The business community is finally opening its doors to GOP NYC mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa – but will it open its wallets?
Following my Sunday column in the Post on Sliwa’s surprising strength in recent polling, and how business leaders are ignoring him, the NYC Partnership scheduled a meeting with the Guardian Angels founder on Thursday morning, On The Money has learned.
The meeting at Partnership offices in Battery Park Plaza will be led by the group’s chief, Kathy Wylde, though it’s unclear how many business leaders will actually attend as most of the city’s fat-cat class start to pick sides between current Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“Because of you and your column I will be meeting with Kathryn Wylde today and her group,” Sliwa said in a text message, adding that he won’t be wearing his trade-mark red Guardian Angels beret today amid criticisms that his sartorial flair often detracts from his message.
That message will offer a heavy dose of crime-fighting to support big business and small businesses alike, tax cuts and slashing the city’s massive bureaucracy – including in the Education Department, which does a lousy job teaching basic skills but employs swaths of needless administrators.
Wylde declined to comment, but these are all issues that should appeal to business types, who have for years complained about high taxes and regulations, and since the tenure of former left-wing Mayor Bill de Blasio floundering quality of life issues like rising crime.
Their fears have been compounded by the rise of Zohran Mamdani, the uber-leftist (some would say communist) assemblyman from Queens who recently beat Cuomo in the city Democratic mayoral primary and is now the favorite to win the general election in November.
Sliwa will be accompanied by Ed Cox, chairman of the New York State Republican Party and some staffers of conservative Democratic City Councilman Robert Holden, whom Sliwa has said would hold a position in his administration if he is elected.
The sit-down comes as Sliwa’s appeal grows. A recent HarrisX poll put him in a statistical tie with Mandami (26%) and Cuomo (23%) in a four-way race, according to the margin of error. Sliwa’s 22% share easily beat Adams (13%), the poll found.
Yet, Sliwa has raised just $169,000 in the last reporting period, compared with $1.5 million for Adams.
Mamdani — who met with the Partnership last week — has spoken about government takeovers of grocery stores, defunding the police and wouldn’t denounce the left-wing rally cry of “globalizing the intifada” despite its anti semitic overtones.
Business leaders expressed a high degree of skepticism after listening to him address questions on those issues.
That said, they have yet to fully coalesce behind either Adams or Cuomo, who bring their own baggage to the race. Adams’ tenure as mayor has been marred by significant corruption scandals. Cuomo was forced to resign as governor in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations that he has denied and were never prosecuted.
Sliwa brings different baggage. He has never held elected office (he lost handily to Adams four years ago running as a Republican). He is best known for his decades of work leading the Guardian Angels, a crime-fighting organization that made its name in the 1980s patrolling NYC’s crime-ridden subway system.
