NYC Democratic mayoral primary enters home stretch
NEW YORK (PIX11)-- For the first time since he was detained by immigration officials earlier this week, Comptroller and candidate for mayor Brad Lander was back at immigration court to try and help immigrants from being deported. After observing more detentions by ICE, a clearly frustrated Lander said more needs to be done to quote gum up the works.
“It’s time for people to stand up and say we are not going to allow the deportation machine without due process,” Lander said. “We are going to have to, in the tradition of nonviolent protest, find more and better ways not to allow our democracy to be eroded.”
Lander is also calling on former governor Andrew Cuomo to instruct his Super PAC to back down from repeated attack against Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani said he has been in touch with the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force after repeated Islamophobic threats called into his government office, including a recent car bomb threat.
“If you design mailers that artificially lengthen and darken my beard, if you blanket the airwaves with language of me being a radical, if you put me in [traditional Islamic clothing] instead of a suit, it is not a surprise to see the threats that come,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani was outside the NYC Campaign Finance Board, where he was petitioning for a last-minute rule change that would allow him to spend more donor money, due to the constant barrage of Cuomo Super PAC ads. He said Cuomo is trying to “buy the election.”
A spokeswoman for the Cuomo campaign says the former governor cannot legally direct a Super PAC to do anything. She said Momani is simply trying to change the subject from a discussion of antisemitism: “Mr. Mamdani has a super PAC and a fringe party financially supporting his candidacy and smearing Governor Cuomo, and has been, potentially illegally, coordinating with other candidates to attack Governor Cuomo. This latest attempt to change the subject from Mr. Mamdani’s inability to clearly and unequivocally condemn the use of the repugnant phrase “globalize the intifada” are as transparent as they are desperate.”
Meanwhile, the former governor was endorsed by the Daily News on Friday, and influential South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn was also endorsed.
Finally, late Friday, City Council Speaker and candidate for Mayor Adrienne Adams said she would not cross-endorse, as Mamdani and Lander have done. She said she is still committed to defeating Cuomo and encouraged her supporters to rank the Working Families Party slate, which includes Lander and Mamdani.