By Robin M. Itzler | Am Thinker | August 1, 2025
Headshot of Curtis Sliwa – Given by Co-Campaign Manager, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia
Curtis Sliwa CAN win New York City’s mayoral race in November.
Let’s go back to June 2015, in the days immediately after Donald Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator and announced he was running for president. Do you remember all the “knowledgeable” people who wrote off his campaign as a vanity stunt? Or the others who believed Trump had no chance of winning the nomination, much less the presidency. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Keep that in mind for all those brushing off Guardian Angels’ founder, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa’s New York City mayoral campaign. Perhaps it was true in past years when the Democrat nominee would automatically go on to win the general election; however, 2025 is not a typical year since Democrats nominated a communist. Mamdani might not call himself a communist, but he says all the communist mantras. For example, as Mark Lewis wrote:
Karl Marx: “The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.”
Recent Breitbart headline: “Zohran Mamdani Pushes for ‘Abolition of Private Property’”
This November, Republican nominee Sliwa has a very good chance of an upset victory in the New York mayoral race.
Sliwa, who has spent his entire life tirelessly protecting New Yorkers since founding the Guardian Angels in 1979, understands the Big Apple. He knows that many New Yorkers have no choice but to ride the city’s crime-infested subways, walk its crime-infested streets, and send their children to its crime-infested schools. Former three-term GOP Gov. George Pataki is confident that the Republican mayoral nominee can win City Hall. In a New York Post interview, Pataki said:
“This is the weakest Democratic field ever. Curtis knows the city better than anyone else. He knows the neighborhoods better than anyone else. He knows the subways better than anyone else.”
In “Adams Must Drop Out – Curtis Sliwa is the Only NYC Candidate Who Can Beat Mamdani,” Bob Capano writes:
Sliwa’s campaign and life align with the Republican Party’s Trump-led shift toward appealing to working-class voters, emphasizing law-and-order and grassroots community engagement. His decades leading the Guardian Angels have earned him credibility across party lines. He notably achieved record-breaking support among Asian American voters in his unsuccessful 2021 mayoral bid.
Mamdani’s campaign is built around free this, free that, rent control this, control that, and the city competing with private businesses (i.e., grocery stores). Like a true communist, Mamdani says someone else will pay for all of it: rich, white folks. (Ha—those are the ones that will be moving!)
Mamdani is also anti-police. In one of his many anti-police tweets, he wrote:
We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD. But your deal with @NYCMayor uses budget tricks to keep as many cops as possible on the beat. NO to fake cuts – defund the police.
Among Curtis Sliwa’s proposals when elected mayor:
- Hire 7,000 more police officers and more to bring back public safety.
- Make housing more affordable.
- Fix the broken education system.
- Revive the city. (Let’s all sing, “I love New York…”)
- Remove New York City as a sanctuary city.
- Repeal the state’s bail reform law.
- Reduce illegal immigration as municipal resources can’t handle the influx, and it takes money from citizens.
- Create no-kill shelters. (Sliwa and his wife care deeply about protecting animals.)
The two other “leading” mayoral candidates had their chance and should now gracefully bow out.
Fellow Democrat, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, lost to Mamdani in the primary. Cuomo admitted that he ran a lousy campaign as he hoped name recognition would be enough. Many New Yorkers recognize Cuomo…for “killing” elderly residents during the pandemic when he sent COVID patients to nursing homes where they infected everyone with the China-created disease. Maybe Cuomo should hold a rally at a cemetery.
Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is as popular as mosquitoes at a picnic. The former Republican, former Democrat, now independent Adams did not run in the June primary. On the July 25 broadcast of Fox 5 New York’s Good Day New York, Hizzoner said, legal or illegal, if they are within the city, they deserve whatever services they need.
Unlike the insane ranked-choice primary, the general election is based solely on which candidate gets the most votes. Curtis Sliwa can do it! Even with some pointing to New York’s corrupt voting system, Sliwa has a very good chance of winning if New Yorkers show up and vote.
The HarrisX poll released on July 15 has the mayoral race tightening. Poll results: Mamdani received 26 percent of the vote in a four-way race. Cuomo was at 23 percent; Sliwa at 22 percent, and a distant Adams at 13 percent. At a minimum, the HarrixX poll shows that many New Yorkers do not want Mamdani. However, the communist nominee is counting on the split non-Mamdani vote to get him into Gracie Mansion.
This is why Republicans must rally and unite behind Sliwa, who has already been endorsed by every New York City Republican County party.
In the meantime, “hammer and sickle” Mamdani can keep sprouting his communist gibberish. He can share his video explaining how, as a 33-year-old man, he’s happy to let his parents financially support him. He can also voice a favored slogan, “globalize the intifada!” (a phrase he refuses to disavow), which is another way of saying, “Let’s kill all the Jews.”
Many Democrat leaders remain silent. They understand that if New York elects the communist Mamdani, it will prove what President Trump and other Republican leaders have been saying: the Democrat party has morphed into the communist party. According to Washington, DC insider Mark Halperin, who recently spoke to some people close to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, “?Hakeem Jeffries strongly believes that if Mamdani wins, he [Jeffries] can’t win the majority.”
In the late 1970s, Americans happily sang along to the jingle “I Love New York.” The song encouraged tourism and showed the city’s resilience. It was revised following the Islamist terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Should communist Mamdani win, the iconic song might be revised to “I Left New York!”
Sliwa is moving up in the polls and continues to attract both Republicans and moderate Democrats, along with independents who don’t want the communist Mamdani but have soured on Adams and Cuomo. From Queens to Staten Island, from the Bronx to Brooklyn, and on Manhattan, many New Yorkers are humming “I Love New York and am voting for Curtis Sliwa.”
Curtis Sliwa can win! Get on board and help him with a donation. If you care about saving the United States of America from a communist takeover from within, start by supporting Curtis Sliwa for New York City mayor.
Former New Yorker Robin M. Itzler lives in California and is a regular contributor to American Thinker. She is the founder and editor of Patriot Neighbors, a free weekly national newsletter. Robin can be reached at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com.
Moving interview
https://youtu.be/H5tO3zy1jpI?si=20SlUW1PXhhe04ZZ
Mayor Eric Adams is the only candidate opposed to pressuring Israel to surrender.
April 9, 2024
https://forward.com/fast-forward/601018/nyc-mayor-eric-adams-israel-gaza-ceasefire/
He’s the only NYC mayoral candidate who can say that.
In this interview, Sliwa calls for Trump to stop the war in Gaza and says he wants Mamdani’s ceasefire constituency. Starts a little after 6 minutes in. Of lesser importance, he criticizes police commissioner Tisch for saying rising crime is a perception (which in my experience it is, there are police everywhere and I feel safe) though not long before, he had praised her. I think, like Cuomo, who also called for a ceasefire in Gaza in a radio interview but who hastily backtracked, saying “well, that’s what people are saying,” (or like Obama who visited the Western Wall and kissed Jewish babies in Jerusalem when he was running for the U.S. Senate, and threw his antisemitic, anti-American friend and mentor of 20 years, Rev Jeremiah Wright, under the bus without hesitation when it was exposed and was the only remaining obstacle to the presidency), Sliwa is also an opportunist who will say anything for power.
“DARK MONEY’: Sliwa calls for probe over Mamdani campaign funds”
163,472 views · 2 days ago#foxbusiness #usnews #mamdani
…more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAUdIsz3a9g around 6’34”
@Peloni post disappeared
Thanks, its back.
https://forward.com/news/733603/curtis-sliwa-nyc-republican-candidate-antisemitism/
“Sliwa’s decades of brash talk radio have left a trail of controversial remarks that could complicate efforts to win over voters uneasy with Mamdani’s socialist views and stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He won a majority of the vote in the Orthodox-populated Borough Park neighborhood in 2021, but lacked support in other Orthodox neighborhoods, where Adams had cultivated close relationships. This year, Adams is running on an “End Antisemitism” ballot line. Some Hasidic sects that endorsed Cuomo in the primary have already indicated they would support Adams in the general.”…
“…Sliwa deployed the Guardian Angels to Crown Heights for a month in 1991, after a car in the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s motorcade struck and killed a Black child, sparking riots and the fatal stabbing of Jewish student Yankel Rosenbaum.
The unrest injured more than 200 people and caused major property damage, with Jewish leaders accusing Mayor David Dinkins of restraining the police and failing to protect the community — a factor in Dinkins’ failure to win reelection. The Guardian Angels returned to patrol the neighborhood in early 2020 amid a rise in antisemitic attacks.
Despite the patrols, many Jewish voters, particularly in the Hasidic communities in Brooklyn, fixate on Sliwa’s record of inflammatory rhetoric.
In 2013, he said that Jews need to be “tough” to survive, warning that those who aren’t will “get turned into speed bumps.”
___
Thanks a lot. Wait, he patrolled Crown Heights for a month AFTER the 4 days the police did nothing and Yankel Rosenbaum was murdered? It was headline news for 4 days! All they had to do was hop on the subway, Is that a misprint? I read an article somewhere else about how the grateful Lubavitcher got coffee for them as they stood guard outside their headquarters. I wonder how they took their coffee? Sugar, cream?
No wonder this is the first I am reading about it.
Trump internal polling indicates that Cuomo might be best able to beat Mamdani, but no call to support him as of yet.
This is discraceful. Cuomo should be in jail.
https://www.jns.org/nyc-launches-enduring-partnership-with-israel-gotham-mayor-says/
NYC launches ‘enduring partnership’ with Israel, Gotham mayor says – JNS.org
@Sebastien
It’s back
@Peloni posts disappeared
FYI, Mr. Sliwa:
Incidentally, I happen to be a secular assimilated Jewish Manhattanite but I understand that we stand or fall together and after a lifetime of extending solidarity to everybody else under the sun, I finally came to understand: solidarity begins at home.
This is the kind of rhetoric Sharpton spewed, and the left amplified, especially the incitement about school funding – that incited The Crown Heights Pogrom and the riot, fire and shooting at Freddy’s Happy Mart. I don’t know about you, but I don’t accept apologies from politicians. I remember a socialist friend responding to my calling out the exposure of Obama’s close 20 year connection with Jeremiah Wright, which he then apologized for, doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?
To be president?!!! Hell, no.
“The Hasidic woman who shaped counterterrorism laws in NYC
Devorah Halberstam, Chair of the Board of Commissioners for the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, reflects on transforming her personal tragedy into decades of activism and her current fight against rising hate against Jews.”
“Asked about mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who has expressed support for boycotting Israel and has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric, she chooses not to comment. “I do know who Mayor Eric Adams is,” she says. “I’ve known him for twenty years. His stance is clear and consistent. He has a deep understanding of antisemitism and has stood by the Jewish community. I saw it firsthand. A mayor’s job is to bring people together, not to pit them against each other, and Mayor Adams has done that.”
These two things contradict each other.
The mayor has no power over these.
He denounced increasing crime and praised police commissioner Tisch.
NYT article saying Sliwa’s chances improving.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/nyregion/sliwa-beret-mayor-republican.html
And for low income students, tuition has been free for a long time through Tap and Pell grants for full time students, and through scholarships for honor students. But, not necessarily living expenses, which is where killer loans came in for many, which Sliwa mentions. He seems to be only appealing to professionals with loans in apartments. He seems to think working class people all own houses. Not in New York City. Even parts of upstate. That’s why Republican Lee Zeldin lost the gubernatorial race. Kick people off Medicaid and oppose the no-fault eviction law for upstate that NYC rent stabilized and rent controlled tenants have? Forget it. That’ s why Elise Stefanik will lose if she runs. Governor Kathy Hochul, whatever else you can say about her, won’t do that and she’s pro-Israel. Cuomo’s executive order banning the state from doing business with entities that ban BDS stands. Be interesting to see what will happen if Mamdani, as mayor, tries to implement BDS policies. Many city functions are in fact, ruled by the state, thanks to the Urqhardt Law which was passed in the ’70s, when the city narrowly averted bankruptcy. It says the city is just a creature of the state. I can’t find it now, googling. But, I found this:
“AI Overview
+13
New York City housing law is primarily governed by the state legislature due to a combination of historical and legal factors. The state constitution grants the state legislature broad authority over local governments, and the state has historically played a dominant role in shaping housing policy, especially regarding rent regulation.
Here’s a more detailed explanation:
1. State Constitution and Preemption:
The New York State Constitution grants the state legislature broad powers, including the authority to enact laws that can affect or even supersede local laws, including those related to housing.
This means that the state legislature can pass laws that apply to New York City, even if they conflict with or override existing local ordinances.
2. Historical Context:
Rent regulation in New York City, particularly rent control and stabilization, has deep historical roots, dating back to World War II.
Initially, the state government played a key role in establishing and managing these systems, and subsequent legislation has largely built upon that foundation.
The state legislature has repeatedly renewed and amended these rent laws, shaping the landscape of housing regulation in NYC.
3. Political Dynamics:
The balance of power between the city and state governments, as well as the influence of various interest groups (such as tenant advocates and real estate developers), has shaped the direction of housing policy.
In the past, there was a push for “local control” of housing laws, but the state legislature’s actions, particularly the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA), demonstrated a preference for statewide solutions and stronger tenant protections.
The HSTPA, for example, made fundamental changes to rent regulation laws and strengthened tenant protections statewide.
4. State-Level Advocacy:
Tenant advocacy groups have increasingly focused their efforts on state-level legislation to achieve stronger tenant protections.
This is because the state legislature has the power to pass laws that affect all municipalities, potentially creating more comprehensive and uniform protections.
In essence, the state legislature’s authority over local governments, coupled with historical precedent and ongoing political dynamics, has resulted in the state playing a dominant role in shaping New York City’s housing laws, especially regarding rent regulation. ”
Ironically, conservative Republican, Al D’Amato, who defeated liberal Republican, Senator Jacob Javits, who all tenants rights advocates voted for, the one Republican, and who coined the slogan, “Medicare for All”, was known as the go to official to turn to for help for low income students having problems getting their financial aid, in the ’90s, at City College in the Financial Aid Office. And students not only demonstrated but occupied campus buildings more than once to protest liberal Republican Governor Mario Cuomo’s (Andrew’s father) tuition hikes. 😀
Unlike AOC, who coopted Senator Javits’ slogan, he was fiercely pro-Israel and a patriotic American. The convention center is named after him and one line of the subway goes right there.
Though Medicare isiexpensive. Should be Medicaid – which is administered by insurance companies – for all. Every developed country but the U.S. and, ironically, Belgium, the capital of the EU has it.
Incidentally, I voted for Sliwa in the last general election for mayor, skipping the Dem primary that Adams won, because I supported Sliwa’s animal rights plank, particularly abolishing “kill” animal shelters, and thought both were pro-police, and sympathetic to tenants, so that was the only difference between them, and antisemitism wasn’t an issue.
Clicked on “make housing more affordable.” Now, Sliwa is claiming he will abolish laws the mayor has no power over, but only the state senate, state assembly, and governor, and, which, I along with a tenants of over 1 million rent stabilized apartments in building built before 1974 as long as the vacancy rate is less than 5 percent, support. Landlords have been getting subsidies and tax breaks in exchange and when their expenses went down, the rents always went up. Many, if not most rent stabilized tenants, are, such as myself, people who have lived most, if not all of their lives in the same apartment, even multi-generationally. They tried getting rid of rent controls in the ’70s and it was a disaster. The courts were flooded with evictions. If you oppose a $30 an hour minimum wage and restrictions on rent, where will ordinary people live? It was never like this before 1980. It happened all at once. The landlords and real estate developers colluded with the city to maintain and exacerbate shortages of genuinely affordable rent as inflation has never stopped climbing. And landlords are not abandoning buildings the way they did in the ’80s which the city warehoused and released onto the market – for a dollar – initially to tenants groups that fixed them up as low rent coops – and then only to luxury real estate developers. There’s never a shortage of luxury housing. And construction is annoyingly non-stop everywhere. Before the ’80s, there was no visible homelessness. It’s only partly due to the state emptying the mental hospitals to save money and lower taxes and the crack epidemic of the ’90s.
“Reverse Cuomo’s 2019 Rent Laws: The 2019 rent reform package, signed by Andrew Cuomo, eliminated long-standing provisions that allowed reasonable rent increases for necessary building repairs. Landlords were stripped of the ability to make capital improvements through Major Capital Improvements (MCI) and Individual Apartment Improvements (IAI) without taking financial losses.
Curtis will push to restore these tools so buildings can remain safe, livable, and well maintained.”
I used to vote for the Dem candidates on the Working Families Party Line before it became the pro-BDS anti-Israel party, actually “destroy Israel” party. I formally left the Dem party when Obama dissed Israel 3 times in a row in his first week in office, and returned in order to vote against these anti-semites in Dem primaries. Right after voting for Trump. In this last election, I voted for Micah Lasher against another BDS Working Families Party backed candidate. And then he just turned around and endorsed Mamdani! In total denial of his antisemitism.
My politics haven’t changed on tenants rights. Compared to Western especially Northern Europe, which I too admired before they invited in hordes of Muslim antisemites and began delegitimizing Israel (or at least when i became aware of it) but these policies enacted before WWI in Europe and just before and after WWII here, are not Communism and have worked. It’s more like what Israel has. Interesting that nobody has pointed that out. Ironically, Communist countries are less generous. Even Cuba, the one everybody likes to point to, has a two-tier medical system.
I oppose Mamdani because he is pro-Jihadist, because he is an antisemite and I will vote for whoever can defeat him because of that but though Cuomo disgraced himself during the Pandemic, I liked him precisely because of the 2019 tenants rights reform bill, as well as his support for Israel. He won the primary that year against pro-BDS Cynthia Nixon and he imposed the first executive order banning the state from doing business with pro-BDS individuals and organizations in the country! . And I liked De Blasio – who was pro-Israel, incidentally – because of his two unprecedented rent freezes – that just means the rent doesn’t go up not away – for one year leases for one year. They vote on it every year and the Mayor appoints most of the committee that does the voting.
I voted for the trifecta of Trump, Cuomo, and De Blasio, and quipped at the time that I wouldn’t vote for any of them for the office the other one holds. 😀
But, all of the anti-Mamdani candidates, thanks to landlord support, have backtracked on tenant’s rights, including Sliwa, who initiallly said he was open to rent freeze.
But, I will have to hold my nose and vote for the least worst candidate who isn’t a fascist, more specifically, an anti-semite, in social-democratic clothing. Mamdani is our Jeremy Corbin. He’s actually much worse than London’s Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has been advising him to tack towards the center in his appeal in the general election. Hence, Mamdani met with business leaders and said he would de-emphasize the “globalize the intifada” slogan, it was reported.
Here is an overview of the Housing and Stability and Protection Act of 2019 which I supported and support and the loopholes in the system that were destroying it and many people’s lives, that it corrected. I thank Governor Cuomo for it though I condemn his policies that lead to the deaths of seniors and his discrimination against the Ultra-Orthodox during the lockdown (for which he has apologized) and though I have read that he will be worse to tenants as mayor thanks to landlords coalescing around him. And, I support Sliwa’s animal rights plank. Kudows to President Trump, incidentallly, for stripping animal experimentation of funding. The very first demonstration I ever went to, by myself, in high school was against that and I haven’t changed my mind. My late big sister was an organic vegan and I looked up to her. I also loved animals and hated such unjust and pointless cruelty.
https://hcr.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2021/08/rent-laws-overview-english-10-2019.pdf
All the best for NYC!