On Erev Election Day, NYC mayoral candidates make their last pitches to Jewish voters

This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Tomorrow is the election.

As you get ready to vote, read how Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa answered our questions about Jewish New Yorkers.

✅ Tomorrow is Election Day

• The candidates appealed to Jewish voters on Sunday as early voting ended. More than 735,000 New Yorkers have already voted, the highest in-person turnout ever for a non-presidential election in the city.

• Cuomo told Orthodox Jewish radio host Zev Brenner, “There’s been no one who’s been closer to Israel and the Jewish community than me. Maybe my father, but let’s call it a tie. I will be there to protect the Jewish community in a way no one else can or will.”

• Cuomo also said the election presented a “pivotal moment” for attitudes toward antisemitism in New York. “All eyes are on this race. It’s a statement to the Jewish community to say, ‘We’re not going to allow this kind of antisemitism to go unanswered.’ You answer the antisemitism on Election Day, at the voting booth,” he said.

• Mamdani gave his closing message to Jewish New Yorkers on MSNBC. “There’s no room for antisemitism in this city, and it’s a scourge that I would root out of the five boroughs as someone who will be leading the entirety of the city,” he said.

• Mamdani acknowledged his own divisiveness in Jewish families through a story about meeting a Jewish speech therapist on the M57 bus. The woman said her daughter phone-banked for Mamdani from college, but she herself had questions about his views of Israel and antisemitism.

• Mamdani said his critical stance on Israel would not prevent him from protecting and celebrating Jewish New Yorkers regardless of their own views. “I’ve made clear my thoughts on Israel and Palestine, and I’m also running to be a leader of this city, and that means leading everyone no matter their opinions on that subject or any subject,” he said.

• Mamdani also aired an ad in Arabic, a first in New York City mayoral politics, and was clocked by a Jewish anti-Zionist influencer at a bar during one of his all-night campaign jaunts.

• Meanwhile, Sliwa visited the Ohel of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known by Chabad-Lubavitch Jews as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, to “pray for strength, wisdom, and the blessing to finish this journey in a meaningful way.”

• Sliwa posted about his “deeply personal” relationship with the Rebbe, starting with the Crown Heights riots of 1991, when the Rebbe gave him two “Rebbe Dollars” for charity and a blessing. “One of those blessings saved my life during a shooting. That kind of protection changes you,” said Sliwa.

• Sunday saw a surge of voters under 35, bringing the median age of early in-person voters down to 50. Recent polling suggests that Cuomo and Mamdani are tied for voters between 50 and 64, while Mamdani leads significantly with younger voters and Cuomo leads slightly with voters over 65.

😎 Cameos

• The Jewish actor Wallace Shawn, who has been involved in Jewish Voice for Peace, was clocked while canvassing for Mamdani on Sunday.

• Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of England’s Labour Party who was expelled from his party amid an antisemitism scandal, led a phone banking session on Mamdani’s behalf for the Democratic Socialists of America on Sunday.

🎙 Rabbinic discourse continues

• Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, one of the city’s most prominent rabbis who leads Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, pointedly criticized Mamdani on Friday night.

• “I fear living in a city, and a nation, where anti-Zionist rhetoric is normalized and contagious,” Buchdahl said during services at her synagogue, one of the country’s largest Reform congregations. “Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism.”

• Buchdahl cited a 2023 remark in which Mamdani said the NYPD had learned aggressive policing tactics from the Israeli army, as well as his past reluctance to label Hamas a terrorist group.

• Buchdahl continued to reject calls from some in the Jewish community to make a political endorsement, a demand that has placed intense pressure on her and other New York rabbis in recent weeks.

• She lamented tensions between Jews over the race, saying that internal litmus tests resulted in “pitting Jew against Jew, rabbi against rabbi.”

📊 Numbers to know

• A new poll from AtlasIntel found Mamdani’s lead narrowing to 40.6% of voters, followed by Cuomo with 34% and Sliwa with 24.1%.

• The survey is the first to give Mamdani a single-digit edge, though others have shown the race tightening.

🕍 Satmar leaders split

• Satmar Hasidic leaders, representing an ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn, have split over Mamdani.

• Rabbi Moshe Indig, a political leader of the Satmar sect known as the Ahronim, endorsed Mamdani at a meeting in Williamsburg on Sunday. Indig and Mamdani were also joined by Lincoln Restler, a Jewish New York City Councilmember.

• But hours later, three other Ahronim leaders rejected the move and issued their own endorsement of Cuomo. “Across the board, the progressive movement’s crusading agenda is a threat to our ability to live as Torah Jews and educate our children with the same values,” said a joint statement from Cheskel Berkowitz, Avrum Brach, and Shulem Yitzchok Jacobowitz.

• Another Satmar faction, the Zalis, said it would not endorse a candidate last week. The group also said, “We feel compelled to distance ourselves from the irresponsible scare campaign and incitement against Zohran Mamdani.”

📺 SNL spoofs the candidates’ bagel orders

• SNL took aim at Cuomo’s efforts to mobilize Jewish voters in a parody of the mayoral debates.

• Cuomo was played by actor Miles Teller, who has Russian Jewish ancestry. Asked for his bagel order, Teller replied, “I swear to God I am not saying this to pander to Jewish voters, but it’s a latke schmeared with gefilte fish, eaten in a booth next to Barbra Streisand by the light of a menorah.”

• Comedian Ramy Youssef played Zohran Mamdani and dodged the same question, saying, “What I’d like is for the person serving me that bagel to be paid a living wage.” Youssef, who has Egyptian parents and filmed his award-winning show “Ramy” in Israel, has previously expressed support for Palestinians and Israeli hostages on SNL.

• Sliwa was played by comedian Shane Gillis, who spoofed Sliwa’s wacky New York City tales before answering the bagel question. “Obviously, blueberry bagel toasted on strawberry cream cheese, eaten over a garbage can,” he said.

👀 President watch

• President Donald Trump reluctantly said he would choose Cuomo over Mamdani in an interview on “60 minutes” on Sunday.

• “I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other, but if it’s going to be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you,” he said.

• Asked how he felt about Mamdani being a left-wing version of him, Trump said, “I think I’m a much better-looking person than him, right?”

• Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama called Mamdani on Saturday. He praised Mamdani’s campaign and offered to be a “sounding board” in the future, reported The New York Times.

• Obama has not made an endorsement, but the call signals Mamdani’s growing support among Democratic leaders. Mamdani’s campaign has drawn comparisons to the former president’s 2008 race for energizing a generation of younger voters with the promise of change.

💰 Following the money

• Billionaire former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has endorsed Cuomo, gave $3.5 million to the anti-Mamdani PAC For Our City along with $1.5M to the pro-Cuomo Fix the City PAC last week, making him the largest single donor of the general election.