$5.4 Million Attack Ad and ICE Arrest Add Drama to N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race

This is The Sprint for City Hall, a limited-run series on the critical Democratic primary race for mayor.

It’s Day 4 of early voting in New York City, and candidates are jockeying for late-stage endorsements, even from each other. Primary Day is June 24.

Hi, I’m Dean Chang, the editor running The New York Times’s coverage of the mayoral primary. No matter how this ends, I remain convinced that former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo needs to be played by Christopher Walken in a biopic. Just listen to Stephen Colbert’s imitation.

In this edition of the newsletter, we’ll look at the major developments shaping the primary race’s final week, including an expected Marist poll, a well-funded attack ad and other endgame moves. And we’ll ask a critic to weigh in on the candidates’ go-to bagel orders.

The News

Cross-endorsements and a non-endorsement

Four years ago, Eric Adams emerged from a crowded field of Democrats to win the mayoral primary in New York City’s first brush with ranked-choice voting. Those upset with the result rued their inability to coalesce behind a single candidate, or work out some kind of mutually beneficial cross-endorsement.

This year is different. In the last four days, two significant cross-endorsements have emerged, both of which may help Zohran Mamdani, who is running second in polls. The first was with Brad Lander, the city comptroller, who is in third place in most polls; the other was with Michael Blake, a former state assemblyman running near the bottom of the pack. The deals seem to reflect a commitment by those on the left to elevating their best prospect and helping him defeat the candidate they believe would be the worst mayor: Cuomo.

Their efforts will be countered by Cuomo’s vast resources of union support, institutional backing and an avalanche of outside money from a friendly super PAC. Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor, gave $5 million to the super PAC last week; that same sum was then spent on an extensive ad buy for a 30-second spot attacking Mamdani. (More on that below.)

But there’s one thing that differs from 2021. No candidate can lay claim to an endorsement from The New York Times’s editorial board, as Kathryn Garcia did that year — helping uplift her candidacy and catapulting her to a second-place finish. This year, The Times editorial board is not making an endorsement in the primary; in its place was an opinion piece that covered what it saw as various candidates’ attributes and failings.

In the absence of a definitive endorsement, several candidates claimed victory.

Lander noted that The Times editorial board found he “exudes competence.” Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund executive, claimed The Times, “in so many words, endorsed” him. Cuomo recirculated some of the harsher assessments the board made of Mamdani, who, in turn, defended his populist proposals. “That is the opinion of 12 people,” he said. “More than a million New Yorkers will decide.”

More news:

Mamdani scored the daily double of progressive endorsements. Earlier this month, he was endorsed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On Tuesday, he got the nod from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Lander was handcuffed and detained on Tuesday by federal agents inside an immigration courthouse in Lower Manhattan. Lander had been waiting in a hallway to escort a migrant out of the courthouse to prevent his arrest by federal immigration authorities.

AD WATCH

Cuomo’s super PAC tries to take down Mamdani

A pro-Cuomo super PAC, Fix the City, is going full scorched earth to try to halt Mamdani’s rise before next Tuesday. The group’s new 30-second TV commercial seeks to portray the state assemblyman, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, as a radical. It twists a key policy proposal, mines his past statements and uses images of him in a kurta.

With $5.4 million in spending behind it, the ad will almost certainly be the most frequently aired in the race.

The Message

The ad, titled “Radically Wrong,” opens with footage of Mamdani, who usually campaigns in a suit and tie, wearing a white kurta and shouting at what appears to be a street protest. It quickly cuts to a clip of him from 2020 saying he was “quite open to what would be considered being a radical from a young age.”

What does that mean for New York, a narrator asks? A woman’s voice tells viewers that Mamdani has called for the city to “defund” and “dismantle” the Police Department and asserts that he “actually wants to move the homeless into our subway stations.”

“Zohran Mamdani,” the narrator concludes, “a risk New York can’t afford.”

Fact Check

Mamdani has denounced the ad as an attempt to “smear and slander” his campaign with Islamophobic dog whistles. (It came days after the leak of a mailer from the pro-Cuomo super PAC in which an image of Mamdani appeared to have been altered to make his beard look darker and thicker; the mailer was never sent.)

As for the TV ad’s policy claims, Mamdani did call for defunding and dismantling the Police Department on social media in 2020. As a candidate, though, the assemblyman has said that the department has a “critical role” in the city and has pledged not to reduce its size.

The ad misleads on his homelessness plan. Mamdani has proposed opening “triage” centers in vacant retail spaces in subway stations to help people undergoing mental health crises. It is part of a broader plan that includes hiring outreach workers in 100 of the busiest subway stations. But he has not called for moving homeless people into the subways.

Where It’s Running

The ad is currently running on New York City broadcast and cable television.

— Nicholas Fandos

CHARTING THE RACE

So many polls, so little time

The Times is regularly tracking the Democratic primary polls this cycle. Most show Cuomo leading but falling short of the 50 percent threshold after the first round, suggesting that the ranked-choice tabulation process will be needed to determine a winner. The Marist Institute for Public Opinion is expected to release a new poll on Wednesday. We asked Ruth Igielnik, a polling editor with The Times, to dig in a bit further.

What’s the big-picture takeaway from what you’re seeing?

Andrew Cuomo may lead in the field in the first round of voting, but under ranked-choice, the first round does not tell the whole story. A candidate needs 50 percent in the first round to win outright, and few polls have Cuomo clearing that bar. Mamdani has been gaining in recent polls. But even then, surveys that simulate ranked-choice voting show Cuomo winning in the last round.

Why do some of the poll results diverge so sharply?

Individual polls can certainly vary. Polls are conducted with different methodologies, at different times, and ranked-choice voting is complicated to simulate in a poll. But the broad story across polls we’ve seen has been similar.

What primary purpose do these polls serve?

Election polls help us understand the issues that matter most to voters and tell us how others in our community or country are planning to vote.

How voters are supposed to know which polls to trust?

At The Times, we keep a running table of all the latest polling in this race. Polls from “select pollsters” are marked in bold type and have a diamond next to them. These polls are from pollsters that meet certain criteria, including having a track record for accuracy and being transparent with how they conduct their surveys. We believe these are strong indicators of a poll’s quality.

Food for thought

Serious issues were broached in our “10 Questions With” series, in which we interviewed the leading mayoral candidates. But many readers focused on the less weighty matter of the candidates’ go-to bagel or breakfast sandwich order. The topic got some outsize attention after Cuomo replied “bacon, cheese and egg,” rather than the standard “bacon, egg and cheese.”

We asked a New York City-based sandwich expert, Ben Gollan, who runs food tours and writes a blog called A Man and His Sandwich, to weigh in on the offerings. Here are his top five choices, in reverse order.

5. Bacon, egg and cheese on a croissant, ketchup, salt and pepper (Blake)

Ketchup and a croissant? This is the answer you give when you’re trying to start a war with New Yorkers and the French. It’s so crazy that I just have to try it.

4. Plain bagel, untoasted, veggie schmear, tomato, onion (Scott Stringer)

Vegetarians vote, too, I guess. Still feels like it’s missing something.

3. Sausage, egg and cheese on a roll (Zellnor Myrie)

I’m a bacon guy so I’d be making a tweak there, but it’s solid enough (albeit risky to NOT list a bagel in a N.Y.C. mayoral race). Desperately screaming out for a sauce or condiment.

2. Lox, cream cheese, capers and red onions on an everything bagel (Jessica Ramos)

As classic as it comes. No notes.

1. Scallion cream cheese on a toasted poppy seed bagel (Mamdani)

This summons my inner “basic bitch,” and I love it. But check a mirror before getting in front of a camera. You’ll be digging those seeds out of your teeth for days.

For a more detailed look at the candidates, go over to our Who’s Running tracker. If you want to brush up on where the most prominent Democrats stand on various issues, we’ve got you covered. And if you want to find stories you may have missed, our mayor’s race landing page is right here.

Outside the South Slope Y, two early voters and no agreement

More than 94,000 people have hit the polls on the first three days of early voting, more than double the number seen at this point in 2021, although the pandemic caused many to file absentee ballots. Michael Wilson talked to two women in Brooklyn whose ballots could not be more different.

In the South Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, two voters who emerged from the Y.M.C.A. Armory on Sunday captured the sharp divide in the race.

One, Linda Gookin, a psychologist in Windsor Terrace, voted for Cuomo and no one else. Peg Terry, a retired general counsel with a Metropolitan Transportation Authority agency, filled out her five-person ballot with Mamdani on top and Cuomo nowhere to be found.

Gookin, 55, said she was a lifelong independent who felt so strongly about Cuomo that she registered as a Democrat to support him. She ticked off his to-do list: “The homelessness, the crime. You could go on and on.”

“He gets things done,” she said. ”Also, he has the most experience. I didn’t think anybody else was worthy.”

Terry, 75, viewed Cuomo quite differently, saying his election as mayor would be “the worst possible outcome for the city of New York. He hasn’t lived here in 30 years. He hates the city, hates the M.T.A.”

After Mamdani, she ranked Lander, Myrie, Blake and Adrienne Adams. Why Mamdani?

“I think he brings enormous energy,” she said. “Look, I’m old. He’s young and enthusiastic. He has wonderful ideas.”

What’s Your Ranked-Choice Ballot Look Like?

Kenice Mobley, stand-up comedian

Kenice Mobley may be more qualified than some to offer up her ranked-choice ballot.

Last month, Mobley competed in a ranked-choice contest of her own against five other Brooklyn-based comedians at Littlefield, a performance venue in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. She did not finish first, but admitted she was less than fully prepared.

She thought the event was a “Hot Girls 4 Zohran” benefit, and only found out about the ranked-choice format when she arrived. “When I got there, I was like, ‘Wait, what’s this show again?’”

Mobley, a registered Democrat who moved to New York in 2016, performed her regular comedy routine that night, along with the required addendum of a quick political platform.

She suggested that the city should enforce a tax on apartments that have been vacant for three months to discourage landlords from artificially lowering the housing supply.

Mobley said some of her ballot choices were easy. She liked Mamdani and didn’t like Cuomo. She said she arrived at the rest of her choices after taking a quiz on The City, the local news website.

She wants Mamdani to win, but even if he were to fall short, she said she would continue to wear her “Hot Girls 4 Zohran” shirt as a “commemoration of when we all believed in something.”

Photo of the week