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Curtis Sliwa Is Serious About Taking on Zohran Mamdani
Running for mayor for the second time as the Republican nominee, the Guardian Angels founder has the backing of many in the local GOP even as Trump tries to wish him away.
This article originally appeared in The City.
NEW YORK - The double-takes followed the mayoral candidate wherever he walked.
People asked for selfies, shook his hand, patted his shoulder and discreetly recorded videos from feet away.
“Curtis, what’s good!” one young man on the Union Square subway platform hollered, sauntering past the 71-year-old man who wore a suit and a red beret.
A local New York City celebrity for decades, Curtis Sliwa ran a longshot campaign as a Republican in 2021’s mayoral election against Mayor Eric Adams. In a city where there are about six times as many registered Democrats as Republicans, Sliwa garnered just 27% of the vote.
Four years later, he’s again running for mayor as the Republican nominee — but with the election just two months away, there’s a shift.
Sliwa — despite his reputation as an over-the-top talk radio personality and frequent tabloid figure obsessed with cats — is polling better than the current mayor, who is running as an independent and is the longshot candidate amid a historically low approval rating and an administration that has been engulfed in corruption scandals.
Sliwa is standing in the way of efforts — including by President Donald Trump — to narrow the field to prevent Democratic nominee Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who is the race's frontrunner, from sailing into City Hall.
Sliwa thinks he could appeal to those who don’t back Mamdani and are disenchanted by Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor in the wake of multiple sexual harassment allegations and is running as an independent after losing in the primary.
“There’s a wide variety of selections, and the people should be heard,” Sliwa told THE CITY. “This is going to be a race between Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa.”
With four candidates on the ballot — instead of just two, as it was four years ago — Sliwa and his backers see an angle to winning.
“The difference between now and 2021 is that he doesn’t need a majority to win,” said former City Council minority leader Joe Borelli. “That’s a big f-cking difference as a Republican.”
Recent polls have shown Sliwa in third place and Adams last. One poll also indicated that only about 56% of registered Republicans in New York would vote for him. Sliwa dismissed the results, suggesting a lot could change in two months.
Local Republicans have coalesced in support of Sliwa, while several key Democrats — Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries among them — have yet to back Mamdani. But Sliwa lacks support from the highest ranking Republican: Trump.
The president has reportedly been trying to get Sliwa and Adams to drop out of the race in order to consolidate opposition against Mamdani.
Appearing on Fox News recently, Trump said Sliwa “is not exactly primetime.”
Sliwa vows he will stay in the election.
“If a Mack truck happens to come down the street and turn me into a speed bump, that’s the only way to get me out of here,” he said.
'He Has a Very Good Chance'
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn), who ran for mayor in 2017, said Sliwa is just starting to build momentum and can stand out among the candidates.
“You ever watch ‘Sesame Street,’ and it's one of these things is different than the other? It's like those four boxes. One of these things is different than the other. You have three left-wing Democrats, different degrees of left-wing craziness,” Malliotakis said in an interview. “And then you have Curtis.”
Born in Canarsie, Brooklyn, Sliwa is a lifelong New Yorker and perhaps most known as the founder of the Guardian Angels, a crime-fighting group. His mayoral platform still emphasizes “law and order,” with his campaign’s first TV ad featuring his wife Nancy speaking about women’s fear of crime. Sliwa’s campaign promises also include cutting property and corporate taxes, cracking down on fare evasion and slimming what he’s described as bloated government spending.
Sliwa will also appear on the ballot on the “Protect Animals” line, in addition to the Republican line, as he opposes kill shelters and advocates for jailing animal abusers. (He and Nancy share their home with six elderly cats, down from the 17 the couple fostered during the pandemic.)
Through the end of August, he raised more than $879,000 and raked in nearly $3.3 million in additional public matching funds, according to the Campaign Finance Board. Almost 1,000 more people donated to Sliwa than to Cuomo, and nearly 600 more donated to Sliwa than Adams. (Mamdani had nearly five times as many donors as Silwa.)
“He has the funding to do an incredibly large absentee ballot and polling operation,” said Republican Councilmember Joann Ariola, the current minority leader who represents parts of south Queens and is a longtime supporter. “He hasn’t thought for a moment that he would be leaving this race and that’s why I think he has a very good chance of winning.”
Sliwa has been canvassing in the same way he did four years ago: riding the subway every day, handing out small cards featuring his campaign information. The subway is familiar turf, as Sliwa’s Guardian Angels made patrolling trains a key part of its activities.
When Sliwa entered one train car on a recent Tuesday afternoon, an only-in-New York encounter occurred.
He ran into Daniel Penny, the ex-marine who in 2023 put Jordan Neely — a homeless Michael Jackson impersonator — in a chokehold on the subway, leading to his death. Though many condemned Penny as a murderer, he became a hero to the political right. A jury acquitted Penny last year, a decision Sliwa agreed with.
Penny stood up and shook Sliwa’s hand, and a moment later, Sliwa spotted venture capitalist and political consultant Bradley Tusk standing nearby. (Tusk donated to several candidates in the Democratic primary election.) The men chatted, and Sliwa moved on.
“You run into everyone in the subway,” Sliwa said. “That’s why I say it’s a melting pot. You’ll go meet a millionaire, you meet the poor, impoverished, homeless.”
Over the course of an hour, Sliwa checked in with several men who appeared to be homeless, in subway cars or on the platform. He woke up one man who was sleeping on the platform by handing him a ginger ale, one of several cans of soda kept in his deputy campaign manager’s backpack. Asking questions, Sliwa put on his glasses to examine the man’s hospital bracelet, and touched the man’s leg and bare foot, which appeared unhealthy.
Sliwa’s manager filmed the interactions, and Sliwa promised he’d follow up.
On another platform, Sliwa bumped into Jim Giordano from Canarsie, the retired owner of a fishing supply business in Sheepshead Bay. The two went to high school together.
“Curtis is a great guy, always was,” Giordano said. “He kind of represents who I represent. He thinks about things the way I do. Also, I think the choices we have besides Curtis are not great.”
Sliwa also introduced himself to Brent Clayton, an Elmhurst resident who works in sales for a wine distributor. Clayton, 53, remembered seeing Sliwa on the news back in the eighties, and as a “big cat guy” himself, he appreciated Sliwa’s concern for animal welfare. But not enough to vote for him.
“He’s got some good ideas, but I’m a Democrat. I’m not particularly interested in voting out the party unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Clayton said.
Sliwa calls himself a “proud Republican,” though he doesn’t associate with the Make America Great Again movement, and has in the past been a vocal critic of Trump. He has, however, aligned himself with some MAGA-friendly standpoints. For instance, he has referred to asylum-seekers as “illegal,” has said they are “taking over,” and rallied with locals against migrant shelters across the city. He voted for Trump for the first time last year.
“We are establishing a new way for Republicans,” Sliwa said, standing among a group of mostly Black supporters at a recent campaign office opening in Brownsville, Brooklyn. “We have replaced what the Democrats used to be.”
Sliwa’s man-about-town energy and willingness to exist in a Republicanism separate from the mainstream party opens up a space for others to vote for him, according to Malliotakis.
“He’s not someone who’s on the Trump train or has blind loyalty to anybody,” she said. “He's always shown himself to be independent and able to put together a coalition of support from common sense Democrats, independents and Republicans.”
Additional reporting by Katie Honan.
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