Republican in New York’s mayor race: eccentric street vigilante who could secure Mamdani’s win

With less than a month to go, the race to be New York City’s mayor is continuing to fascinate and bemuse: and in an election that could have political ramifications across the country, it’s a beret-wearing, cat loving vigilante who seems like he could have the final say.

Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the crime-fighting group the Guardian Angels and the Republican candidate to run the largest US city, has little chance of winning the election in November. But his presence may be the thing that helps confirm Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist, as New York’s next mayor.

Polling shows Mamdani, who was little known a year ago but has arguably become one the most talked-about politicians in the country, leading Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor running as an independent, by as many as 20 points. With Sliwa attracting up to 18% of the vote, an emerging theory popular among some of Cuomo’s wealthy backers is that Sliwa should drop out, allowing his voters to flock to their man.

There’s just one problem. The 71-year-old isn’t going anywhere.

“Curtis Sliwa never dropped out of anything in his life,” Sliwa told the Wall Street Journal, the Rupert Murdoch-owned, rightwing newspaper that has made it pretty clear it wants Cuomo to triumph, last week.

Asked by others if he will exit the race, Sliwa has offered more visceral rebuttals.

“A Mack truck hits me and I get turned into a speed bump, and they can’t recover me in the ICU. That’s the only way,” Sliwa said in an interview with amNewYork.

It is an attitude that comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed Sliwa’s decades in public life. His role with the Guardian Angels – Sliwa wears the group’s distinctive red beret almost permanently – led to him being shot several times in 1992 after he criticized a mafia boss, and he stubbornly stayed in the mayoral race in 2021, winning 30% of the vote.

Sliwa has never faced the pressure he has now come under, however, with Donald Trump and billionaire mega-donors calling for him to quit. According to Sliwa, some of the pressure has been of an illegal nature, with wealthy figures connected to Cuomo offering him money to drop out.

Curtis Sliwa speaks at the grand opening of the campaign’s Bay Ridge office in Brooklyn, New York, on 11 October 2025. Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

“They all think that everybody has a price, that’s the way they talk. ‘Come on Curtis, everybody has a price,’” Sliwa told reporters recently. “Curtis Sliwa doesn’t have a price. I came into this world with nothing, I’m going to leave with nothing, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Sliwa has avoided naming names but insists he has been offered “bribes”.

“Seven different people, a total of $10 million when you bifurcate it out over the years,” he told Fox5 New York.

“Car, Jeep, chauffeur, headquarters to operate out of, helping the Guardian Angels, helping animal welfare – and you know something? If you’re watching out there, you can’t bribe me, buy me, lease me, I’m not for sale.”

Sliwa accompanied his words with a chin-flicking gesture, which the New York Post translated as meaning “fuck outta here”. Cuomo’s campaign denied the claims and pointed to Sliwa’s track record with the truth, which has, at times, been patchy: in the 1990s Sliwa admitted he had faked some of the Guardian Angels’ crime-fighting exploits.

That hasn’t stopped Sliwa from talking about the alleged bribes – and last week he began campaigning with a private security detail after he said he had received “very credible” threats against him and his wife.

Whether Sliwa’s claims are true or not, the pressure on him to quit is undeniable.

John Catsimatidis, the billionaire Republican mega-donor and a close friend of Sliwa’s, recently said he should drop out “if he reaches a point that he feels that he’s not turning it around”. In a separate statement last week, Catsimatidis said: “In two weeks from now, if he hasn’t shown any progress, how did Sgt Schultz say it? Machine kaput!”

Joe Lhota, who was deputy mayor under Republican Rudy Giuliani, endorsed Cuomo, describing Sliwa as a “fruit loop” to the New York Post. Anthony Carbonetti, Giuliani’s former chief of staff, was more diplomatic, but said “the numbers aren’t there for him to win”. Bill Ackman, the billionaire who backed Trump in 2024, called out Sliwa directly on social media on Thursday.

Curtis Sliwa speaks at city hall in New York on 30 September 2025. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“A vote for Curtis Sliwa is a vote for Zohran Mamdani. Curtis Sliwa, it is time for you to leave the race,” Ackman wrote. “Every day you wait to leave the race reduces the probability of stopping Mamdani. I know you don’t want to hand the City to him.”

Sliwa has responded to the attempts at coercion as one might expect.

“I believe the people have a right to vote and determine who the next mayor is,” the Guardian Angels founder added. “They don’t get picked by billionaires or the professional political class. That’s not how our elections work.”

Ackman claimed in his social media post that Cuomo could beat Mamdani in a “one-on-one election”. But it’s not a given that Sliwa’s Republican voters would automatically flock to Cuomo, who has criticized Trump and resigned as New York governor under a cloud after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. Head-to-head matchups show Mamdani comfortably beating Cuomo in November.

Still, national Republicans want Sliwa gone. Asked about his fellow Republican in an interview with Fox and Friends, Trump described Sliwa as “not exactly prime-time”.

In a typically chaotic answer, Trump said Sliwa “wants cats to be in Gracie Mansion”, referring to the official mayor’s residence.

“The magnificent home of the mayor, it’s beautiful. Gracie Mansion, to me, is like a fabled place if you’re in New York. No, we don’t need to have thousands of cats living in it,” Trump said.

Sliwa has not said he wants thousands of cats living in the Gracie Mansion, although he has suggested using some of the 11 acres the building sits in to house sheltered cats and dogs that would otherwise be put down. Cats hold a particular place in Sliwa’s heart – he and his wife, Nancy, have rescued and fostered hundreds of cats. When the Guardian visited the couple’s studio apartment in 2021 they were sharing the tiny space with no less than 16 cats.

Given New York is an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Sliwa is very unlikely to see his Gracie Mansion plans come to fruition. But his willingness to defy the billionaires, and the president, could see him have a big impact on the mansion’s next resident.