NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Their chances of becoming the next mayor of New York City may have dimmed. Their mission now? Stopping former Gov. Andrew Cuomo from getting to City Hall.<\/p>\n
In the final day of campaigning before the city\u2019s Democratic primary, candidates who are seen as longer shots to win the nomination urged voters to leave Cuomo off their ballots in the city\u2019s ranked choice election in a last-ditch effort to block the former governor\u2019s comeback from a sexual harassment scandal.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s make sure Andrew Cuomo gets nowhere near City Hall,\u201d candidate and city Comptroller Brad Lander said Monday on WNYC radio, which interviewed the major candidates ahead of the election.<\/p>\n
State Sen. Zellnor Myrie, another candidate, similarly asked voters not to vote for Cuomo, telling the station, \u201cWe need fresh leadership, we need to turn the page and we need bold solutions at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pitches came as Cuomo, who has been considered the frontrunner for months, has been trying to fend off a charge from Zohran Mamdani ahead of Tuesday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman, would be the city\u2019s first Muslim and first Indian American mayor if elected. A democratic socialist who got elected to the Legislature in 2020, Mamdani started the campaign as a relative unknown but has won support with a energetic campaign centered on improving the cost of living.<\/p>\n
He spent part the second-to-last day of the campaign visiting businesses and potential voters in northern Manhattan, followed by a crowd of supporters and a man banging a drum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most expensive city in the United States of America and New Yorkers are tired of having to worry each and every hour of each and every day of whether they can afford to live here,\u201d said Mamdani.<\/p>\n
Cuomo spoke at a union hall, where he warned Democrats against both radicalism and picking a candidate without experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a job for a novice. This is not a job for a person who never really had a job before,\u201d Cuomo said. \u201cWe need someone who knows what they are doing on day one, because your lives depend on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani, meanwhile, exuded confidence, telling WNYC he is \u201cone day from toppling a political dynasty.\u201d<\/p>\n
A party divided<\/p>\n
Mamdani and Cuomo represent the Democratic Party\u2019s ideological divides, with Cuomo as an older moderate and Mamdani a younger progressive.<\/p>\n
Former President Bill Clinton endorsed Cuomo on Sunday, saying voters should not \u201cunderestimate the complexity\u201d of the challenges faced by a mayor. The New York Times didn\u2019t issue an endorsement this year, but wrote an editorial praising Lander and saying Cuomo would be a better choice than Mamdani, who it said was unworthy of being on people\u2019s ballots.<\/p>\n
Mamdani has been endorsed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n
The two candidates\u2019 reactions to the American bombing of Iran\u2019s nuclear sites on Sunday offered more evidence of the party\u2019s internal split.<\/p>\n
Cuomo, in a statement, criticized \u201cthe way Trump went about this without consulting Congress, without consulting the normal congressional officials\u201d but stressed that \u201cIran cannot have nuclear capability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani released a statement that slammed Trump but quickly shifted focus back to his key issues, saying \u201cthese actions are the result of a political establishment that would rather spend trillions of dollars on weapons than lift millions out of poverty, launch endless wars while silencing calls for peace, and fearmonger about outsiders while billionaires hollow out our democracy from within.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuomo, who won three terms as governor, resigned in 2021 after a report from the state attorney general concluded that he sexually harassed 11 women. He has denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Ranked choice could decide winner<\/p>\n
New York City is using ranked choice voting in its Democratic mayoral primary election Tuesday, a system that allows voters to rank up to five candidates in order of preference. If one candidate is the first choice of a majority of voters, that person wins the race outright. If nobody hits that threshold, the votes are then tabulated in multiple rounds. After each round, the candidate in last place is eliminated. Votes cast for that person are then redistributed to the candidates ranked next on the voter\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n
That continues until one candidate gets a majority.<\/p>\n
Cuomo\u2019s opponents have urged voters not to rank him at all and therefore deprive him of support in later rounds of counting. <\/p>\n
Eleven candidates are on the ballot in the Democratic mayoral primary. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams isn\u2019t one of them. He\u2019s a Democrat but is running as an independent. The Republican Party has already picked its nominee, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press video journalist David Martin contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Their chances of becoming the next mayor of New York City may have dimmed.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5297,10635,7096,8129,6626,69,90,5289,57,10636,405,403,404,5226,5225,5228,406,5227,80,10637,10452,89,61,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-9576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-andrew-cuomo","10":"tag-bernie-sanders","11":"tag-bill-clinton","12":"tag-billy-sadler","13":"tag-brad-lander","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-elections","16":"tag-eric-adams","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-george-bee","19":"tag-new-york","20":"tag-new-york-city","21":"tag-new-york-city-wire","22":"tag-newyork","23":"tag-newyorkcity","24":"tag-ny","25":"tag-ny-state-wire","26":"tag-nyc","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-scandals","29":"tag-socialism","30":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","31":"tag-u-s-news","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-united-states-of-america","34":"tag-unitedstates","35":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","36":"tag-us","37":"tag-usa","38":"tag-voting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114735962161141766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9576","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=9576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}