people are trying to buy the city… [And] Mamdani says of all the opposition, Sliwa is the one he trusts the most. Now, at this point, what are we talking about? Just shut everything off and let’s just call him Mayor Mamdani!”
Polanco continued to rant about how Sliwa’s allegations feel, at best, like a massive Hail Mary by a trailing candidate that misses the mark entirely: “This is an irresponsible move by the Curtis Sliwa campaign… This is over. Today’s Fox News poll is clear- the opposition can beat [Mamdani] if it was unified. This here makes it worse, so I don’t even know what to make of this.”
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