Rattled Trump backs Cuomo for New York mayor ahead of today’s election

Polls opened today for the “off year” US elections. These elections will determine the new mayor of New York, along with other issues like redistricting in California and the new state governors for Virginia and New Jersey.

In the New York mayoral race, Trump has given his backing to former mayor and repeated sexual harasser, Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo previously ran as a Democrat, but he lost his party’s preliminaries to Zohran Mamdani.  Now, instead, he’s running as an independent candidate.

And, showing just how much Mamdani’s socialist policies have rattled Trump, the orange one also issued threats to New York voters to slash federal funding to the city should Mamdani win.

‘You really have no choice’

In a TV interview on 2 November, Trump attempted to ‘smear’ left-of-centre Mamdani by calling him a communist:

It’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York. Because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.

Mamdani has proposed increased taxes for wealthy New Yorkers to fund his ambitious social programs. These include free buses, city-owned grocery stores, and affordable, union-built housing. Trump, in reaction to the Democrat candidate’s platform, threatened to cut federal funding to the city down to “the very minimum” if Mamdani wins.

Yesterday evening, Trump echoed his earlier sentiments in a post on Truth Social:

Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!

Cuomo, during his time as the Democrat mayor of New York, previously opposed Trump’s policies. However, with the Republican mayoral candidate, Curtis Sliwa, trailing hopelessly in the opinion polls, the far-right president has declared that “A vote for Curtis Sliwa … is a vote for Mamdani.” As such, he’s thrown in his lot with Cuomo in a last-ditch attempt to thwart the Democratic candidate.

Meanwhile, Trump’s fellow far-right billionaire and sometime-political ally, Elon Musk, has also thrown his weight behind Cuomo. Today, the world’s richest man was already whining on Twitter about the election being a scam:

The New York City ballot form is a scam!

– No ID is required
– Other mayoral candidates appear twice
– Cuomo’s name is last in bottom right pic.twitter.com/676VODWFRI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2025

It should be noted here that New York doesn’t require voter ID. Likewise, candidates can be endorsed by multiple parties (and thus appear multiple times on the ballot) – Cuomo’s name only appears once because his main ‘allies’ are currently political rivals.

‘The best mayor for Donald Trump’

Cuomo’s platform includes several similar policies to Mamdani’s, including expanded childcare and housing initiatives. However, the independent candidate differs in his proposal to expand the NY police force, as opposed to Mamdani’s proposal to defund the city’s police (though he has walked this back somewhat in recent weeks).

Contrasting Mamdani’s critical stance on Israel, Cuomo has also proposed the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism throughout the city. The IHRA definition gives examples of antisemitism “which might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” and similar sentiments throughout.

For his part, Cuomo has tried to distance himself from the president’s lukewarm backing. He insisted that Trump is “not endorsing me. He’s opposing Mamdani.” Mamdani, however, stated that:

the MAGA movement’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo is reflective of Donald Trump’s understanding that this would be the best mayor for him. Not the best mayor for New York City, not the best mayor for New Yorkers, but the best mayor for Donald Trump and his administration.

Results at 1am GMT

New Yorkers have already cast over 700,000 early votes over the last nine days. That’s more than four times as many as the 2021 mayoral elections, speaking to the high level of political engagement in the historically Democratic city in the face of Trump’s second term.

The latest averages from RealClearPolitics give Mamdani a clear lead with 46.1% percent. Cuomo trails by 14.3 points, at just 31.8%. Meanwhile, Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa stands virtually no chance, with only 16.3 %. Polls close at 9pm EST (1am GMT) – usually, we’ll know the results just minutes afterwards.

Featured image via the Canary