Trump enters the New York mayoral race with support for Cuomo over socialist frontrunner Mamdani

Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani kicked off the final day of his whirlwind campaign early Monday morning, before sunrise, with the aim of becoming New York’s first Muslim mayor and, at 34, the youngest in the last century. Hours later, a not-so-unexpected guest — U.S. President Donald Trump — burst into the final stretch of the race with his endorsement of Mamdani’s main rival, former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, who is second in the polls.

Joined by dozens of supporters, union members, workers, and local elected officials, Mamdani led a march from Brooklyn to City Hall across the Brooklyn Bridge. In one of the latest bold moves by a politician who has skillfully combined personal charisma with social media prowess, the group marched behind a banner that read “Our Time Has Come,” chanting “Tax the rich!”

Once in Manhattan, Mamdani delivered a seven-minute speech, reiterating the core points of his platform — chief among them: a four-year rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments, free childcare for children up to age five, and fare-free public buses.

With that program, Mamdani handily won last June’s Democratic primaries and now heads into Tuesday’s election as the clear frontrunner, with polls closing at 9:00 p.m. local time after a record-breaking week of early voting. Pollsters give him a near-100% chance of victory, though some observers caution that a last-minute upset cannot be ruled out.

One of the main questions in the race’s final hours is just how large Mamdani’s lead actually is. Some polls give him a double-digit advantage over Andrew Cuomo, an Italian-American politician and son of former governor Mario Cuomo, representing the Democratic Party’s old guard. Andrew Cuomo spent decades in power before resigning in 2021 following a sexual harassment scandal.

The third contender

Right-wing media outlets — particularly The New York Post, the flagship of Rupert Murdoch’s conservative empire — have spent months attacking Mamdani and, in recent days, have clung to surveys suggesting that Cuomo is closing the gap, to the detriment of the third candidate, conservative Curtis Sliwa. Lacking Republican Party backing, Sliwa has refused to step aside, despite calls to do so to block the rise of a self-declared socialist — whom Trump loyalists have branded a communist in an effort to scare off voters.

On Monday, Cuomo toured all five boroughs in a last-minute push to scrape together votes — and received Trump’s perhaps toxic endorsement. The day before, Trump had hinted at it in a CBS interview. By 5 p.m., his Truth Social account was aflame with rambling posts praising Republican lawmakers before he wrote: “A vote for Curtis Sliwa (who looks much better without the beret!) is a vote for Mamdani,” referring to the conservative candidate’s distinctive aesthetic attribute. “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”

The endorsement of Trump — who is a native New Yorker, though deeply unpopular in the city — came at the end of a tirade in which the president repeated his usual attacks on the socialist candidate, calling him a “communist,” even though Mamdani denies the label and has shown no evidence of being one. Trump also threatened to slash federal funding to New York to “the very minimum.”

“It can only get worse with a Communist at the helm, and I don’t want to send, as President, good money after bad. It is my obligation to run the Nation, and it is my strong conviction that New York City will be a Complete and Total Economic and Social Disaster should Mamdani win. His principles have been tested for over a thousand years, and never once have they been successful. I would much rather see a Democrat, who has had a Record of Success, WIN, than a Communist with no experience and a Record of COMPLETE AND TOTAL FAILURE,” he argued.

Cuomo did not seem pleased with Trump’s endorsement. Before the post was published, he abruptly hung up on a radio host who asked him about it live on air. Mamdani’s campaign, meanwhile, spent the entire day mocking the endorsement.

From the Trump camp, pressure on New Yorkers continued throughout the day. On X, Elon Musk told his nearly 230 million followers to remember that “a vote for Curtis [Sliwa] is really a vote for Mumdumi, or whatever his name is,” before adding: “VOTE CUOMO!”

As for Texas Governor Greg Abbott, he posted: “After the polls close tomorrow night, I will impose a 100% tariff on anyone moving to Texas from NYC.”

Everything suggests that Abbott’s threat — which no one quite understood how he intended to enforce — is clearly illegal. According to a poll published by The Daily Mail and conducted by a polling firm called J. L. Partners, almost 9% of New York City’s population would leave if Mamdani wins.

Musk’s endorsement, meanwhile, ended up strengthening the arguments of Mamdani’s campaign supporters, whose movement counts around 100,000 volunteers. Many of the socialist candidate’s voters chose him over the former governor because they believe Cuomo serves the economic powers that panicked when Mamdani won the primaries. Musk, after all, is the most economically powerful man in the world.

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