Why does Trump keep interfering in the NYC mayoral race?

President Donald Trump has long been associated with the glitz and glamour of New York City’s upper crust and the Manhattan social scene that transformed him from a local property mogul into a household name nationwide. Although he has since relocated his personal and political operations to Washington, D.C., New York still looms large for the now-president. He has seemingly gone out of his way to tip the scales of the Big Apple’s upcoming mayoral elections away from surging frontrunner democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. But are Trump’s reported overtures to mayoral candidates Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa, and incumbent Eric Adams motivated by politics, or do they signal something more?

What did the commentators say?

Members of the Trump administration have “discussed the possibility” of roles for Adams and Republican candidate Sliwa as a way to “clear the field” and maximize former New York Gov. Cuomo’s odds of defeating Mamdani, said The New York Times. While it’s unclear whether this “potentially audacious intervention” will succeed (both Adams and Sliwa have vociferously denied any plans to end their campaigns), they come amid similar, “overlapping” conversations among New York’s “biggest real estate executives” and Cuomo allies.

As the “ghost at the feast in America’s biggest city,” former New Yorker Trump’s “looming presence” and “increased interest” in the race “adds another layer of complexity to a race that has already seen it all,” said The Guardian. With Adams, Sliwa, and Cuomo “cannibalizing each other’s support,” the city’s “rightwing elite” have become “increasingly desperate for a Trump intervention.”

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Trump’s push to influence the mayoral race is the “latest episode” in his effort to exercise “increased control and influence over the affairs of major U.S. cities,” NBC News said. In this instance, Trump has “aligned himself with the view of his longtime New York associates,” eschewing national Republican figures who are hoping for a Mamdani victory to be the “focal point in their midterm campaigns.” It’s important to “remember the company he keeps,” said former Mayor Bill de Blasio to NBC. Trump isn’t “thinking as head of the Republican Party,” but rather about his “donor base and his friends.”

While Trump has made a habit of using Democratic-run cities as a "foil” for his administration, his “unusual interest” in New York’s mayoral contest “stems from his long history as a New Yorker,” said The Washington Post. Though he and Cuomo have had a “contentious relationship,” particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic in Trump’s final year of his first term, the president sees the former governor as someone he can “work with.” But Trump's attempt to influence the city’s elections “betrays a complicated situation” for the president, said The Hill, putting his "political and personal interests at odds with each other" due to his "fondness and concern for the city."

What next?

While Cuomo’s campaign insists that Trump “doesn’t want him leading City Hall,” Mamdani and his allies have used reports of Trump’s electoral interference to “redouble their pressure campaign” and garner more public support from “more moderate Democrats,” said Politico. Although Trump has lashed out at Mamdani publicly as a “communist” whose election would doom the country’s largest metropolis, his efforts are “backfiring,” said CNN. Candidate bickering and efforts to tie Cuomo closer to Trump have the Mamdani campaign “savoring” what they see as “another bit of good luck.” Trump’s interventions on behalf of the former governor leave local democratic officials ”even less likely to want to work with Cuomo as mayor.”

Despite the potential backlash against his involvement in the race, a new New York Times and Siena University poll released Tuesday “helps explain” the logic behind Trump’s attempts to tip the electoral scales, said the Post. Although Mamdani has a double-digit lead in a four-way mayoral match-up, that lead “would shrink from 22 percentage points to four points” in a head-to-head matchup against Cuomo. Mamdani is the “only candidate viewed positively by a majority of voters, despite months of attacks against him,” said the Times.