A crowd gathered around mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani on Saturday as he lay on his back struggling to bench-press 135 pounds at the annual Men’s Day in Brooklyn. He couldn’t do it.
Mayor Eric Adams derided him as “Mamscrawny” — but Mamdani’s fans didn’t care.
Weightlifting isn’t a requirement to serve as mayor.
Fighting crime, though, is.
That is Mamdani’s vulnerability, and the reason this race is far from over.
Polls show Mamdani leading the contest comfortably, with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in second place, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa next, and Adams trailing behind.
And while every pollster and analyst wonders about the outcome if one of those candidates should choose to drop out, let’s be real — it’s not going to happen.
A politician is a legend in his own mind. Each of them is convinced this is his race to win.
But even in that crowded field, a Mamdani victory is not inevitable, according to the American Pulse Research poll released last week.
When voters are reminded of Mamdani’s prior support for defunding the police and his past anti-NYPD statements, the survey found, their support for him wavers.
There’s been almost no discussion of who will actually govern in a Mamdani administration — who would be his deputy mayors, oversee the budget, run the agencies.
The one critical exception is the NYPD: Even Mamdani allies like Kathryn Wylde of the New York City Partnership and state Attorney General Letitia James have urged him to keep Jessica Tisch as the city’s police commissioner.
That’s either fantasy thinking or a deliberate effort to mislead the public about Mamdani’s stances on crime: Tisch and Mamdani are like oil and water.
Start with quality-of-life crimes, like shoplifting, public urination and assault without a weapon.
In a candidate’s questionnaire this spring published by The City, Mamdani explained he wants fewer such offenders incarcerated before trial — and fewer prosecutions of those crimes, period.
He blamed these acts on “the failures of our social safety net,” and sees no role for police enforcement. Tisch, on the other hand, is outraged that too few quality-of-life crimes ever get prosecuted.
“Imagine how disheartening it is for our cops to be out there arresting the same people for the same crimes in the same neighborhood day after day,” she’s said.
“And how scary it is for New Yorkers to see the same person who victimized them one day walking the streets the next.”
Tisch is successfully going after the quality-of-life crimes that make New Yorkers’ daily lives unbearable — and that Mamdani seeks to normalize.
Tisch and Mamdani also take opposite views on how to deal with the violent mentally ill on the streets and in the subways — people like the late Jordan Neely, who died in the wake of a chokehold after intimidating a car full of subway riders.
Tisch has urged the state to increase hospital capacity for involuntary commitment: “Our cops bring people to the hospital thousands of times a year who are in mental health distress. They get released two hours later with a sandwich.”
Mamdani opposes treating the mentally ill against their will, stating in his candidate’s questionnaire, “People’s rights to make their own mental health care decisions should not be compromised.”
Mamdani says city social workers, not cops, should treat the violently ill on their own terms — even if that means leaving them free to roam and rave in public.
Never mind the rights of people riding to work who are scared out of their minds by a vagrant screaming in their face.
Under a Mayor Mandani, New York City would become a hellhole of bedlam and criminal chaos.
If in the coming months New Yorkers witness a crime that puts public safety at the top of voters’ concerns, last week’s poll suggests support for Mamdani could fall short.
Some 469,000 Democrats ranked Mamdani their first choice in the primary. In a low-turnout general election, that would be a winning number.
But if turnout hits 50% or more — a reasonable expectation in a race that’s receiving so much national attention — 469,000 is no longer enough for victory, and Mamdani could lose.
The mayor of New York City holds an enormous job, overseeing 300,000 employees, dozens of departments and agencies, and an array of critical services from public schooling to public hospitals.
Mamdani has never run anything larger than a five-person Assembly office.
Who would actually run the city, including the NYPD, in a Mamdani administration?
Voters need to start asking that question now.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of the Committee to Save Our City.
