The future of New York City looks bleak. Its top three choices in the Democratic primary for mayor are all walking disasters.
With less than a week to go, the highest polling candidates among Democrats are former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, and City Comptroller Brad Lander. A recent poll has Cuomo leading Mamdani in a simulation of the city’s messy ranked choice voting system by 10 points, with Lander in third.
Lander and Mamdani have been in a race to the bottom to try to capture control of the party’s left-wing flank. Lander got himself arrested after forcefully interfering in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest of an illegal immigrant. Lander did so while demanding to see a judicial warrant, despite the fact that 1) ICE does not need judicial warrants for arrests and 2) no one needs to show a random bystander such as Lander anything. This is Lander’s latest attempt to capture liberal hearts with a dumb electoral stunt, after crushing Tesla vehicles in advertisements apparently didn’t work.
Lander is trying to win back voters he lost to Mamdani, the new socialist icon backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Mamdani’s policies would destroy New York City, especially his economic policies and promise to defund the police. He is spending the closing days of his campaign boosting the antisemitic “pro-Palestine” movement and defending the phrase “globalize the Intifada,” which is used by terrorists and their sympathizers to defend violence against Jews.
Mamdani has repeatedly said he would “Defund the Police” — and, back during the heyday of the George Floyd riots, he even pushed back when Cuomo said that Defund the Police didn’t really mean defunding the police, with Mamdani insisting that the slogan meant exactly what it said. https://t.co/MrYrd338LF pic.twitter.com/moCSitr5u1
— Jerry Dunleavy IV
(@JerryDunleavy) June 15, 2025
That leads to one of the most improbable sentences in the English language: The best choice for the future is Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo left office in disgrace after his COVID-19 policies led to widespread deaths in New York nursing homes, which Cuomo attempted to cover up by labeling nursing home deaths as hospital deaths. Cuomo was also accused of sexual harassment and spent his final year in office on an ego trip, putting himself in front of every camera he could find and writing a book about leadership, all while his state suffered under his incoherent COVID-19 policies.
EARLY VOTING IN NYC PRIMARY SEES HIGH TURNOUT
In short, Cuomo is self-obsessed, incompetent, and morally bankrupt. And, again, he is the best that New York Democrats have to offer right now.
The fact that these are the top candidates New York Democrats are choosing from is proof that the city may just be incapable of governing itself. The New York Democratic mayoral primary is a buffet of bad options, and it paints a grim picture for the city’s future as voters continue to stumble down this path.