Sources: Cuomo considers staying in NYC mayoral race

Adams holds reelection campaign kickoff outside City Hall

Mamdani's primary performance divides Democrats

Zohran Mamdani declares victory in NYC's Democratic mayoral primary as Cuomo concedes

Incumbent Pierina Sanchez wins primary in Council District 14

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson wins primary election

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News 12 Staff

629BXP&P2

Now to take a closer look at the primary results and what impacts they will have on the mayoral campaigns moving forward. So let's bring back our political expert Christopher Malone, associate provost at Farmingdale State College. Great to see you once again this week, Chris. Have you recovered from primary night yet? Uh, almost, almost, Amanda. How about yourself? It was a late night awaiting the remarks from, I think, the big stunner of the evening, Zoran Mamdani, and I'll kick things off in this conversation asking you that now that the dust is somewhat settled, what was your biggest takeaway from primary night overall? Well, I think the biggest takeaway is the margin of victory for Mamdani. Uh, I think I said to you before we went on air Tuesday night that if he was in the mid-30s, then it would be a good night for him because that would put him within striking distance of the 50% that he would need to get in the rounds of the ranked choice voting. And then right out of the gate when we saw the, the dump of the votes, uh, of the early vote, and he just jumped out to the lead and it never, uh, you know, it never waned. So, That was the, uh, the surprise of the night for me that he kept the lead at 44 or 43% and it never, never, uh, diminished from there, so. Yeah, we were watching and waiting and like you just said it really never wavered in the days since a lot of response to this from both sides of the aisle, thoughts on the division and specifically amongst Democrats reacting to Mamdani's win. Yeah, it's, it's locally, you could, you know, the progressive wing of the party has gotten behind him. Even Jessica Ramos, who surprisingly endorsed Cuomo at the last minute, said, I did not support him, but you know, I'm going to get behind him as well in so many words. But nationally the Democrats are wringing their hands. There is some support for him, but There is really a generational divide. There's an ideological divide amongst Democrats. They, they don't know what to do with this. With all of that in mind, Chris, how does this impact how the Democratic Party overall strategizes and supports future candidates and of course locally, do you think the establishment will back and rally behind Mamdani? I think the, the establishment in New York City has no choice, to be honest with you, because he is the Democratic nominee. But if you think about his message, and he actually Um, more or less said this himself, Amanda. He said, look, uh, Donald Trump ran on a message of economic populism, uh, to an extent. Groceries. He talked about groceries, that word groceries. He was going to bring the price of eggs down. He was going to bring the price of gas down. He was going to bring inflation down. And Amdani had an economic message. Free buses, freeze the rent, and free childcare for all. And that economic message is nothing new. That is what we call populism in political science terms. So let's talk about the other candidates, possible candidates at this time, of course Andrew Cuomo, one you already mentioned. What do you think? It seems like he is planning a run as an independent. Do you think he ultimately goes through with it? What are those implications if he does? It's hard for me to say at this point that he won't run. Um, Andrew Cuomo is the the biggest political animal I think we have in New York State. I think he's itching to run. I think he will make the decision to run. I think he has a lane to run. He has universal name recognition, and he will. Um, probably get in the race, and, um, and then, uh, his biggest challenge is not necessarily to peel off votes from Mamdani because uh the lane that Mamdani is gonna run in is there. Uh, I think it's really trying to peel votes away from Eric Adams and, and move, if you will, to the center and pull votes, independents and maybe even moderate Republicans that are never Trumpers um that won't vote for Curtis Lewa. And uh feel that Eric Adams has uh lost the, the, the opportunity to, to be the, the, uh, you know, the re-elected mayor. Let's talk real quick about those other candidates Eric Adams, Curtis Lewa, do they have a shot? and what about them being involved could skew where votes ultimately land here? Yeah, let, let's take Adams first. I think Adam's worst nightmare is if Cuomo gets in the race, because they're gonna vie for the same voters, um, moderate Democrats, um, sort of left of center Democrats that just Can't go so far as to vote for Mamdani. Independents, never Trumpers, as I said, possible Republicans, uh, you saw this week that that the business class in New York City is getting behind Eric Adams because they, uh, Mamdani has, has put the fear of God in them. Um, and so, for Adams, the best case scenario is that Cuomo stands down, uh, Mamdani does what he's going to do, which is to run a very left, uh, leftist campaign, and Sliwa is going to, you know, call Donald Trump, uh, in. And rally the Republican troops so that his lane is really right there, right down the center, and uh and he has a real chance of winning this right in the center. For Sliwa, he would love for Cuomo to get in because now you have 3 Democrats splitting up all of those votes and he could well sneak in with. 33, 34, 35% of the vote because the rest of the electorate is is chopped up amongst those three candidates. If Cuomo doesn't get in, then Sliwa, I think, has a more difficult chance. And rest assured, Donald Trump is going to helicopter into this race figuratively and literally. He will be involved in this race because he can't help himself. And because he, he sees a chance now with, uh, as he called, what did he call Mom Danny, uh, a communist lunatic, uh, he sees a chance for a Republican to win uh a New York mayoral race and, um, and to put his imprint on this. So I think Sliwa has an outside chance. He has a better chance if Cuomo does get in the race though.

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629BXP&P3_2025-06-29-12-42-40

Welcome back as we get right back to our political expert Christopher Malone, who's back with us after primary night to break down those results and what it means moving forward. So Chris, I want to talk about the president Donald Trump at all. Do you think that there are people who are gonna look at the results of this primary night as a referendum on Trump's terms so far? I don't know if it's a referendum on Donald Trump's terms so far. I think Trump is, uh, and, and the, the, uh, he's, he's the elephant in the room, and I know the elephant is the, the, uh, the mascot of the Republican Party, but all of the candidates ran against Donald Trump in this election, in this primary, but, um, he definitely has sucked up all the oxygen in this election. He sucked up all the oxygen. In American politics thus far, and, and you can make the case that he's done that for the last 10 years, um, but they did run against his policies. Uh, they, they said that all of them said that they were going to protect New York City from Donald Trump. So in a way it was a referendum on Donald Trump, but um nonetheless, Donald Trump will play a major role in this because he's going to come out and support. Curtis Sliwa and he will probably be here many times campaigning for him. I would, I would predict that that would be the case. It'll be interesting to see the impact and yeah, the extent to which he gets involved in the campaigning up through November. Real quick at the national level, do you think anyone's looking at this right now and saying, oh, is this an indication of how the midterms could go next year? Well, I think it's an indication that the Democratic Party has a choice to make, um, younger candidates, obviously. Uh, an economic message and if they stay on message, if they don't get caught up in the culture wars, then it could pretend a lot about the midterm elections. But normally we look at two things in 2025, not necessarily the mayoral race in New York City. We'll look at the governor's race in New Jersey, the governor's race in Virginia. But given that this is such an interesting race. Um, I think you could put the New York mayor's race third amongst those two other races, uh, New Jersey and New York, I'm sorry, Virginia gubernatorial races, and, and New York will be part of that conversation certainly for 2026. Good to know that all eyes will be right here on the city. Professor Malone, thank you for getting us through another primary night and making sense of it all. I look forward to talking with you a lot in the lead up to November.

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Revisiting pre-primary interview with presumed Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and speaking with Christopher Malone. 

Power & Politics: The rise of Mamdani and what it means for the NYC mayoral race

Revisiting pre-primary interview with presumed Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and speaking with Christopher Malone.

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