Title: City Politics: State of the Race; New Voters

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll do today's 30-issue segment later in the show. It's going to be on how to regulate mopeds, e-bikes, scooters, and also respect the livelihoods of delivery workers as an issue in the mayoral race. Candidates disagree on that. We will get to issue Lucky 13 later in the show, in 30 Issues in 30 Days. If it's Wednesday, it's our take on the politics of the mayoral race with political reporter Elizabeth Kim. We do this in addition to our 30-issue series.

Today, you might say, Zohran Mamdani's campaign is in a new phase, risk minimization. After a primary season packed with policy rollouts and viral videos and him appearing in person all over the place, the frontrunner for New York City mayor is now limiting press access more, offering few new details about how he would govern, and focusing on keeping his double-digit lead intact. It's classic. It's what any frontrunner does, really. WNYC's Elizabeth Kim reports it's a classic run-out-the-clock strategy. That's another way to look at it.

Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo continues to attack Mamdani as a "mansion boy and champagne socialist." Curtis Sliwa, and I wish I knew this yesterday, or this happened before yesterday, when we did our education 30-issue segment, but he has now vowed to slash $10 billion from the New York City schools. We're going to talk about that a little bit today as a follow-up. He also just got the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani. Sliwa did, if anybody cares about that endorsement anymore, and Mayor Eric Adams, out of the race, is off to Albania. We'll talk to WNYC senior political correspondent Brigid Bergin, in addition to Liz Kim, today. Hi, Brigid and Liz. Happy Wednesday.

Brigid: Happy Wednesday, Brian.

Liz: Happy Wednesday.

Brian: Let me just play a clip. This is one of your stories, Brigid, I think, about the surge of first-time voters who helped fuel Mamdani's win in the June primary. Many of those voters are young, new to New York, drawn in by the promise that he makes of affordability and change, and apparently, in some cases, by this Mamdani campaign video released over the summer.

Zohran Mamdani: The other day on the subway, I met a New Yorker, but get this, they vote in California. I know this is true for many of you. You're Democrats who've chosen not to vote here because you believe your vote counts more elsewhere. Every four years, you vote absentee from your parents' address in Philly or three apartments ago in Atlanta. Come on, you live here.

Brian: Brigid, that's a very specific appeal.

Brigid: Absolutely, Brian. We were looking at who these new voters were that really caught our attention during the primary, particularly during early voting. As you may know, we did a bunch of reporting throughout the nine days of early voting, looking at where the turnout was, who was turning out, how old people were that were turning out. Over the course of three stories, we found a consistent trend that young people were turning out in droves, and that we were seeing significantly higher rates of early voting turnout than we had seen compared to 2021.

Obviously, that's one batch of the electorate. Now that we also had primary day data there, my colleague Joe Hong and I decided to look more closely at, okay, so out of all the people who turned out during the primary, how many people were actually new voters? How many were first-time primary voters? What we found was 7% of the entire turnout was made up of first-time voters. In raw numbers, that's about 76,860 first-time voters out of the 1.1 million total turnout. Of course, what does that mean by comparison? In 2021, only 2% of the entire turnout was made up of first-time voters. That was about 20,000 voters of the 1 million or so who turned out during that race.

When you look at where these voters were coming from, they were largely coming from districts that Mamdani won in the primary. One of the things that I wanted to do was to talk to new voters, not necessarily new Mamdani voters, but just new voters. I did a reach-out to over 250 new voters who turned out during the primary, during early voting, and just asked them, "What prompted you to register, and why did you decide to vote in this election?"

Brian, none of the people who responded to me told me they voted for any candidate besides Mamdani, though I didn't ask them who they voted for. Those who volunteered all said they voted for Mamdani, and several of them sent me links to the video that you just played. That was a video that the Mamdani campaign dropped on June 9th. That was five days before the voter registration deadline ahead of the primary, and that was a very targeted message to people who were living here in New York that maybe could be eligible to vote in this primary, maybe had been here for years and hadn't updated the registration.

Brian: I want to add another wrinkle to it that I read on the NBC News website, in addition to what you said, and I'll read the end of the transcript of that clip again because it's so striking, obviously appealing to, let's say, mobile young adults, when Mamdani said in that clip, "Every four years you vote absentee from your parents' address in Philly or three apartments ago in Atlanta, but come on, you live here." There's the youth vote, but also here's this NBC News headline from just the other day: "The New York City divide shaping its contentious mayoral race."

It says, "The newer voters are to the city, not just young, but the newer voters are to the city, the likelier they are to support Mamdani. The split has shaped the race and highlighted a potential strain on a Mamdani mayoralty." They also broke it down by length of time living in New York and the longer-term New Yorkers. I don't know if this is just in the primary or also in the polls right now, but people who grew up here, let's say, or have lived here for many, many, many, many years, are less supportive of Mamdani than people who've come more recently and maybe didn't live through the '70s and the '80s and the '90s and some of the problems and some of the battles at that time. That's interesting, right?

Brigid: I think it is interesting, but I also think it speaks to the message Mamdani is trying to communicate about the issues he's trying to address and how those issues impact oftentimes the lives of some of these younger New Yorkers. We're talking about people who are just thinking about where they're going to put down roots or just thinking about starting a family. The idea of something like universal child care or free buses, those are things that may very much appeal to people who feel like otherwise they can't stay here.

Not to just dance around the numbers too much, Brian, but one of the things that to me was incredibly striking about that video, we looked specifically at how many people registered to vote ahead of this primary, and then what was the registration just from that June 9th to June 14th date? We found that just in that five-day window, there were 54,000 people who registered to vote in those last five days ahead of the primary, and that makes up 43% of all the registrations for 2025 ahead of that deadline.

On top of that, to the point that you were just making in terms of people being newer to the city, potentially being more inclined to support Mamdani and more inclined to vote, 58% of those newly registered voters who registered during that five-day window actually voted. That's a very high rate when you think that in a primary, we have something around 20% turnout oftentimes.

Brian: Here's one more specific stat from that NBC News story, which quotes a CBS News survey from last month, so this is a poll for the general election. It found that Mamdani held a 51-point edge over Cuomo among voters who have moved to New York within the last 10 years. Among voters who have lived in New York for more than 10 years, Mamdani's advantage over Cuomo dropped to 19 points, so a 31-point difference in support between people who've been here less than 10 years or more than 10 years. It's really interesting.

Listeners, we want to hear from you. Maybe you're one of those newer New Yorkers, or maybe you're one of those older New Yorkers. Do you think this either way colors your view of these candidates, 212-433-WNYC, or anyone else on anything else related to the mayoral race, 212-433-9692, call or text for Brigid Bergin and Liz Kim. Liz, Mamdani leads comfortably in the polls, and you're reporting that his campaign seems to have entered a phase of what you called in your story, "risk minimization." What does that look like day-to-day?

Liz: What it looks like day-to-day is we're getting a lot of style, I would say, over substance. We're getting events like a paper shredding event over the weekend. He rolled out an affordability calculator this week, which, on the surface, you can argue that sounds kind of substantive. The idea of this calculator is you could enter certain information about yourself. Do you live in a rent-stabilized apartment? Do you have children? That it would spit out the amount of savings that you would have in a Mamdani administration.

The problem with that is it's entirely contingent on one execution and whether he gets the funding. What is the city's fiscal outlook? I think it's fair, and some critics, critics like his opponent, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, have called it a stunt, and you could make that argument. The other thing I would point out, and this is a point of disagreement with the campaign, but I think it is fair to say that access has diminished since he started campaigning for the general.

The campaign will probably make many arguments as to why it has had to become more restricted. He is meeting many people as he tries to build what he calls a very big tent. I think it's a fair criticism. It is not as easy to get Mamdani on the phone to answer a policy question, for example. When he does take questions-- There were times during the campaign where he would stand there and exhaust every single question that a reporter had, and they would do several rounds of questions. Those days are over.

Again, the campaign would say we have a lot more meetings to go to. He is doing debate prep, for example. I think this does say something. We have not had any real substantive policy revelations from him, rollouts from him. There was something with the Gifted and Talented program where he said he would follow de Blasio's policy and cut Gifted and Talented for kindergartners, but I would point out that that was not something that he announced or rolled out. That was something that came out of a questionnaire that The New York Times gave all of the candidates as they're interviewing them for the upcoming race.

Something else that you could say was substantive that came out was that he has said that he would like to give the Police Oversight Board, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, more teeth and authority in making decisions over police disciplinary cases. That is something substantive, but that came out of a gaggle that came out of just questions, and it was really my question to him. It resulted from a question about Win Rozario, the teenager that was fatally shot by police officers after his mother called 911 because he was undergoing mental health distress. Other than that, what do we have? Yes, it's very logical. He has a double-digit lead in the polls. I spoke to several political observers, and they say this is the right strategy, of course.

Brian: It's normal, right?

Liz: Yes.

Brian: I'm sure his supporters would say, "Look, he's already running on all the marquee proposals in this race." Whatever the other candidates may believe, what's the public debating? It's free buses, it's free child care, it's city-run grocery stores, it's a millionaire's tax, it's the Mamdani proposals, which are marquee that this race has become about. Why would anybody expect him to keep rolling out new stuff in October? You know what I mean?

Liz: That's right. I think, though, there is still this outstanding question and concern among some voters about how he would govern. One of the experts I spoke to said, "Yes, the polling looks like he is going to glide into victory in November," but I should point out there's still four weeks to go. Him being able to persuade a set of voters that he can govern could mean the difference between him winning the plurality of the vote or him winning the majority. Winning the majority would mean that he would come into City Hall being able to claim a mandate.

It would mean that he would have more leverage with the City Council, for example. This is not insignificant, him being able to roll out a new vision for how he would like to run the country's largest public school district. That is an example of how he would govern. Him being willing to maybe name a top deputy or two, or maybe just a short list of school chancellors he's considering. That could say something, and that could sway some people, especially people in the business community that have expressed concerns.

Brian: Of course, it's hard to win a majority as opposed to a plurality when there are three candidates in the race. New York, even though it's an overwhelmingly democratic city, it is 25% Republican, which is about what Curtis Sliwa got the last time out and about Donald Trump got last year. It's hard to win a majority in a three-way race under those circumstances. On the question of older New Yorkers or longer-term New Yorkers versus newer New Yorkers and the split in the polling there, I think Lisa in Flushing is a relevant caller. Lisa, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Lisa: Oh, yes. Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian: I'm okay.

Lisa: How are you?

Brian: Go ahead.

Lisa: Good. All right. I wanted to point out that there are at least 2 million senior citizens living in the city, and this dude, he has not addressed health care issues, which are absolutely essential to seniors. Point, he does not support New York City retirees in their fight for traditional Medicare. I don't care what he says. He doesn't support us. By the way, he does not support us. He has not spoken to Marianne Pizzitola with 250,000 retirees. Where is this guy? He's in bed with Garrido and Mulgrew. They're having a great romance.

Brian: Mulgrew, the head of the teachers union who was in on the deal to transfer retirees from the UFT and other unions into Medicare Advantage from traditional Medicare. You're raising that specific issue. Brigid or Liz, I'm not sure which one of you would be on it. I actually don't know Mamdani's position on that. Has he staked out a position on preventing, of course, this is what the retirees want, is to prevent the union and the city from forcing them into Medicare Advantage?

Brigid: Brian, I don't know where Mamdani is exactly on that issue. It's a good question that I will follow up. Our thanks to Lisa. One of the things I think is interesting that I learned yesterday-- I was at a luncheon with the League of Women Voters and a group of folks there who were asking questions about the state of the race. One of the attendees, who was a woman who I would say probably considers herself a senior citizen, lives on the Upper West Side, said to me that she was surprised that at this point in the race, she had not received any mail.

She was a regular Democratic voter. She, I think, is used to the inundation of mail. What it raised for her was the question of, "Does my vote matter to anyone? Why have I not yet been targeted?" That, of course, led us to a conversation about how some of the strategies have been evolving in terms of digital outreach as one way to spend money as opposed to mail, which sometimes does not produce the same kinds of results as that contact that you get either online or through canvassing. I think now listening to Lisa, once again, raises to me this question of, do these strategies shift in such a way that it makes some voters feel like they're being left out, that their vote doesn't count? That's a valid question.

Brian: I have an answer to the question, actually, because we have a team of 25 researchers in the control room during every--

Brigid: Absolutely.

Brian: No, but we have one while she's screening calls and other things. She just gave me this from the news organization, THE CITY. It says, "Earlier this month, Zohran Mamdani's campaign quietly changed its website to add a pledge to 'reject Medicare Advantage, ' the widely derided cost-cutting program that City Hall and employee unions have made a deal to steer some 250,000 retirees into, aiming to save $600 million a year."

Here's what he says about it on his campaign website, which that team of 25 researchers also just dug up. "As mayors, Zohran will reject Medicare Advantage and reject higher co-pays for in-service workers. Instead, he'll partner with retirees, workers, and their unions to take on the fragmented for-profit healthcare system and lower costs for everyone." Liz, there may be an issue for somebody that he changed his position, but other people may see that as, "Okay, as he's getting steeped in the issues, his positions are evolving."

Liz: My understanding was even prior to the primary, he had staked out that position. I think that for retirees, like Lisa from Flushing, the fact that there was some doubt about his position, maybe speaks to the fact that he hadn't had a lot of meetings or conversations with the retirees, which is what they really want. I think they want more than just a statement. They actually want a meeting and for them to be able to speak directly to him.

Brian: When we come back from a break, I want to know if either of you have more on Curtis Sliwa's vow to cut $10 billion from the city's education department. I will say when we did our 30 issues segment on the three candidate stands on education yesterday, it was not on his website. If you know, we're going to see why Sliwa is now saying to cut $10 billion from the city's approximately $40 billion, I think it is, education funding. We'll continue with that and more on the mayoral race with Liz Kim and Brigid Bergin and you, 212-433-WNYC, call or text.

Listeners, if you're interested, tomorrow is newsletter day, and you can sign up for free for The Brian Lehrer Show newsletter, where we frequently follow up on our conversations about the mayoral race, the New Jersey gubernatorial race, and other things with a weekly column from me. Also, a reader question for you to answer if you choose, picks from our producers of other stories and some other features. To sign up, just go to wnyc.org/blnewsletter, wnyc.org/blnewsletter. It's free, and it'll come to your inbox every Thursday afternoon.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue with our weekly Wednesday politics talk about the New York City mayoral race, in advance of our 30-issue segment, where we focus on an issue each day in the mayoral or the gubernatorial races, which will come up later in the show. Today, it's going to be a mayoral-related one on how to regulate e-bikes, mopeds, and scooters for public safety. You may have heard on the station this week, we were reporting on a horrible e-bike-involved fatal accident, where a pedestrian was killed on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn. That is once again in the news. We've planned this segment for weeks anyway, because it's an ongoing issue, and the candidates have different positions on it.

We'll talk about that and how to balance that with the ability of delivery workers, among others, to make a decent living. We continue now on the politics for the rest of this segment with our political reporters, Liz Kim and Brigid Bergin. This Sliwa cutting money from education story apparently came from a Bloomberg radio interview that he did on Monday. Here's the Bloomberg headline: "Sliwa Targets $10 Billion in School Cuts." Oh, look, that article is behind a paywall.

[laughter]

Brian: Do either of you know about it?

Liz: I'm just reading about it like you are, Brian. I imagine that this is an opportunity for Sliwa to try to own this fiscal hawk lane, which none of his opponents are going to own. I don't know how much momentum he can get from that, because Mamdani's agenda of affordability, which is premised on government handing out more subsidies, has been overwhelmingly popular with the electorate. It's a very straightforward and to be expected Republican line.

Brigid: I think it is a critique that we heard during the primary election as well, going after what Sliwa was describing as administrative bloat. I think it would be looking at how to cut some of the overhead, and his words, "get money back into the classrooms, improve standards." It's certainly not something that is a new talking point. I think it's something that when people are asked, where would you start to cut the DOE, given the magnitude, as your conversation yesterday got into, there's more low-hanging fruit there than some of the other agencies.

Liz: It's also a dicey proposition, as you know, the Trump administration has already slashed education funding. I don't know how that lands with public school families.

Brian: It's interesting. It's a topic that I know I've seen in New York Post editorials pointing out that New York City spends a third, roughly, of its city budget, over $40 billion a year, on the public schools, and more, they say, I haven't gone through other cities to try to verify it, but more than other cities in the country by a significant amount per student, over $40,000 per student.

Of course, the conservative view on this, I don't know if Sliwa is taking this position exactly, give those students a $40,000 voucher, and they'll be able to buy themselves a good private education if they so choose. $41,000, and we're getting the outcomes with so many kids failing to meet basic reading and math standards, that it's obviously not about money. This is the conservative take on New York City public schools.

Liz: Although test scores are up under Adams. That was something that the mayor just recently touted.

Brian: Let's take another call back to this idea of people newer to New York are supporting Mamdani at a much greater rate than people who've been here longer. Jim in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jim.

Jim: Hey, thanks for taking my call. I wanted to say, if you really look at the 1,000-foot view of politics in our country in New York City right now, and I've been here in New York City for a long time, I'm kind of old school, Trump was extremely unqualified for the President of the United States. He was a personality. Mamdani, in many ways, is a result of Trump. There would be no Mamdani in New York City without Trump. He is the resistance to Trump. If you really look at him close, he's extremely unqualified for the position.

I think the spotlight is going to be on him starting on day one to deliver. I think it's a frightening thing when people are getting into these positions of power just based on smooth-talking personality without really looking close at them. Cuomo is too normal in times that are very not normal. We have to be careful. Mamdani, in many ways, is the antidote to Trump. He's what New York City wants right now, but I think there is a danger there. Thank you.

Brian: Who are you going to vote for? Because it doesn't sound like you love Cuomo either.

Jim: Honestly, I don't like any of the options right now, but I probably will vote for the Democrats. Again, having lived in New York City a long time, I think that the candidates are getting more radicalized on both ends. I miss the old days where we had level-headed, normal, pragmatic candidates. Mamdani is a radical, Trump is a radical. The pendulum is swinging too far. That's my general feeling.

Brian: Thank you very much. Level-headed candidates like Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani.

[laughter]

Brian: Brigid, this whole split between older New Yorkers or longer-term New Yorkers, as well as older New Yorkers and younger ones, between Mamdani and Cuomo, older and longer-term New Yorkers, like Jim just reflected in his call, they're also sick of Andrew Cuomo. I guess that's some older New Yorkers and others are like, "Okay, he's got his major warts, but more or less we trust him," older Democrats.

Brigid: Brian, as I was reporting that story on new voters, part of what I wanted to understand also was, how does what we're seeing here fit into a broader historical lens? I talked to political scientist John Mollenkopf over at the CUNY Graduate Center. He directs the Center for Urban Research. He's been studying demographics in the city, voter turnout trends for decades. I asked him what did he see as the factors that contributed to this moment, where Mamdani does seem to be rising, certainly, as the Democratic nominee has won that part of the race already?

He boiled down to really three things. One, this need for a generational change among the city's political leadership. His quote to me was, "Those of us in the baby boom generation have been on the stage for a very, very long time, and it might be time for us to move off the stage." He also talked about how the demographics in the city are shifting in such a way where you're seeing this decline in non-Hispanic whites, and a more diverse electorate with growing populations of, for example, as we've talked about, South Asian voters who are having more of an influence on this race.

Also just this incredible affordability crisis that all of the candidates are speaking to in one way or another. Even though we have had elected leaders who have attempted to address it, there are still these systemic issues that people confront every day in their lives. To have a candidate who both is listening to the fact that that is the pain point that so many New Yorkers are experiencing, and then offering these solutions. Now, of course, a huge amount of pressure will be on this administration to start delivering.

Then to go back to where we started this conversation with Liz talking about some of the things they've done recently, this affordability calculator that they released this week, he was really pressed on Monday about when would he deliver these things? When would you get to see the universal child care, the free buses? His answer was, by the time he's done with his mayoralty, which could be four years, could be eight years, but that's a longer runway than some people who are supporting him now may be expecting.

It is probably reasonable, given the types of programs that we're talking about here. Perhaps there will be incremental steps along the way. Perhaps those will be some of the announcements that we will hear sooner rather than later. I think that's some of what voters who are putting their faith in him have to expect.

Brian: Ernest in Flatbush is an older New Yorker who wants to respond to Lisa in Flushing, the older New Yorker who called in before. Ernest, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Ernest: Thank you, Brian. I am an 83-year-old African American of Caribbean heritage, and I am strongly in support of Mamdani for mayor. So much so, I've created a group called Caribbean Americans United in support of Mamdani for mayor. The arguments I hear against Mamdani are the same arguments that were held against Barack Obama when he first came on the scene. He was inexperienced. He did not have a long track record of legislation at all, and he turned out to be one of the best presidents in my lifetime.

Mamdani has been spending a lot of time reaching out to the disaffected, also to senior citizens, to people of color, and the like, and all I hear is criticism that he's no longer available to the press the same way he was before. We are one month away from the election. He has to be very judicious as to how he spends his time. Just about everything that needs to be said about his campaign has been said, so it's unfair to expect him to respond to every request from the media. He's spending his time with the voters who would make the decision on November 4th.

Brian: Some people would push back on the Obama comparison and say, Obama really had much more experience. He had risen up to be a leader in the Illinois legislature, and then, of course, he was elected to the United States Senate and had four years there. Mamdani doesn't have the experience in government nearly to match that.

Ernest: I concur. However, it's relative in the sense that everyone, many people, the so-called experts, were saying that Obama was too new. He did not have a significant track record in their point of view. The voters felt otherwise. In the primary, the voters turned out and unanimously defeated Cuomo, who is somebody that I would never vote for after what he did with the so-called independent Democrats, in which we Democrats had worked hard to have control of the Assembly and the Senate.

Cuomo bribed eight elected officials to vote with the Republicans and deny people of color the opportunity to head both the Assembly and the Senate. The two people that we have there now should have been there long ago, and that's the reason why I would never vote for Cuomo. I'm 100% in support of Mamdani.

Brian: Ernest, thank you for your call. People didn't unanimously, his word, defeat Cuomo in the primary, but overwhelmingly in that point of history. For those of you who don't know what he was referring to there, Brigid, is more or less accurate, right?

Brigid: Yes.

Brian: Cuomo, as a Democratic governor, helped empower a certain group of centrist Democrats to vote to keep the Republicans in control in the New York State Senate for a number of years, which stifled a lot of Democratic legislation.

Brigid: Absolutely. The Independent Democratic Caucus, it was extremely controversial. Many of its members were later ousted in primary challenges. It's why someone like Senator Jessica Ramos, State Senator Zellnor Myrie, they both ran against people who had been members of the Independent Democratic Caucus. That power-sharing agreement did limit the ability of Democrats to control the chambers and to put forth legislation, and it was after those individuals were ousted that you saw, in the start of the 2019 session, things like early voting passed, a whole raft of electoral changes. That was thanks, in part, to the fact that Democrats actually controlled the chambers.

Brian: I think the election of Trump in 2016 helped lead to that backlash-

Brigid: Absolutely.

Brian: -in Democratic primaries to oust those Democrats who were helping to empower the Republicans in Albany. Adam in West New York, a Sliwa supporter. Adam, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Adam: How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing? I have a very specific question, and I would love a very specific answer. The question is, from my observation from day one, I feel, wholeheartedly, Curtis Sliwa has been blacklisted by the major media outlets, the small media outlets, everything, Channel 2, Channel 11, whatever. How come he has gotten little to no exposure when Curtis Sliwa has single-handedly done more for New York City than Mamdani has ever done in five lifetimes? All I hear is Mamdani, day and night, day and night, Mamdani and Cuomo. Don't put Sliwa aside.

I live in New Jersey, but I know what Sliwa has done. I remember riding the subways when the subways would go blackout and all the graffiti everywhere. I remember him doing the Guardian Angels. I remember being a kid and the Guardian Angels walking all over the subways. I remember when Sliwa got shot by the Gotti family and jumped out of the moving cab. No one talks about that. Curtis Sliwa has been fighting for New York City for a long time. That's all I got to say.

Brian: Adam, we'll talk about your media point in a second.

Adam: Thank you.

Brian: Besides looking at what he has done that you like, is there anything in his platform, looking forward, that you think would make him the best mayor for New York for the next four years?

Adam: I don't have an answer to that. I'm only specifically talking about what I see as him getting coverage or exposure. No one is talking about Sliwa at all, and it's very unfortunate. From day one, they've only been talking about Mamdani, Mamdani, day and night. Everyone just talks about this guy.

Brian: It's not true here, and I hope that it's your perception. We had each of the three candidates on for candidate interviews in the summer, obviously including Curtis Sliwa. In our 30 issues series, like yesterday's on education, I've been reading from each of the three's platform pages as we compare the three candidates on the issues. I hope you don't think it's happening here because we are making sure that people know that there are three candidates in this race.

He was, of course, polling significantly above Eric Adams, who had to drop out. He's the one who had to drop out. Adam, interesting point. I wonder, Liz, if you have any observation on this about media coverage in general. Maybe he's right that it's generally been Mamdani versus Cuomo. Oh, by the way, Curtis Sliwa is the Republican candidate.

Liz: That's right. I think it's a fair complaint, although I will point out that I was at a Curtis Sliwa press conference last week. Brian, if you remember, we talked about Curtis last week, and I brought in a piece of tape from a torn Curtis Sliwa voter, because he really does not like Mamdani, and he's really wavering now. He's wondering, "After Eric Adams dropped out of the race, should I now maybe consider voting for Cuomo," who he said he doesn't like at all. He said he detests Cuomo.

We have been covering Sliwa. We've also written about Sliwa's position on Gifted and Talented programs. He, like Cuomo, wants to expand them. Yes, it's a fair complaint that the polling does indicate that it is a two-man race between Cuomo and Mamdani. I think by virtue of being the front runner and being the Democratic mayoral nominee, Mamdani is getting attention, but I will point out that that attention is not just--

Brian: Because he's new.

Liz: Right. It was an upset victory, right? We're looking at what does this mean for the Democratic Party? I would also point out that the attention he gets, it's not just glowing headlines. We're scrutinizing him, we're kicking the tires on some of his platform ideas. Like Brigid said, how would you accomplish this? I think that is our role as journalists.

Brian: We leave it with our role as journalists, with our two great political journalists, sorry, editorial opinion there, but I'm right, Brigid Bergin and Liz Kim. Liz, at least, will continue to come on every Wednesday through the election, and Brigid Bergin will be here probably half of all the other days, including on those occasions when I'm off for one reason or another, filling in on the show on some of those days. Brigid and Liz, thanks.

Brigid: Thanks, Brian.

Liz: Thanks, Brian.

 

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