A New York political strategist with a history of working for both Democrats and Republicans has launched a super PAC to boost GOP mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa’s campaign in the final weeks of this year’s heated race for City Hall.
E. O’Brien Murray, who has worked in New York City and state politics for decades, registered the Vote Common Sense PAC as a pro-Sliwa entity this past Friday, he confirmed to the Daily News.
That makes Vote Common Sense the first super PAC backing Sliwa in this year’s election cycle, which has already featured heavy outside spending for the other two main mayoral hopefuls, Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani and independent candidate Andrew Cuomo.
The PAC launch comes even though Sliwa’s polling third in the Nov. 4 mayoral election, behind both Mamdani and Cuomo.
Allies to Cuomo and others have urged Sliwa to drop out of the race in order to maximize the ex-gov’s chances against Mamdani. Sliwa has refused to act on those calls.
Vote Common Sense’s largest donor so far is Molly LLC, a corporate entity that chipped in $300,000 late last week, Murray said. He didn’t immediately have info on who’s behind that LLC, and there were no state or city records immediately available for that entity.
Murray has pumped $15,000 of his own money into the PAC, too, and another $25,000 was recently contributed by Caryl Ratner, a former real estate executive who has been a big donor to local conservative causes, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, for instance, on ex-Congressman Lee Zeldin’s unsuccessful GOP campaign against Gov. Hochul in 2022.
On Saturday morning, Murray’s PAC aired its first television ad, a 30-second hit deriding Mamdani’s “destructive socialist policies,” including his past calls for defunding the NYPD. Murray said his PAC has plunked down $250,450 on the ad, which will air on local TV stations through Wednesday.
“The choice is clear: More radical decline or Curtis Sliwa … as mayor, he’ll support the NYPD, put cops back in subways and fight for you,” a voiceover says in the ad, which features photos of Sliwa shaking hands with voters.
A spokeswoman for Mamdani, a democratic socialist, didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the new PAC. A spokesman for Sliwa didn’t immediately return a request for comment, either.
Mamdani, who’s polling as the clear favorite to win the Nov. 4 contest, has distanced himself from his own past calls to defund the NYPD and says he now supports keeping city police funding flat.
Sliwa has consistently placed third in polls of the mayor’s race, with Cuomo ranking as the runner-up to Mamdani.
Still, Murray insisted the election is a “two-man race between Sliwa and Mamdani” following Mayor Adams’ exit from the contest last month.
“Curtis Sliwa is the only one who can beat Mamdani,” Murray said.
PAC spending has reached historic levels in this year’s mayoral race, with wealthy individuals pouring tens of millions of dollars into independent expenditure groups backing Cuomo and Mamdani. Unlike candidate campaigns, PACs don’t have contribution and spending caps, allowing them to siphon unlimited amounts of cash into elections to try to influence outcomes.
The largest PAC operating in the 2025 mayoral cycle, by far, is Fix the City, which is boosting Cuomo’s bid to become the next mayor. According to its latest filings, Fix the City has raised more than $28 million and spent more than $23 million on ads and other efforts to boost Cuomo and oppose Mamdani.
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