Pollster Jim McLaughlin told Newsmax on Thursday that New York City voters are being forced to pick between a "failure" in former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a "socialist" with Democrat Zohran Mamdani in the city's upcoming mayoral election.
“You just feel really sorry for the voters of New York that those are the choices, quite honestly, that they have in the mayor’s race,” McLaughlin, who was President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign pollster, told Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
"I mean, it’s basically, you know, between a socialist and a failure," he said, adding that Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa "just hasn’t caught on with the electorate.”
The three candidates in the heated race squared off Wednesday for their final debate before the November election.
Mamdani, a New York assemblyman, was attacked over his thin resume, while Sliwa tried to prove his mettle, and Cuomo was pressed on the allegations of sexual harassment that drove him out of the governor's mansion.
McLaughlin, though, said former Cuomo offered “a great answer” during the final debate when asked how he would work with President Trump if elected.
“It doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re the governor of New Jersey or you’re the mayor of New York City — you need to work with the president,” he said.
“Whenever New York has needed President Trump, President Trump has always been there for them," he added.
James Johnson, founder of JL Partners and a New Yorker himself, agreed with McLaughlin’s assessment, saying the opposition to Mamdani has been “a disgrace.”
“It’s very difficult to see how he doesn’t win,” Johnson said.
“He seems to be ascendant in these polls [and] he’s got young people who are going to come out to vote for him, who came out to vote for him in the primary," he added.
The main problem, however, Johnson said, "is that the other candidates are really poor."
He predicted that Mamdani could prevail with less than half the vote in a heavily Democratic city because of what he called weak and divided competition.
“Mamdani could be due to win this election in a city with 70% Democrats on just 45 or 46% of the vote," Johnson said. He added that Mamdani "should be beatable."
But, Johnson said, "It’s a disgrace how poor the opposition in this city has been to a mayor that they could have stopped Mamdani.”
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