Most New Yorkers think the race for mayor is a three-way contest among Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa. But voters will find two other candidates on the ballot who they likely never have heard of: Irene Estrada and Joseph Hernandez.
Ms. Estrada, the Conservative Party candidate, and Mr. Hernandez, who founded an independent “Quality of Life” party, do not even show up in most polls, but they are committed to seeing the race through. “No. 1, I’m not a quitter,” Ms. Estrada said in an interview. “And No. 2, I don’t surrender.”
(Two other candidates are listed but not running: Mayor Eric Adams and Jim Walden, a lawyer, dropped out of the race too late to be removed from the ballot.)
Though Ms. Estrada, 66, had considered herself a “lifelong Democrat,” she has moved rightward in recent years and accepted an invitation from the Conservative Party to run on its ballot line after another potential candidate dropped out, she said.
Ms. Estrada, a nondenominational Christian minister, said she supported reversing the Bail Reform Act of 2019, which eliminated bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies in New York State. She also said she would terminate New York City’s “sanctuary city” status for four years to stem what she called “this issue of being indoctrinated by all these foreigners.”
With Election Day four days away, her campaign has raised $810 — by contrast, Mr. Mamdani has raised $17 million, and Mr. Cuomo $14 million — and she has spent some of it on posters and business cards.
Ms. Estrada, who is from Texas but has lived in the Bronx for decades, said she was also running to serve as a foil for the progressive Mr. Mamdani, who was himself a long-shot candidate before becoming the race’s front-runner.
“That’s my goal,” Ms. Estrada said. “To get more information out there about me so that people will know that I am on the ballot, so they will vote for me instead of Mamdani.”
Mr. Hernandez, 53, who founded an investment firm, Blue Water Venture Partners, and lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, said he was inspired to run because of his negative personal experience with communism, which he associates with Mr. Mamdani’s campaign. (Mr. Mamdani is a democratic socialist but not a communist.) Mr. Hernandez’s father was imprisoned in Cuba before the family fled to the United States in 1980, when Mr. Hernandez was 7.
“When Zohran was gaining momentum, I had lunch with a friend of mine,” Mr. Hernandez said. “She thought I would be a great counter to that story.”
Mr. Hernandez is a registered Republican but takes a liberal stance on social issues. If elected, he said, he would add 10,000 police officers, more than Mr. Sliwa and Mr. Cuomo have proposed.
To make the city more affordable, Mr. Hernandez said, he would convert office space into housing. And he would use artificial intelligence widely, for purposes ranging from detecting potholes that need filling to garbage cans that need emptying. “A.I. can really solve a lot of our problems,” he said.
Mr. Hernandez’s campaign has raised nearly $270,000, including $220,000 in loans from him. The funds have been spent on campaign literature and political consulting, he said.
Mr. Hernandez said he did not plan to abandon the race. “I don’t quit,” he said. “I’m an immigrant. I’ve been in last place my whole life, and I always find a way to make something positive out of these situations.”
Ms. Estrada’s name will appear third on the ballot, ahead of Mr. Cuomo’s, because the order of names on a general election ballot is determined by the candidate’s party’s performance in the last election for governor. Mr. Hernandez is listed last.
Camille Baker is a Times reporter covering New York City and its surrounding areas.
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