Given all its aggressive inveighing against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Newsmax was predictably bummed when Mamdani won. The first order of business, though, was to shield Republican Curtis Sliwa — whom Newsmax kinda-sorta backed — from blame in getting Mamdani elected. Mark Swanson did cleanup duty:
Newsmax political analyst Rob Astorino pushed back against assertions that Republican Curtis Sliwa played spoiler in New York City’s mayoral race on Tuesday, arguing that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s loss to democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani reflected left-wing turnout — not vote-splitting on the right.
On “Greg Kelly Reports,” Astorino said Democrats were “energized” while Republicans stayed home, a familiar trend when President Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot.
“I know what people are thinking,” Astorino said. “You’re doing simple math here — [Cuomo’s] 42 plus 8 equals 50, and that would tie Mamdani, right?
“Wrong. You can’t think of it that way, because Cuomo probably got as many Republican votes as he would have.”
Astorino explained that Sliwa’s 8% of the vote represented “solid, dyed-in-the-wool Republicans that would never vote for [Cuomo] anyway.”
Newsmax’s favorite former NYC mayor weighed in as well:
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Newsmax on Tuesday night that the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as the Big Apple’s mayor marks a “disaster” for the city he once led — but also a political “gift” to Republicans across the country.
Giuliani expressed deep disappointment that voters had chosen Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and vocal critic of Israel, to succeed Mayor Eric Adams.
“You can’t imagine how disappointed I am with all the work that I did to fix New York City,” Giuliani said.
“Pass it on to [former Mayor] Mike Bloomberg with your father, Greg, [former NYPD Commissioner] Ray Kelly, who kept it going for 20 years. Greatest city in the world for 20 years — now run by a communist.”
Giuliani said the city’s decline began under Adams and will worsen under Mamdani, whom he described as a radical leftist and a sympathizer of extremist Islamist causes.
Two of Newsmax’s top Mamdani-bashing columnists weighed in as well to vent their rage at Mamdani’s win. First up, Betsy McCaughey:
Zohran Mamdani’s Tuesday win should send tremors far beyond New York City.
A Mamdani victory will ignite wholesale legislative attacks on property owners, charter schools, law enforcement and businesses all across New York state.
From Buffalo to Amagansett, nothing will be spared.
In New York, the big decisions about criminal law, education, rent laws and taxation are legislated at the state level, not locally.
Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America will be calling the shots in Albany as well as at City Hall. New Yorkers, brace yourselves for crazy laws and huge tax hikes.
[…]Mamdani’s money-hungry mayoralty will suck the state dry.
Now is the time to mobilize a statewide counteroffensive to prevent a socialist takeover of state government. Do not wait for next year’s statewide elections.
That was followed by George J. Marlin:
Most political sages in New York believed that if there was a record voter turnout on Election Day (2 million plus), Andrew Cuomo would win the race for mayor.
However, while the ballot box totals broke records going back to 1969 with over 2.3 million people voting, the Socialist candidate, Zohran Mamdani, still managed to beat Cuomo, 50% to 41%.
How did Mamdani, a radical anti-Israel and anti-police candidate, manage to beat Cuomo in four out of five boroughs?
The short answer: a new political demographic.
New York is no longer the city Andrew Cuomo, and I grew up in.
[…]There is also a large contingent of young white college-educated voters who have rejected the center-right views of their parents and grandparents.
They have incredible self-confidence that borders on arrogance and incredible expectations.
They believe they are entitled to instant status, security, all the material comforts and lots of “free” stuff from the government.
All those voters bought into Mandani’s socialist vision and formed a new coalition that put him over the top on Election Day.
[…]Mamdani has every right to savor his victory.
But my guess is that it will not take very long after he is sworn into office in January, before his groupies learn that the Socialist vision that looked good on paper never works in practice.
Weren’t right-wingers telling us when Donald Trump was elected that elections have consequences? Seems like McCaughey and Marlin are whining about facing consequences in a way they didn’t when Trump won.