{"id":196858,"date":"2025-09-03T12:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T12:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/196858\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T12:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T12:55:09","slug":"nyc-mayoral-candidate-jim-walden-drops-out-and-implores-rivals-to-consolidate-against-zohran-mamdani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/196858\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC mayoral candidate Jim Walden drops out and implores rivals to consolidate against Zohran Mamdani"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Jim Walden, an independent candidate in New York City\u2019s mayoral race, announced Tuesday that he was suspending his campaign, while urging his fellow candidates to unite against the Democratic primary winner, Zohran Mamdani<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor those still trailing in the polls by month\u2019s end, I implore each to consider how history will judge them if they allow vanity or stubborn ambition to usher in Mr. Mamdani,\u201d Walden wrote in a statement announcing his exit. <\/p>\n

He warned that Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, would represent a \u201cTrojan Horse taking over City Hall,” adding that time was \u201cslipping away” for an alternative option to gain momentum in the crowded field. <\/p>\n

Walden, an attorney who has represented Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a> and mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor,<\/a> had positioned himself as a free-market technocrat in the mold of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. <\/p>\n

But he struggled to register among voters already contending with several familiar names: current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo<\/a> and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.<\/a><\/p>\n

Walden last month issued a \u201cdrop out challenge\u201d to those three candidates, arguing that they would maximize their odds of beating Mamdani if they collectively agreed to consolidate behind whoever was leading in the polls come fall. <\/p>\n

None of the candidates agreed to the proposal, though both Adams and Cuomo have called on the other to drop out. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Cuomo, Richard Azzopardi, praised Walden for \u201cputting aside ego and ambition,” adding that the decision \u201cunderscores the existential threat our city faces in Zohran Mamdani.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Adams\u2019 campaign, Todd Shapiro, said the mayor had no plans of dropping out and was \u201cfocused on the future \u2014 delivering results and leading this city forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani’s spokesperson, Dora Pekec, said in a statement: \u201cWhile support of Zohran\u2019s vision for an affordable New York continues to grow across all five boroughs, the billionaire class is narrowing their selection process \u2014 and Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams are pulling out all the stops to charm them alongside Donald Trump.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Jim Walden, an independent candidate in New York City\u2019s mayoral race, announced Tuesday that he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":196859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[109418,5229,347,90,57,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,10452,61,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-196858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-109418","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-socialism","21":"tag-u-s-news","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115140475327939698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}