My first impulse was to stay out of the contentious New York City mayoral race, with all the top contenders to some extent tarnished, through Zohran Mamdani, lesser so. No need here to recount how the incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former Governor Andrew Cuomo are damaged goods, hardly a day passes without public scrutiny of their ordeals. I must say I was among the stunned New Yorkers to witness Mamdani’s triumphant ranked-choice victory, believing the citizenry here would not fill a ballot square for a Muslim, Democratic socialist candidate, with a name they couldn’t pronounce, and with little political experience. None of this seemed to matter to voters and the only thing that resonated for them was affordability. Veteran political pundits were keenly aware that the months between now and the general election in November were going to be filled with elements of surprise, folderol, and a flood of accusations between the candidates and their backers. Among the first shots across the bow was news that Mamdani listed himself as African American on his application to Columbia University in 2009.
Obviously, this drew immediate attention from his adversaries, each pouncing on the issue. This revelation was followed, indicating that he received a score of 2140 out of 2400 on his SAT, placing him on the lower end of a median score for admitted students but clearly above the median score for Black students, a right wing journalist reported. Mamdani explained that he listed both Asian and Black American on the application, intending to cite his Indian ancestry and his birth in Uganda. Evidently, there was no category capturing his complete identity. In the end, it was all academic because despite his father being a faculty member at the school, he failed to get in.
Still, there was more fuel on this fire. Former Governor David Paterson stepped into the fray the other day, demanding Adams and Cuomo unite to defeat Mamdani. He said that one or the other should step aside because with both in the race they would split the vote, allowing Mamdani, the frontrunner to win. Paterson contends that Mamdani’s signature proposal of freezing the rent is impossible and that he lacks the experience for the office. So, as you can see, the battle is joined, and much like the rift between Trump and Elon Musk, the contest here has national implications, and we are nowhere near the expected surprise of October.