President Donald Trump and his allies are eager to quickly consolidate the mayoral field in New York City from three major candidates running against Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani to a one-on-one fight.
That effort, which spilled into public view last week, marks the latest episode in which the president has sought increased control and influence over the affairs of major U.S. cities — including Chicago and Washington, D.C.
But if the past week is any indication, it won’t come easily.
The New York Times and other outlets reported that close Trump advisers have contemplated how to get both New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa to abandon their bids, including by offering them jobs in the Trump administration. For Adams, opportunities under consideration included jobs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, while a specific post for Sliwa was not made clear, according to the reports. NBC News has not independently confirmed the effort.
Ahead of a Thursday dinner with tech executives, Trump told reporters that Mamdani, a state assemblyman who rose to prominence as an outer-borough socialist, was more likely to win in November if the field against him did not shrink.
“I don’t think you can win unless you have one on one, because somehow he’s gotten a little bit of a lead,” Trump said. “I would like to see two people drop out and have it be one on one. I think that’s a race that could be won.”
The president denied that he had personally encouraged any of the other three major candidates — Adams, Sliwa and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — to drop out.
“I don’t like to see a communist become mayor, I will tell you that.” Trump said.
Both Sliwa and Adams — who trail Cuomo and Mamdani in polls — swatted away any suggestion that they’d end their candidacies. Soon after the Times reported on the effort, Sliwa — who founded the Guardian Angels, a volunteer safety patrol group, and has been a fixture in city politics for decades — said that he was uninterested in an administration position and is “committed to carrying this fight through to Election Day.” His campaign then announced the opening of new campaign offices in Brooklyn.
And on Friday, Adams addressed reporters outside of Gracie Mansion, delivering a blistering, five-minute statement excoriating his opponents and giving no indication he’s considering an exit. He opened his statement by calling Cuomo “a snake.”
“This polo shirt that I’m wearing that says ‘Eric Adams, Mayor of the City of New York,’ I’m going to wear that for another four years,” he said, adding: “I have two spoiled brats running for mayor. They were born with silver spoons in their mouths, not like working-class New Yorkers. I’m a working-class New Yorker. They are not like us.”
John Catsimatidis, the billionaire businessman and New York Republican power broker, said he spoke with Trump earlier this summer about getting directly involved in the mayoral race and then discussed with him the ins and outs of the contest last Sunday. The grocery store magnate said he’s discussed a number of possibilities with Trump for how he could help narrow the field.
“The president feels that what I’m saying … anybody but Zohran,” Catsimatidis said in an interview. “Because New York City is the capitalist capital of the world, and we don’t want it to be communism or socialism, whatever. And he’s been pushing that and the president doesn’t want that to happen. … I don’t think the world will come to an end if it’s Eric Adams. I don’t think the world will come to an end if it’s Cuomo. I don’t think the world will come to an end if it’s Curtis.”
Catsimatidis suggested that “there’s other people working on” how to clear the field, adding that Trump has about “half a dozen people that he really trusts, and he uses them.” He did not provide more details on these efforts.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is supporting Mamdani, said the level of presidential involvement in the mayoral race is unprecedented in recent times. He recalled President Bill Clinton trying to boost then-Mayor David Dinkins’ re-election campaign in 1993, “but not trying to shape the race or manipulate the dynamics of the race.”
“I don’t remember that from either side, honestly, in any of the elections,” he said.
The involvement in New York’s election comes alongside his federal takeover of and deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., that began last month, while a separate ramp-up of federal immigration enforcement is set to begin in Chicago. On Saturday, Trump posted an image to his Truth Social platform with the caption “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” suggesting a military crackdown could soon take place there.
“This is a moment,” said Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist in New York whose firm did advertising work for Mamdani. “We see Trump bringing in the National Guard to cities across America. We’re past the wake-up calls. It’s happening.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris won New York City by a substantial margin in 2024, and de Blasio said any effort by Trump to boost Cuomo will turn into a negative for his campaign.
The Trump administration waded into New York mayoral politics earlier this year when the Justice Department moved to dismiss corruption charges against Adams, saying that it had to do so to give Adams space to boost Trump’s immigration agenda. The episode led to a precipitous decline in Adams’ poll numbers.
Trump, however, did improve on his own numbers in New York City last cycle compared to 2020 and 2016, and Trump held major rallies in the Bronx and at Madison Square Garden, baffling some observers at the time as the state and city were firmly off the electoral battleground map.
“He’s a New Yorker,” Catsimatidis said of Trump’s interest in the race. “He’s one of us. He loves New York and wants to make sure New York is not broken.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
While some national Republicans would like to see Mamdani win so they can make him a focal point in their midterm campaigns, Trump has more aligned himself with the view of his longtime New York associates, who have expressed fears of a Mamdani administration because of his left-wing views and his involvement with the Democratic Socialists of America.
“Sometimes it’s just important to remember the company he keeps,” de Blasio said, referring to Trump. “That inner circle of New York real estate and business figures, including some he’s brought in. [Steve] Witkoff is in his administration. [Howard] Lutnick is in his administration. Part of it is he is hearing from the business leaders of New York City, their concerns. I don’t think he’s thinking as head of the Republican Party. In this case, I think he’s thinking about his donor base and his friends.”
A Siena College survey taken last month found Mamdani at 44% support, with 25% of New York voters backing Cuomo, 12% supporting Sliwa, 7% siding with Adams and 10% undecided.
Democratic primary polling, however, showed Cuomo with a huge edge right up until the stretch run of the election — which Mamdani ultimately won. That triggered Cuomo to run on an independent line. Adams, who won the 2021 Democratic primary and mayoral contest, is running as an independent, too, following legal battles connected to a lobbying effort.
Bradley Tusk, who was campaign manager for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 reelection campaign, said he still believes Adams will drop out of the race despite his insistence Friday that he is staying in. But Tusk added that he thinks it is unlikely Sliwa will exit the contest.
“The more Trump and others push, the more this becomes [Sliwa’s] victory — standing up to Trump,” Tusk said in an email. “That means that the 7-10% Adams has could go somewhere else. Of that, some of it probably goes to Cuomo. But some to Sliwa, some even to Zohran and some people may end up not voting. So the impact on the outcome itself is minimal.”
“I’m guessing Trump knows all of this and despite what he’s saying — he wants Zohran to win,” Tusk continued. “They’re the perfect foils for each other. But, this gives him (in his mind) the pretext to send in troops or something else absurd like that. Adams won’t know what to do because if he’s about to go be an ambassador, he can’t object to it. But Zohran will have a field day with it and if anything, it’ll help him politically.”
Mamdani’s victory was built upon a message laser-focused on affordability, energized grassroots support and a slick social media campaign that included viral, direct-to-camera appeals and vertical video sketches. On Friday, he told supporters to stop donating to him after raising the roughly $8 million general election spending limit for mayoral candidates who participate in the city’s matching funds program. In a video, he instead asked for voters’ time as canvassers or phone bankers ahead of November’s election.
The 33-year-old seized on news of Trump’s more significant involvement in the race, tying the president closer to Cuomo, his chief rival. He even called for a one-on-one debate with Trump to “cut out the middleman” in Cuomo.
“Today we have learned what New Yorkers long suspected: Andrew Cuomo is Donald Trump’s choice to be the next mayor of this city,” Mamdani told reporters Wednesday. “This is an affront to our democracy, an affront to what makes so many of us proud to be Americans — that we choose our own leaders.”
Cuomo has already shifted his message from the primary, when he talked of resisting Trump, to the general, where that theme has gone by the wayside. In August, Cuomo told business leaders at a fireside chat that he was not “personally” interested in fighting with Trump and that he thinks there could be an “opportunity” because Trump “doesn’t want to fight with me. [And] personally, I don’t want to fight with him.”
The New York Times first reported those comments, and a spokesperson with the Partnership for New York City, which organized the fireside chat, confirmed the accuracy of those quotes to NBC News at the time.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Cuomo said he read reports that Trump’s advisers were offering a position to Adams but added he had no idea about their veracity.
“I haven’t spoken to President Trump about it,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to Mayor Adams about it. And that speculation, I know nothing about. That’s speculation. I do believe, and I have said that, as all the candidates agree, that Mamdani is an existential threat. That it makes sense that when you get to a point when you can determine who is the strongest candidate, the other candidates defer to the stronger candidate. … So if you’re not the strongest candidate, step aside.”
Mamdani’s allies, meanwhile, have pushed for state and national Democratic leaders in New York, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to speak out against Trump’s efforts to kneecap Mamdani, the party’s nominee. Hochul, Schumer, Jeffries, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and a handful of the city’s Democratic House members have not made an endorsement in the race, which has garnered significant attention from Trump and his associates.
“Look, if we see more evidence of Trump being involved, I absolutely think all Democrats should speak out against it, and I think it’s time for Democrats to coalesce around Zohran,” de Blasio said. “To be fair, most have. The vast majority of mainstream Democratic leaders have joined this effort. But for those who are standing back, I think this is further evidence of how important it is to join him, and soon.”
