We are now about two weeks from early voting starting and three weeks from election day in New York City.
These last few weeks are going to be a bumpy ride for Zohran Mamdani, as he is getting hit with several October surprises.
Not only that, but he has also renewed his feud with Trump, and Trump had gladly engaged him.
Mamdani was on Fox News this week with Martha MacCallum, where he was asked about the peace deal, and he seemed skeptical at best.
He stated, "I am thankful, and I have hope [the deal] will actually endure and it will be lasting," adding that it was far “too early” to give Trump credit for the deal.
Then he went off on Trump over policy differences, stating, "I will not be a mayor like Mayor Adams, who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won't be a disgraced governor, like Andrew Cuomo, who will call you to ask how to win this election.
"I can do those things on my own. I will, however, be a mayor who's willing to speak at any time to lower the cost of living."
Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that he would withhold funding from New York City if Mamdani wins, which would be another legal fight that Trump would almost certainly lose.
That, however, did not stop Trump from engaging Mamdani, responding, "We have a Communist, 33 years old, doesn't know a thing, probably never worked a day in his life, and he sort of caught on. I'm not going to send a lot of money to New York. We're not going to ruin one of our great cities, because we'll make that great. We will clean up the crime in about 30 days.
"It took 12 days to do Washington, DC, so New York is bigger, and Chicago, we've already made a lot of progress despite fighting from the government. All of these cities, we want to clean them up. We don't like that opposition. But if somebody is going to be a communist mayor of New York. It's a fluke if he gets in."
As it stands, Mamdani is up about 11 points on former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and he is likely to have a runaway win unless GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa drops out of the race. Based on recent reports, that is not happening, so get ready for a “communist” to take over NYC.
October always brings some fun surprises for the favorite in any race, and for Mamdani, it was a report that his campaign had accepted foreign cash, exactly what crushed Mayor Eric Adams and would have landed him in jail had Trump not made the DOJ drop the charges against him.
Records show that of the 54,000 contributions Mamdani has received, at least 170 of them violated campaign finance rules.
Mamdani has been active on this, however, having already refunded more than half of the donors their money, accounting for more than $5,700 of the $13,000 in illegal donations he received.
There is one other problem with this campaign. Of the more than $1 million he raised, more than half that money came from outside the state, let alone the city. I continue to beg Congress to take up a measure that would block out-of-state funding for state and local elections. People who live and work outside of New York City should not be able to impact this race, but it happens in every election, as rich donors buy these elections.
