This piece first ran as The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the latest developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. The election is in 89 days.
🫣 Is Donald Trump getting involved?
- President Trump is weighing ways to stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming the mayor of his former home city, according to a report by The New York Times.
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Trump reportedly spoke on the phone with Andrew Cuomo, who some of his advisers say has the best chance of beating Mamdani. After Cuomo’s loss in the primary, Trump said he “should stay” in the race and had “a good shot of winning.”
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Cuomo met with business leaders on Wednesday to argue they should boost him instead of Eric Adams, who is seen as Mamdani’s other most viable opponent.
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Trump has called Mamdani a “Communist Lunatic” and repeated false claims that he immigrated to the United States illegally. He has also accused the frontrunner and outspoken Israel critic of being antisemitic, saying, “He said some really bad things about Jewish people.” (Here’s our rundown of what Mamdani has said about Jews, Israel and antisemitism.)
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Cuomo’s campaign and Trump both disputed having a recent phone call about the race.
- Mamdani pounced on the report, saying that Cuomo was locked in “an audition for the best jester for Donald Trump and his billionaire supporters.” Mamdani’s campaign platform lists “Trump-proofing NYC” on his website, while Cuomo’s platform does not mention Trump.
⚔ Sparring over Cuomo’s Israel comments
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Adams is jumping on Cuomo for two different interviews this week that appeared to show him wavering on criticizing Israel over Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
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“He seems to be walking back a lot of things,” Adams said on Wednesday. “People just need to be true to who they are, and I’m true to who I am. I don’t want to see innocent people die here in our country and I don’t want to see innocent people die in Gaza, in Israel.”
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Adams and Cuomo, both supporters of Israel, are competing for a similar moderate base and gunning for Jewish voters.
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Mamdani threw his own jab, saying on X, “Andrew Cuomo couldn’t allow his first, tepid recognition of reality — that the Israeli government, with the full support of the Trump administration, is starving the people of Gaza — last more than a few hours without walking it back.”
💰 Following the money
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Adams was again denied public campaign funds by New York’s Campaign Finance Board on Wednesday, which said it believed that his reelection campaign broke the law.
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The board awarded Mamdani $1.6 million, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa $1.9 million and independent Jim Walden $237,000.
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But Adams isn’t short of cash — Empower NYC, a PAC backing him, has raised over $1 million after a $750,000 boost this week.
- Some of Adams’ biggest individual supporters are Jews. Gary Barnett, a top funder who donated $250,000, is the son of a rabbi and Talmudic scholar. Other donors include two Ukrainian-born Jewish billionaires, Len Blavatnik and Alexander Rovt.
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