Politico reports that at a Hamptons fundraiser last Saturday, Cuomo told his well-heeled supporters that, contrary to all available evidence, he could win the New York mayoral race as an independent—because he was likely to have the implicit support of President Donald Trump.
The imperative of defeating Mamdani justified the new coalition Cuomo is trying to create of his die-hard loyalists (who are Democrats) with Trump Republicans.
Some of that latter group might be tempted to back Curtis Sliwa, the actual GOP nominee in the race. Cuomo told these donors, “We can minimize [the Sliwa] vote, because he’ll never be a serious candidate. And Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani. And you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa.” Cuomo went on to emphasize that he’d be a mayor who could find common ground with Trump:
Have you kept up with the times? Republicans perform better with low-information and low-engagement voters. In elections with lower turnouts, Democrats do better.
This may seem shocking if you’re used to politics of earlier decades. It wasn’t long ago that Democrats did better in higher turnout elections. But that was when Democrats had more working-class appeal. Now Democrats focus on winning the suburban professional classes and simply hope that turnout is low enough among working class voters that they’ll be able to inch over the finish line on the college-educated vote.
So really, if Democrats do better the lower the turnout is, why in the Hell would you expect them to win an election with a 100% voter turnout? If anything that would trigger a Republican landslide.