Within the weeks earlier than Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral dream went up in smoke on election evening, a handful of unbiased spending teams backed by New York Metropolis’s oligarchy spent greater than $55 million supporting the ex-governor or attacking his finally victorious rival, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.
With Cuomo garnering just below 855,000 votes, that amounted to the would-be energy brokers spending $65 per vote for a dropping candidate.
In the meantime, unbiased committees that included backers such because the Working Households Social gathering dropped a comparatively paltry $16 million to both help Mamdani or go after Cuomo. Mamdani snagged a bit greater than 1 million votes, making their funding are available in at $15.81 per vote.
For a winner.
And within the last weeks of the final election, one of many teams backing Cuomo unleashed a high-voltage advert that includes a photograph of Mamdani positioned over a a picture of the burning World Commerce Middle, an advert that even some Cuomo supporters thought-about overtly Islamophobic and that some observers say might have truly backfired.
If something, this bruising election raised questions concerning the effectiveness of such committees — which aren’t permitted to coordinate with candidates and aren’t sure by the standard restrictions campaigns should adhere to — in swaying voters.
Licensed beneath the Supreme Courtroom’s Residents United resolution, the committees are a workaround of kinds from the strict guidelines campaigns should comply with.
Mayoral campaigns that want to settle for public matching funds are barred from accepting contributions from unions or firms. Campaigns can also’t hold any donation from a person totaling greater than $2,100, and if the person does enterprise with town, that cap shrinks to $400.
As a result of each Cuomo, 67, and Mamdani, 34, signed up for public matching funds, they lived by these restrictions which, in flip, restricted how a lot their campaigns might finally spend — round $12 million every. The involvement of so many unbiased spending committees, significantly these pushing Cuomo, took the competition to a spot the place rather more cash performed a task.
These committees are allowed to just accept donations of limitless quantities from people, and so they can take checks straight from unions and firms. Within the case of these supporting Cuomo or opposing Mamdani, dozens of those donations topped $250,000, $500,000 — even $1 million. Michael Bloomberg, New York’s ultra-wealthy former mayor, made 4 donations to 2 pro-Cuomo teams that totaled $13.3 million.
Spending by these teams on municipal elections broke information this cycle, doubling from simply over $40 million in 2021 to greater than $81 million in 2025. They began spending to advertise the previous governor earlier than the June Democratic main, however then Mamdani beat Cuomo by a major margin. The spending stopped briefly, till — undaunted by the sobering main setback — the cash began flowing once more after Cuomo introduced his quixotic bid to run as an unbiased within the normal election.
Beginning about three weeks in the past, the massive cash spigot reopened. Actual property moguls, enterprise capitalists and different rich New Yorkers terrified by the prospect of a “socialist” Metropolis Corridor started making jaw-dropping donations to teams with names resembling Repair the Metropolis, For Our Metropolis and the apocalyptic Cease the Socialists. (Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.)
Repair the Metropolis finally spent probably the most: $18 million to help Cuomo and $11 million to oppose Mamdani. That included a $12.7 million spending spree over the past two weeks on movies, texts and robocalls highlighting Mamdani’s previous (and repeated) calls to “defund the police” in the course of the 2020 protests that erupted in response to the Minneapolis police homicide of George Floyd. (Mamdani has since amended his place, stating that the NYPD performs an vital function in public security.)
However the advert that attracted probably the most blowback began popping up simply final week. It was sponsored by For Our Metropolis, a gaggle backed by main actual property builders and different rich New Yorkers, together with Bloomberg, who contributed $3.5 million. (The previous mayor additionally donated $9.8 million to Repair the Metropolis).
For Our Metropolis raised $8.1 million and spent $7.1 million, together with $650,000 on a 15-second video advert that ran on Sunday earlier than the election that set off alarm bells from each Cuomo and Mamdani supporters.
The advert opened with a picture of a smiling Mamdani with the Twin Towers burning within the background. It then went on to spotlight Mamdani’s hobnobbing with Hasan Piker, a left-leaning “influencer,” highlighting a clip of Piker stating in a previous episode of his vastly standard podcast that America “deserved 9/11.”
Critics warned that assault advertisements just like the Piker spot reject the notion of partaking in a nuanced, reasoned dialog over variations of coverage and opinion, and as a substitute fire up hatred.
Veteran political guide Hank Sheinkopf, who was employed by Save NYC, a separate anti-Mamdani unbiased group run by former Republican Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, criticized the Twin Towers advert, stating that it “was most likely hurtful to the trigger as a result of Mamdani was 9 years outdated when that occurred. And it was seen as Islamophobic.”
Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, additionally dubbed the For Our Metropolis advert Islamophobic, arguing that it distracts from actual considerations about Mamdani’s said pro-Palestinian causes and his refusal to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state.
“There are actual professional considerations about a wide range of points, together with feedback Mamdani has made about insurance policies,” she informed THE CITY. “That doesn’t imply an Islamophobic bigoted assault advert is suitable — that’s gotten misplaced on this dialogue.”
Spitalnick, who as soon as served as a spokesperson for former Mayor Invoice de Blasio, famous that the September 11 assaults have “been used as a instrument to smear the Muslim group.”
“We all know the place that’s led when it comes to hate crimes, when it comes to the rollback of rights,” she mentioned. “And using 9/11 is offensive at greatest and deeply harmful in so some ways.
“There are methods to disagree with a candidate’s approaches with out bigoted tropes,” she added.
Sheinkopf contends some opposition messages funded by the pro-Cuomo unbiased spending committees achieved their aim and had an actual impact on turnout.
The group he labored for, Save NYC, targeted on canvassing neighborhoods in Queens and the Bronx the place Cuomo wound up doing nicely.
Sheinkopf additionally praised as efficient one other advert put up by For Our Metropolis which depicted empty subway stations late at evening, with a narrator stating, “The most important concern is while you’re alone.”
With ominous music pulsing within the background, the narrator in that advert criticizes Mamdani’s plan to have well being clinicians — not the police — reply to 911 calls about folks experiencing a psychological well being disaster.
“The unfavourable advertisements on Mamdani that had been intelligent, the subway advert as an example, labored,” Sheinkopf mentioned. “Handiest advertisements are people who contact folks. These advertisements contact folks.”
