By Robert Hornak
Last week a Democratic consulting firm released a poll they conducted of likely Democrat primary voters for the upcoming mayoral race. And it had some eye-opening findings.
As you’d expect, these voters want whoever is mayor to be able to stand up to President Trump. These are prime Democrats, of course. But after that, the issues that received very high levels of support were the same as every other voter in NYC, fighting crime, making NYC safer, and ending the migrant crisis.
So, you’d think that the numerous candidates running who want to replace embattled Eric Adams as mayor next year would listen to their own voters and start to moderate their positions based on this enlightening information. After all, if they all continue to push hard left at a time when their own voters are moving back to the center, they open the door for a well-known moderate, namely Andrew Cuomo, to get into the race and walk away with the nomination.
Cuomo’s numbers in this poll were exceptionally high, and in a ranked choice voting simulation they determined that if the election were held now Cuomo would win in only a few rounds with 58% of the vote, after starting at a commanding 44% in the first round.
And Cuomo hasn’t even declared his candidacy yet. That means that Democrat primary voters are looking at their current field of declared candidates – including Eric Adams and DSA favorite Zohran Mamdani – and saying nope, none of these are the person we are looking for.
Well, none of this seems to have sunk in with the candidates. At a mayoral forum last week that included former City Comptroller Scott Stringer, current City Comptroller Brad Lander, state Senator Jessica Ramos, state Senator Zellnor Myrie, and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, every one of these candidates doubled down on the policies their own primary voters are rejecting.
It was just revealed that illegal migrants are now costing the city $7 billion, that’s Billion with a B, money that could be going to help the mentally disturbed living on our streets, education, or parks. Or to pay for the multitude of environmental regulations they want to impose on legal residents, such as the brutally expensive local law 97, which they all support.
Stringer, considered the most moderate in the current field, said, “Eric Adams has been hurting migrants, people undocumented for his whole term as mayor, and nobody has come to the rescue. We needed someone to stand up and do the numbers and say very clearly that our migrants, our undocumented workers, are the heart of our economy.”
That is shockingly tone deaf. Does anyone really think it hurts illegals to put them up for months at a time in luxury hotels, at taxpayer expense? Most people would argue that those here illegally are substantially contributing to the increase in crime, to the decline in quality of life, and are taking precious resources away from other needs we were already struggling with before.
All the candidates also seemed to think that a top priority should to be to “stand up” to traditional energy companies. At a time when wind and solar projects are having trouble competing and still only provide around 5% of our total energy, and with Con Edison just announcing they are seeking massive rate hikes for the coming year on top of recent hikes, Mamdani offered incredible insight into this problem, claiming that fossil fuel companies like BlackRock only care about money, not morals or principles. As if there is a morals and principles surcharge on our electric bill.
Democrat voters also want housing to be more affordable. Heating and cooling your home is part of that cost, and NY is driving that cost up dramatically. And for no reason than radical policies against the one thing we all use every day. There were no ideas discussed on how to bring the cost of energy down, or to make these radical conversions to everything electric they want to force on homeowners less financially painful.
These candidates refuse to listen to their own voters, and they will ultimately pay the price. A strong centrist candidate is likely to jump into the race, and it will very likely be Andrew Cuomo who the NY political establishment hates but the voters appear to want, desperately.
Robert Hornak is a professional political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Director of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com and @RobertHornak on X.
