New Yorkers are staring down a growing crisis: the Democratic nominee is a 33-year-old newly naturalized citizen and self-proclaimed socialist who’s spent much of his life online railing against white wealth and comfort, fantasizing about smashing capitalism, and calling for the police to stand down. His rhetoric over the past decade has veered so far Left it borders on parody — a caricature of a privileged rich kid convinced his pampered life is part of some grand revolutionary struggle.

Mamdani’s far-Left radicalism has been denounced by fellow Democrats across the country. Under normal circumstances, a Republican or independent candidate should be able to beat him. The problem is his opponents are three flawed men who represent a bygone past that most New Yorkers want nothing to do with.

This week, Andrew Cuomo announced that he will be running for mayor as an independent candidate after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary. The disgraced former governor will join Eric Adams, a comically corrupt mayor, Curtis Sliwa, a street vigilante-turned-political commentator who’s well past his sell-by date, and Jim Walden, a relatively unknown former prosecutor, in the race.

In a four-way split, Mamdani leads with 40%, followed by Cuomo at 24%, Sliwa at 15%, and Adams at 14%, according to a recent Data for Progress poll, the most accurate pollster in the primary. Together, the three non-Mamdani candidates command a majority across most demographics — except among Democrats, college-educated New Yorkers, and voters under 45. But if they all run, these men will split the anti-Mamdani vote. That means Cuomo needs the other candidates to drop out so he can run as the anti-Mamdani candidate.

Although he was defeated in the primary and has a net approval of -20, the former governor retains strong support among two key Democratic constituencies: black and Latino voters. Sliwa, by contrast, holds a net approval rating of -18 and is unpopular with all voter groups except Republicans and New Yorkers without a college degree. Adams fares even worse, with a -41 rating. His only area of relative strength is among Republicans, thanks to his willingness to collaborate with President Trump on deportations.

Cuomo’s path to the mayoralty comes from how he won the governor’s mansion back in 2010: by working with Republicans on economic reforms. Sadly, this version of Cuomo has long been forgotten as he spent the last six years in office moving in a progressive direction to ward off primary challengers, mishandling the Covid-19 pandemic, and likely gearing up for a future presidential run.

Any shot he had at the White House is long gone. Besides, New York City’s mayoralty is a graveyard for national ambitions. No mayor has gone on to higher office in over 150 years — the last to win statewide was John T. Hoffman in 1869.

While being a still very heavily Democratic city, New York is changing fast. In the last year, Republicans have registered more new voters in three of the five boroughs. On Staten Island, Republicans registered 6,000 new active voters while Democrats registered just 94. In the Bronx, Republicans registered 11,005 new voters versus the Democrats’ 1,895. Similarly in Queens, Republicans registered over 18,600 new voters to the Democrats’ 10,304. That’s not including the 100,000 new active voters with no political party who couldn’t vote in the primary election.

Cuomo, then, is the only candidate with a viable path forward, but it depends on building a coalition of moderates, independents, and Republicans. By casting himself as a consensus candidate, he can strike deals with Republican city council members, the Commonsense Caucus, and voters concerned about crime, the cost of living, and education.

He can do it, but only if he stops chasing progressive approval and returns to the pragmatism that once made him electable.

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Ryan James Girdusky is a writer and political consultant based in New York City. He’s the author of “They’re Not Listening: How the Elites Created the Nationalist Populist Revolution.”

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