Washington Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York recommended that the Republican Party not “sit by and watch a disaster descend on New York” if Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor there.
York appeared on Fox News’s Fox Report with Jon Scott on Sunday in the hours after New York City Mayor Eric Adams abandoned his reelection campaign. Scott asked York about how a win from Mamdani could affect the GOP.
“Some Republicans have argued, you know, letting Mamdani take the biggest office in the biggest city in the country would actually benefit the Republican Party because they think he’ll make a mess of the place,” Scott said. “How do you assess that?”
“I think cooler heads would say, ‘You know, should we really sit by and watch a disaster descend on New York because we think it might benefit? It might get so bad that people will turn to us later?’ That’s kind of a cynical way to look at it,” York said.
“So it’s an enormous gamble for New Yorkers to do, but it appears if all the polls are correct, and they all say pretty much the same thing, Mamdani has an imposing and probably unsurpassable lead in this race,” York added.
An early September poll from the New York Times and Siena University found Adams had just 9% of likely voters’ support. Meanwhile, Mamdani received 46% support from likely voters, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo trailed behind with 24%.
The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, had 15% in the same poll, which York referred to as “a significant number,” but he predicted it would not “change the outcome” of the Nov. 4 race.
