© Jack Gruber-USA TODAY
Written by Michael B. Mukasey
I’ve been a Republican for more than 40 years, appointed by a Republican president – Ronald Reagan — to serve as a U.S. District Judge, and by another — George W. Bush — to serve in his cabinet as Attorney General. I am one of the 300,000 or so people in the city who consistently vote Republican. In this year’s mayoral race I intend to vote for Andrew Cuomo — a Democrat running as an Independent — because he is the only viable alternative to Zohran Mamdani, the current front runner. Here’s a brief summary of why I think that is both important, and consistent with my principles as a Republican.
Mamdani’s views on governance are no secret. Although he is running as a Democrat, he presents as a socialist whose take on everything from law enforcement to the use of public powers and resources has elicited alarm even from Democrats.
To narrow the point, we are fortunate to have in place a police commissioner in the person of Jessica Tisch who has been effective in maintaining whatever degree of safety exists in this city, and maintaining as well the morale of the police force; Mamdani has refused to commit to keeping her in office. By replacing her with someone who would, for example, not enforce laws barring shoplifting or homeless encampments, he could turn New York into San Francisco in no time.
He has stressed the affordability problem in New York, but his solutions are exquisitely designed to make the problem worse.
He promises to freeze rents; notably not a single credentialed economist endorses the proposal, and for good reason.
Rent control as an idea is widely popular, but has had uniformly disastrous results on the housing stock everywhere it has been tried, including in New York, where rent control has resulted in decay due to reduced maintenance as well as apartments simply being kept vacant while rents in unregulated apartments go up.
Another of his proposals to address affordability has been to eliminate bus fares. In addition to turning buses into the residence of choice for the homeless, the proposal for free buses would cut funds for maintenance, eventually reducing both the quantity and the quality of public transportation.
As it happens, this proposal has been tried before, notably in Kansas City. As has been reported, the predictable result was deteriorating safety, increased occupancy by the homeless, and eventually — by popular demand — restoration of fares.
Former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has pointed out that Mamdani’s plans for the city’s schools, apparently intended to assure the support of the city’s powerful teachers union, would spell disaster for students.
Mamdani has opposed charter schools, run generally by non-profit private entities, whose students are 90% either black or Hispanic and have a proficiency rate vastly exceeding the rate of those in traditional public schools.
All of those students could have attended traditional public schools, but their parents in underserved communities chose charter schools instead — an eloquent statement of how these parents view the city’s school system. Mamdani has said he would end mayoral control of the schools, returning the system to the standard that prevailed earlier, where teacher seniority rather than competence was rewarded.
Whether these and other nostrums endorsed by Mamdani result from his inexperience — he has never run anything but his mouth — or something darker, as some have suggested, is beside the point, as is whether he would actually have the power to impose several of the measures he has suggested: to choose an obvious example, the mayor does not have the power to raise taxes.
The point is that his proposals are a loud and unrelenting warning of how he would govern in those considerable spaces where he does have power.
But isn’t there a Republican candidate for whom I and others of my party can vote? Indeed there is. And although there is no existing measure of public opinion that gives him any chance of winning, haven’t we New York City Republicans repeatedly cast our ballots for Republican candidates even in the face of hopelessness, in part simply out of principle and in part in the hope that even though we are not in the majority we can affect the performance of majority candidates by looming as a sizeable and vocal minority?
Yes to that too, but this election is different. The first rule for Republicans must be that our city should not be put at risk of irreversible damage, which it would be if Mamdani is elected.
The second rule is that we must act on the best information we have so as to follow the first rule. That information says that Cuomo is the most viable alternative to Mamdani, particularly after Adams has withdrawn.
Electoral experts have estimated that it takes roughly 700,000 votes to get elected as the city’s mayor; he got 1.7 million votes in the city during his last gubernatorial run seven years ago. Unlike Mamdani, he has the experience necessary to manage a government with a $118 billion budget, and has had successes that included building long-stalled projects like rehabilitation of LaGuardia and JFK Airports and producing 11 on-time state budgets, and has supported charter schools.
But in view of the scandals during his tenure, shouldn’t Republicans see Cuomo as damaged goods? Once more the answer is yes, but unlike Mamdani his flaws all point toward the past; they do not portend disaster for the future.
For reasons of both practicality and principle, I am voting for Cuomo.
Michael Mukasey served as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York from 1988 to 2006, and as attorney general from 2007 to 2009. 77 WABC has published his comments on the 2025 NYC mayor’s race with his permission.
