President Donald Trump and his allies are eager to quickly consolidate the mayoral field in New York City from three major candidates running against Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani to a one-on-one fight.<\/p>\n
That effort, which spilled into public view last week, marks the latest episode in which the president has sought increased control and influence over the affairs of major U.S. cities \u2014 including Chicago and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
But if the past week is any indication, it won\u2019t come easily.<\/p>\n
The New York Times<\/a> and other outlets<\/a> reported that close Trump advisers have contemplated how to get both New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa to abandon their bids, including by offering them jobs in the Trump administration. For Adams, opportunities under consideration included jobs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as ambassador to Saudi Arabia<\/a>, while a specific post for Sliwa was not made clear, according to the reports. NBC News has not independently confirmed the effort.<\/p>\n Ahead of a Thursday dinner<\/a> with tech executives, Trump told reporters that Mamdani, a state assemblyman who rose to prominence as an outer-borough socialist, was more likely to win in November if the field against him did not shrink.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think you can win unless you have one on one, because somehow he\u2019s gotten a little bit of a lead,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI would like to see two people drop out and have it be one on one. I think that\u2019s a race that could be won.\u201d<\/p>\n The president denied that he had personally encouraged any of the other three major candidates \u2014 Adams, Sliwa and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo \u2014 to drop out.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like to see a communist become mayor, I will tell you that.\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n Both Sliwa and Adams \u2014 who trail both Cuomo and Mamdani in polls \u2014 swatted away any suggestion that they\u2019d end their candidacies. Soon after the Times reported on the effort, Sliwa \u2014 who founded the Guardian Angels, a volunteer safety patrol group, and has been a fixture in city politics for decades \u2014 said that he was uninterested in an administration position and is \u201ccommitted to carrying this fight through to Election Day.\u201d His campaign then announced the opening of new campaign offices in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n And on Friday, Adams addressed reporters outside of Gracie Mansion, delivering a blistering, five-minute statement excoriating his opponents and giving no indication he\u2019s considering an exit. He opened his statement by calling Cuomo \u201ca snake.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis polo shirt that I\u2019m wearing that says \u2018Eric Adams, Mayor of the City of New York,\u2019 I\u2019m going to wear that for another four years,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cI have two spoiled brats running for mayor. They were born with silver spoons in their mouths, not like working-class New Yorkers. I\u2019m a working-class New Yorker. They are not like us.\u201d<\/p>\n John Catsimatidis, the billionaire businessman and New York Republican power broker, said he spoke with Trump earlier this summer about getting directly involved in the mayoral race and then discussed with him the ins and outs of the contest on Sunday. The grocery store magnate said he\u2019s discussed a number of possibilities with Trump for how he could help narrow the field.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president feels that what I\u2019m saying \u2026 anybody but Zohran,\u201d Catsimatidis said in an interview. \u201cBecause New York City is the capitalist capital of the world, and we don\u2019t want it to be communism or socialism, whatever. And he\u2019s been pushing that and the president doesn\u2019t want that to happen. \u2026 I don\u2019t think the world will come to an end if it\u2019s Eric Adams. I don\u2019t think the world will come to an end if it\u2019s Cuomo. I don\u2019t think the world will come to an end if it\u2019s Curtis.\u201d<\/p>\n Catsimatidis suggested that \u201cthere\u2019s other people working on\u201d how to clear the field, adding that Trump has about \u201chalf a dozen people that he really trusts, and he uses them.\u201d He did not provide more details on these efforts.<\/p>\n Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is supporting Mamdani, said the level of presidential involvement in the mayoral race is unprecedented in recent times. He recalled President Bill Clinton trying to boost then-Mayor David Dinkins\u2019 re-election campaign in 1993, \u201cbut not trying to shape the race or manipulate the dynamics of the race.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t remember that from either side, honestly, in any of the elections,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The involvement in New York\u2019s election comes alongside his federal takeover of and deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., that began last month, while a separate ramp-up of federal immigration enforcement is set to begin in Chicago. On Saturday, Trump posted an image to his Truth Social platform<\/a> with the caption<\/a> \u201cChicago about to find out why it\u2019s called the Department of WAR,\u201d suggesting a military crackdown could soon take place there.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a moment,\u201d said Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist in New York whose firm did advertising work for Mamdani. \u201cWe see Trump bringing in the National Guard to cities across America. We\u2019re past the wake-up calls. It\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Vice President Kamala Harris won New York City by a substantial margin in 2024, and de Blasio said any effort by Trump to boost Cuomo will turn into a negative for his campaign.<\/p>\n The Trump administration waded into New York mayoral politics earlier this year when the Justice Department moved to dismiss<\/a> corruption charges against Adams, saying that it had to do so to give Adams space to boost Trump\u2019s immigration agenda. The episode led to a precipitous decline in Adams\u2019 poll numbers.<\/p>\n Trump, however, did improve on his own numbers in New York City<\/a> last cycle compared to 2020 and 2016, and Trump held major rallies in the Bronx<\/a> and at Madison Square Garden<\/a>, baffling some observers at the time as the state and city were firmly off the electoral battleground map.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a New Yorker,\u201d Catsimatidis said of Trump\u2019s interest in the race. \u201cHe\u2019s one of us. He loves New York and wants to make sure New York is not broken.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n While some national Republicans would like to see Mamdani win so they can make him a focal point in their midterm campaigns, Trump has more aligned himself with the view of his longtime New York associates, who have expressed fears of a Mamdani administration because of his left-wing views and his involvement with the Democratic Socialists of America.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes it\u2019s just important to remember the company he keeps,\u201d de Blasio said, referring to Trump. \u201cThat inner circle of New York real estate and business figures, including some he\u2019s brought in. [Steve] Witkoff is in his administration. [Howard] Lutnick is in his administration. Part of it is he is hearing from the business leaders of New York City, their concerns. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s thinking as head of the Republican Party. In this case, I think he\u2019s thinking about his donor base and his friends.\u201d<\/p>\n A Siena College survey<\/a> taken last month<\/a> found Mamdani at 44% support, with 25% of New York voters backing Cuomo, 12% supporting Sliwa, 7% siding with Adams and 10% undecided.<\/p>\n Democratic primary polling, however, showed Cuomo with a huge edge right up until the stretch run of the election \u2014 which Mamdani ultimately won. That triggered Cuomo to run on an independent line. Adams, who won the 2021 Democratic primary and mayoral contest, is running as an independent, too, following legal battles connected to a lobbying effort.<\/p>\n Bradley Tusk, who was campaign manager for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg\u2019s 2009 reelection campaign, said he still believes Adams will drop out of the race despite his insistence Friday that he is staying in. But Tusk added that he thinks it is unlikely Sliwa will exit the contest.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more Trump and others push, the more this becomes [Sliwa\u2019s] victory \u2014 standing up to Trump,\u201d Tusk said in an email. \u201cThat means that the 7-10% Adams has could go somewhere else. Of that, some of it probably goes to Cuomo. But some to Sliwa, some even to Zohran and some people may end up not voting. So the impact on the outcome itself is minimal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m guessing Trump knows all of this and despite what he\u2019s saying \u2014 he wants Zohran to win,\u201d Tusk continued. \u201cThey\u2019re the perfect foils for each other. But, this gives him (in his mind) the pretext to send in troops or something else absurd like that. Adams won\u2019t know what to do because if he\u2019s about to go be an ambassador, he can\u2019t object to it. But Zohran will have a field day with it and if anything, it\u2019ll help him politically.\u201d<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s victory was built upon a message laser-focused on affordability, energized grassroots support and a slick social media campaign that included viral, direct-to-camera appeals and vertical video sketches. On Friday<\/a>, he told supporters to stop donating to him after raising the roughly $8 million general election spending limit<\/a> for mayoral candidates who participate in the city\u2019s matching funds program. In a video<\/a>, he instead asked for voters\u2019 time as canvassers or phone bankers ahead of November\u2019s election.<\/p>\n The 33-year-old seized on news of Trump\u2019s more significant involvement in the race, tying the president closer to Cuomo, his chief rival. He even called for a one-on-one<\/a> debate with Trump to \u201ccut out the middleman\u201d in Cuomo.<\/p>\n \u201cToday we have learned what New Yorkers long suspected: Andrew Cuomo is Donald Trump\u2019s choice to be the next mayor of this city,\u201d Mamdani told reporters Wednesday. \u201cThis is an affront to our democracy, an affront to what makes so many of us proud to be Americans \u2014 that we choose our own leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n Cuomo has already shifted<\/a> his message from the primary, when he talked of resisting Trump, to the general, where that theme has gone by the wayside. In August, Cuomo told business leaders at a fireside chat that he was not \u201cpersonally\u201d interested in fighting with Trump and that he thinks there could be an \u201copportunity\u201d because Trump \u201cdoesn\u2019t want to fight with me. [And] personally, I don\u2019t want to fight with him.\u201d<\/p>\n