What Curtis Sliwa Told Zohran Mamdani on Election Night
A few minutes after Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa gave his concession speech on Tuesday night, he called Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. “I wished him the best on behalf of the city and said, ‘I’m sure I’m going to be talking a lot about you down the road,’” Sliwa reported the following morning.
He was speaking from his apartment on the Upper West Side, the de facto headquarters of his campaign. After catching up on some sleep, he called volunteers and staffers to thank them for working through an election that elevated Sliwa to the highest station of his five decades in public life: as the heel for both the Republican Establishment and the old-guard Democrats who hoped Andrew Cuomo could defeat Mamdani in the general election despite an embarrassing Democratic-primary loss in June. Notwithstanding reported job offers in the Trump administration and cash gifts of as much as $10 million Sliwa said he was offered to drop out, he refused to throw down his beret.
“I prove I don’t move,” he said.
Looking back on his campaign, the 71-year-old said he was committed to the concept of “one person, one vote” and the idea of an election uninfluenced by the billionaire class — even as members of the ultrarich, including Bill Ackman, pushed him to get out of the race so New York would not elect a democratic socialist. “He is the biggest jerk on two legs,” Sliwa said of the hedge-funder. He added that the Trump White House never actually got in direct contact with him about a job in the administration in exchange for tapping out. “No one called me,” he said. “I’m not friendly with anyone over there other than Andrew Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani, and Rudy endorsed me.”
It’s hard to shake the sense that Sliwa’s decision to stay in the race was fueled by some personal hostility to the forces that wanted him out. Take Cuomo, the ex-governor whom Sliwa has been heckling for years. On Election Night, the two did not speak. “I would never talk to the Prince of Darkness,” he said. “I hope he goes back to the Hamptons and hangs out with his billionaire friends and crawls back under the rock that he came out of.”
As for Mamdani, Sliwa is prepared to be a consistent thorn in his side. “I hope the best for Zohran because obviously it’s in the best interest of the city,” Sliwa said. “But I clearly drew the Maginot Line that if he actually moves forward to introduce his socialist platform, then we organize and we mobilize.”
An early fight could be over the Elizabeth Street Garden, the charismatic private park in Little Italy that the city was trying to tear down to build affordable housing for low-income seniors until the effort was scrapped by the Adams administration this year. While campaigning, Mamdani said he would revive the housing development within his first year as mayor. If so, Sliwa intends to get in the way. “We love that park,” he said, referring to himself and his wife, Nancy. “And now Zohran, right away, it’s almost like he’s licking his chops to bring in the bulldozers and the wrecking ball to a park like no other in New York City.”
Aside from contesting the incoming Mamdani administration, Sliwa has other things to figure out — like how to make a living. Since 1990, he has been a consistent presence on the conservative talk-radio station WABC; he used to joke that the letters stood for “always broadcasting Curtis.” On the air for as many as 60 hours per week, he was paid pretty well, too. Tax returns showed he earned $423,000 last year.
“I will never be heard on WABC again. I will never walk through those doors,” he said. Sliwa’s old boss, WABC owner John Catsimatidis, was among the billionaires pushing for him to drop out to improve Cuomo’s chances. “They began this dropout syndrome,” Sliwa says. And 35 years of employment have come to an end as rumors spread of a Cuomo show at the station.
In the interim, Sliwa says he will be okay: “My wife is an attorney, she’s been able to keep us afloat. I take life day to day.” He says he finds inspiration in his favorite music, EDM. “Our favorite song, both she and I, is the song ‘Best Day of My Life,’ by Bunt. Because I’m alive. I shouldn’t be, on multiple occasions. I’m the luckiest man alive, no doubt about it.”