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A chance encounter between a voter and Curtis Sliwa on the Upper West Side highlights the challenges facing the Republican mayoral nominee amid mounting calls for his withdrawal from the race.
The Guardian Angels founder was speaking outside the 96th Street station on Monday morning, one day after Mayor Eric Adams had dropped out of the race. Bill Apple, 76, emerged from the station and ran into Sliwa.
The registered Democrat donated twice to Sliwa, whom he described as someone who “knows the city.”
“I detest Andrew Cuomo,” Apple said, citing the former governor’s management of the pandemic and his sexual harassment scandals.
But Apple had started to have second thoughts about Sliwa’s viability.
“It seems to me that this is going to be a collision course,“ he told Sliwa.
Apple asked Sliwa if he would reconsider quitting the race if President Donald Trump offered his wife a job at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. She could ban the use of animals in medical research, Apple said, alluding to the cause near and dear to the Sliwas, who are prominent cat rescuers.
Nancy Sliwa replied that she would “never sell my husband out.”
Apple seemed dejected.
“I don’t know whether I’ll vote for you now,” he confessed. “I want to make sure [Zohran] Mamdani doesn’t win.”
With five weeks to go, voters like Apple are poised to play a key role in determining whether Cuomo, who is running as an independent, can make the contest competitive. Although Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, holds a double-digit lead over Cuomo in several polls, a recent Siena/New York Times survey shows that the margin shrinks to 4 points in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.
“I will vote for whoever is a viable alternative,” Apple told Gothamist. “We have to see what Curtis is going to do in the polls.”
Still, much of Sliwa’s base of conservatives and Republicans dislike Cuomo. One survey from pollster Adam Carlson found that 76% of Sliwa’s voters have an unfavorable view of Cuomo.
Joann Ariola, the Republican minority leader in the City Council, blamed Cuomo for signing bail reform into law. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again,” she said. “Curtis is the change we need.” And Councilmember Robert Holden, a conservative Democrat, is similarly sticking with Sliwa. In a Daily News op-ed on Wednesday, he accused Cuomo of being the “architect of many of the crises we face today.”
Sliwa, meanwhile, has said he has no intention of stepping aside for Cuomo. He can point to past performance: When he went up against Adams in 2021 he won 27% of the vote.
“I'm running TV commercials,” he said. “You go into the outer boroughs, you see my posters everywhere. I have seven headquarters opened up.”
“I'm not dropping out,” he added emphatically.
Sliwa has accused wealthy interests aligned with Cuomo of offering him jobs and money to quit the race. Cuomo’s campaign has called Sliwa a “liar.” But pressure from the business community is likely to continue to grow in the coming days. Sliwa’s own employer, John Catsimatidis, the Republican billionaire grocery chain owner, told Gothamist, “Let’s wait a week.” (Sliwa has been a host on Catsimatidis’ radio station WABC, but is currently on leave.)
Sliwa’s policy to “enhance proactive and intrusive policing strategies” appeals to voters like Apple, who bemoaned a city he says is sliding into disorder. Apple showed a photo he took that morning of an emotionally disturbed man being taken away by emergency responders. He is frustrated with what he sees as a culture of people brazenly breaking the rules. “You'll wait for a bus to come by here, and it will say ‘fare required’ instead of the destination,” he said. “Now, who would think that you could ride buses for nothing?”
Yet even after telling Sliwa that his vote might go to Cuomo, he remained torn. “The whole picture could tilt one way or the other,” he said. “I just don't know.”
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