The first woman I meet at Andrew Cuomo’s Election Night watch party at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan tells me that if he wins, she’s “going to the Four Seasons and jumping in the pool.” Her name is Monique Silberman, an Upper East Sider who is drinking beer from a wine glass, careful not to smudge her red lipstick. Around us, the ballroom is slowly filling with tight suits, minidresses, and regional accents thick enough to make me feel like I’ve wandered into an episode of The Sopranos. Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” blares from the speakers.
“I’m a longtime New Yorker, and I feel like we have to support Cuomo,” Silberman shouts over the music. “I love him. He’s a great candidate, and he’s the best one on the ticket.” She’s perched at a round table draped with black linen, a small cone of popcorn, and a Cuomo cookie in front of her. “If Mamdani wins, I hope to tweak his ideas.”
It’s 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, a good hour and a half before the Associated Press announces that 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani has been elected mayor. I’m with camp Cuomo, as friends, canvassers and supporters of the former governor anxiously wait for the results to come in. The subway was unusually quiet on the way over, and the Empire State Building — illuminated in red, white, and blue—felt like the only palpable reminder that New York could be on the brink of monumental change. Past the red ropes, and up two flights of velvet carpeted stairs, though, spirits were high.
“Cuomo is going to win,” I hear one man tell his friend. “I’ve lost so much weight,” another woman on my left gushes. She’s wearing Chanel heels.
Victoria Aronow, also from the Upper East Side, echoes the confidence. When I ask her what she’d do if Mamdani becomes mayor, she doesn’t flinch. “We already have a plan in place for moving out,” she says.
“We’re going to go to New Jersey for now. We already have half of our businesses here, half is there. We’ll go there, and then we’ll find where we’re going to move. We can’t live like this.”
As the night goes on, the polls aren’t looking good for Cuomo but this doesn’t seem to register with the crowd. By now, the ballroom is packed, some guests cluster around the bar, others sit at tables and many saunter across the room scanning for familiar faces. “NY loves Cuomo” signs plaster every surface, while two big screens stream the evening’s news coverage. The stage is lit in red and blue and the podium is empty.
Moshe Spern, who works for New York City Public Schools, and serves as president of the United Jewish Teachers Group, is the first to admit that things aren’t going great.
“Obviously, this would be a huge blow to everybody here, we’re trying to support Andrew Cuomo, and we believe his vision for New York City is the best vision,” he says. “A Mamdani win would make us all very nervous, especially as an Orthodox Jew. I’m hoping as the numbers come in from today’s voting, the numbers get better, but right now we’re down about 100,000 votes.”
Slowly but surely, the reality of Cuomo’s unfolding defeat hits the room. “I loathe this city, I’m crying inside,” a seemingly intoxicated attendee yells. “We have four years of this,” shouts another. “Horrible, horrible,” comes from somewhere. The playlist switches, as if the event planners had anticipated this moment and created a Spotify backup curated for misery. Elton John and Kiki Dee’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” fills the ballroom as guests stare at the screens, at their hands, or down at their phones.
“If Mamdani wins, I will be in shock. I will probably eat a great deal of calories,” Scott Piro, a canvasser who lives in Chelsea, tells me. Piro says he’s never been to an event like this before but because he was a “super volunteer,” his campaign coordinator invited him. I ask him what he’d do if Cuomo turns things around, and manages to somehow, despite the odds, claw back a victory.
“Well, the cookies that are on the tables are amazing, so I’ll probably eat one of those and, you know, I will hug my new friends,” Piro says. “Then I’d take a safe subway ride home and kiss my husband and hug my dog and walk my dog and watch television until I unwind.”
“It’s looking very sad that Mamdani might win, and it’s very fearful what might be coming,” 30-year-old Nataliia Kormosh says, standing with a friend on the other side of the room, her hair unmoving and blown out, dressed up for the night. Both are US citizens, though originally from Russia. To their left, a man in a navy suit sits at a table alone, aggressively firing off text messages while glancing up and down at the screens broadcasting poll results.
The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” blasts, the volume getting louder and an older man erupts into a chant about Curtis Sliwa. Marching around the room, he flings his arms at others and waves a piece of cardboard on which he’s scribbled “Sliwa is a time spoiler.” Phones are whipped out of pockets and a chorus of “shame on Sliwa” occupies the room.
The lights go down, a young man runs on stage to adjust the height of the microphone and soon enough, Cuomo is walking on stage, shouting “You’re taking my time, you’re taking my time” at the crowd as they refuse to quiet down. Someone yells “I love you” and he responds, “I love you too.” He’s wearing a suit and smiling, flanked by family members on both sides. When he acknowledges Mamdani’s win, he’s met with boos. A “lock him up” chant starts and Cuomo dissuades the crowd, saying, “That is not right, that is not us.”
“Tonight was their night and as they start to transition to government, we will all help any way we can because we need our New York City government to work, we want it to work.” He adds, “our city is the greatest city in the world.” The audience hates it.
Jay Z is on the playlist now with the unfalteringly cliché “Empire State of Mind,” playing as Cuomo’s camp leaves the stage. Some go back to the bar but most file out of the ballroom. Security says no re-entry and the NYPD lines up outside. A man in a next door window sleeps on a high stool and an Irish pub across the street starts to get rowdy. Over the sirens of midtown, the Curtis Sliwa chant is still mildly discernible, fusing now, though, with the dulcet tones of “concrete jungles where dreams are made of.”
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