June 26, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode, Ryan discusses the recent New York City mayoral race, focusing on the surprising defeat of former governor Andrew Cuomo by Zoran Mondani, a far-left socialist candidate. The conversation explores the implications of this election for the Democratic Party, the rise of progressive voters, and the changing demographics of New York City. Ryan analyzes voting patterns, the impact of education on voter turnout, and the potential for Republican candidates in future elections. He also addresses the broader political landscape and the challenges facing both parties as they navigate a rapidly evolving electorate. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Kerdusky. Thank
you again for being here another episode. And I have
been receiving tons of emails, text messages, tweets, and it's
all about the same exact thing. What the hell happened
in New York City. So for those of you who
do not know, which I'm sure everyone does, but I'll
(00:22):
recap him Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has been the
favorite to win the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New
York City for a while now. He only announced three
months ago, but he has been a de facto Canada
in the race for well over a year and was
assumed to be the leading contender. He lost to an
upstart assemblyman named Zorn mom Donnie, probably the furthest left
(00:45):
wing candidate nominated by a major party in any major city. Yeah,
he's further left of the mayor of Chicago, Los Angeles,
washingty C. He's probably even to the left of the
mayor of Boston, which is pretty hard because she is
a flat out comedy not of actual comedy. But she's
very far green energy all the rest of it, He's
(01:05):
still left of her. Drew Cuomo ultimately received three hundred
and sixty two thousand votes to Mandani's four hundred and
thirty two thousand was forty three point five to thirty
six point five percent, is a seven point loss now
because of ranked choice voting. It's this way that New
York counts their votes, which is absolutely incredibly stupid. They
(01:26):
do this in the primary. We won't Mendanmi won't have
not officially won for a couple of days, probably until
Monday is my guest or Friday, but he is the
de facto candidate. Cuomo Head calls him to concede the election.
He is a vocal supporter of defunding the police. He
wants to arrest bb net and Yahoo if he visits
New York City. He wants to end the specialized schools
for gifted and talented students. He wants to raise taxes
(01:50):
to make public buildings green at the cost of three
point two seven billion dollars to tax pre payers. He
wants to freeze rents. He wants to have government controlled
grocery stores. He also opposes New York City working with
ice officers to port criminal aliens who can make crimes.
This shouldn't be shocking. It is AOC with testicles. He
(02:10):
is to the left of every other candidate in the
race and the city at home at large. There was
one canonam Paperboy Love. He might have been to the
left of Mandanni, but I don't really I didn't really
read up too much on him anyway. One of the
smartest comments I saw about this election came from Gavin
Wax He's the former president of the New York Young Republicans.
(02:30):
He's unknown for a very long time, and he said
on Twitter calling Mandanni a socialist and anti Israel on
repeat didn't hurt him, It helped him with those attacking
convinced no one politics is already incredibly radicalized locally and nationally.
Either offer a radical counter or accept the defeat with
a boiler played talking point in sloganeering. I agree with
(02:52):
what Gavin said, because that's what truth man. Donnie's message
as insane as it was to everyone with an IQ
above you know room temperature, which is a New York
one hundred degrees, So with anyone with an IQ above
one hundred, it seems like it's crazy. But to people
who are of the left persuasion are still in the
(03:14):
Democratic Party, that was the dreams and possibilities, realized what
he was saying was was speaking to their values, that
they could sit there and reach for the stars, that
they could make New York this progressive state, this progressive city,
which it's really more of an establishment Democrats city always
has been not really that much of a progressive city.
(03:36):
And he really reached to wealthy voters, wealthy, high income,
high college degree holding voters who want to make believe
that they are standing up for the working class even
though the policies that they advanced are punishing them. Because
while the right may may look at Mendonia's and kind
of Jihatas, which was like the stupidest hot take I
(03:57):
saw from a bunch of right wingers on Twitter, the
truth is he's just a cultural Marxist. He just views
society in the lens of identity and those who use
identity as a tool to bring Marxism. This is no
different than Chavez used race and economic anxiety to flip
Venezuela and once he did democratically one time. That's all
he needed Cuomo's message that the election was about you
(04:19):
owe me. Because of Andrew Cuomo, I'm the NEPO baby
who moved across the political spectrum while I was governor
and had to resign a disgrace. It was really about him,
and he was like, I can write these ships. I
can make everything calm and easy and make people want
to stay in New York at a slow pace. The decline.
I'm going to manage the decline of New York was
essentially Cuomo's message. It was his message as governor too. Men.
(04:43):
Donnie's message is about creating a progressive paradise in the
largest city in America. It has much more appeal than
managed a client. That's the difference between a lot of
neo liberalists and nationalists on the right and progressive on
the left. And he wasn't the only one who lost
New York City yesterday. Former Congressman, former my former congressman,
(05:06):
the first person I ever voted for. He was running
unopposed when I voted for him, But was Anthony Wiener.
He lost the city council seat when he ran because
he was running on this message over I'm going to
come back, and New Yorker said, no, we've seen this
movie before and we're kind of done with it. And
Wiener was a very far left ten years ago, thirteen
years ago when he had to resign in disgrace, or
(05:27):
fourteen years ago now, but he was The left has
moved so far left that Wiener is then considered a
more moderate voice in the Democratic Party now. And Cuoma
was a right winger, which is insane because he did
the endless the cash bail people living in most parts
of Manhattan, but especially the areas around the highly educated places,
(05:48):
like the people not necessarily in Manhattan, but off of Manhattan,
those who never I don't know, couldn't afford the ten
thousand dollars month rens, so they settled for the five
thousand dollars month ronds. A lot of them living off
their parents. By the way, they're only passing through New York.
They're going to settle here like they settle in a
number of cities in their life. They're very progressive, they're
very high educated. They vote often, they vote early, they
(06:11):
vote frequently, and they vote to the left. And New
York City is become a sponge for those kinds of people.
New York City. If you have blue hair and thirty
six genders and you don't know if you like a
boy or girl, you are a boy or girl, Why
would you stay in Long Island for why would you
stay in most parts of Connecticut or Kentucky or Ohio.
(06:32):
You don't have to. You can come to New York,
especially to these areas of high progressive activism, and find
a home. And maybe they won't stay there, but they
come to New York with this dream that New York
is still the New York I was born and raised into,
like the New York is this twenty four hour city
full of energetic artists when it's not. I mean it
(06:54):
was for a very long time, but it's not. It's
all corporate now and it's not a twenty four hour
city anymore. Artists aren't breaking any ground. It's not particularly
edgy like it used to be. And that's just my opinion.
But it's still the best city in America. But they're
passing through it and changing it. And as go New
York will go the rest of the country. I heard
this big thing. Let just New York burn. The entire
(07:16):
Democratic leadership is in New York City. Chuck Schumer, Haakim Jeffries,
all of these people, Jerry Nadler, all of these people
are in New York and they are looking at an
electorate that is mad and insane, and they have to
sit there and do something in order not to get
(07:36):
primary in order to move to that insane left. That's
where they're going to be running to. So you can't
just say screw it. New Yorkers deserve what they get.
San Francisco had that appeal and eventually elected this unknown
wman named Nancy Pelosi, who happened to be the third
most powerful person in the country or third line for
the presidency and most powerful person the House of Presentatives
(07:58):
for six years and fundamentally changed all of America. You
can't just sit there and say, oh, screw them whatever.
The people who lived away from Manhattan, those who depend
on the police, who work as police officers or in
the social services, who depend on social services, who were
less educated and made not a college degree so you're
(08:19):
not a post doctorate. They did not vote for Mendani,
but they didn't vote as much. I want to get
into the numbers so you can understand this sponge effect
of these highly progressive left wing voters in this very
small geographic area, how it changed the entire city. So
(08:39):
if you look at the area around Manhattan, on the
Brooklyn and Queen's side. There's a bunch of neighborhoods. New
York is broken up when they do elections by assembly district.
Assembly is the state house, right, we call it assembly
instead of state House. Whatever. The state Assembly districts. There
are sixty five Assembly districts in New York City. There
(08:59):
are ten that border Manhattan, thirty eighty, thirty four, thirty six,
thirty seven, forty six, fifty to fifty one, fifty two,
fifty three, fifty six, and fifty seven. If you're playing
at home, those are numbers you want to look at.
Was ten districts gave Mendani one hundred and thirty five thousand,
six hundred and twenty four votes out of the four
(09:22):
hundred and thirty two thousand he received. A third of
all of his votes came from these ten Assembly districts,
which represent about fifteen percent of all the Assembly seats
in New York, So one in three voters came from
only about fifteen percent of the entire geographic makeup and
(09:42):
population makeup of New York City. Cuomo, on the other hand,
he received about twelve percent of his total vote from
this exact area. He didn't underperform that much relative to
the rest of the rest of the city, I mean
matching it over. He underperformed, but it wasn't like wasn't
It wasn't he couldn't get one percent, you know what
(10:04):
I mean, He didn't get zero. He just did underperform.
But it didn't matter because he balanced it out in
these other areas further away from Manhattan, and he did
very well in some precincts, like in the Orthodox Jewish areas,
but that didn't matter because the vote total was incredibly
different of where they were voting. A story of Queens
(10:25):
which is one neighborhood, right, It's one little neighborhood in
that area, in that region, it had more voters than
all the other working white class or middle class, white
majority areas of Queen's County combined. So like Middle Village
(10:47):
that's the area I was born and raised in, had
twenty two hundred votes. Howard Beach, all very prominent italighborhood,
had sixteen hundred votes. White Stone another it's very Asian
and white mixed neighborhood twenty three hundred vot votes. Storia
this Beacon and progressivesm these voters that made AOC a congressman,
these voters that give the far left all their seats.
(11:09):
They had twenty five thousand votes. That's more than the
Borough Park, Brooklyn area Orthodox shoes. Everyone was excited they
were going to vote. They had eight thousand votes. This
progressive area had twenty three times as many. They had
more voters in that area than in the working class
black neighborhood, which has tons of voters. It's not the
(11:31):
people weren't there. They didn't vote, They just didn't show
up and vote. And I think it's important to realize
where now the New York Times of this whole entire
chart about what races broke up with it. It's very
stupid because highly educated voter, white voters live in areas
that might be majority black, but it's like fifty percent black,
(11:54):
twenty five percent white. But if you count the turnout,
it's actually a higher percent white and lower percent Pole.
So I don't want to do it by race when
it comes to that, except if you look at the
super majority areas like the Dominican part of the Bronx
which is essentially all Dominican, or the Black area of Queens,
which is all black. If you look at economics stuff
you look at finances, the wealthiest districts in the city
(12:18):
broke for Cuomo about two hundred f two thousand more.
That's Upperlyside, Upper West Side, everything else aside from that
in the one hundred thousand, one hundred and fifty hundred
and ten hundred and thirteen thousand range, they voted for Mendani.
Areas that had an income and at average income of
one hundred and seventeen thousand, six hundred dollars a year
(12:40):
or greater voted for Mendani by forty two point five
to twenty nine point three. Those of middle income, which
was sixty three thousand to one hundred and seventeen thousand
dollars income. This is from the New York Times. Sixty
three thousand to one hundred and seventeen thousand income voted
for Mindani by ten points. It was working class areas
that he gave Quamo thirteen point margin fifty two thirty seven.
(13:04):
A report from the Economists said that Quamo support was
the very rich and the very poor, and it was
Mendanni's support that were above living wage, college degree holders,
people who didn't own homes, transient people, millennial people, right,
That's who gave Cuomo his support. Cuomo did very well
(13:26):
in very white areas, very black areas, very Hispanic areas.
Mendanni did well in very mixed areas, areas where transients
have moved and displaced people and intergenerational people. There was
a huge support from the Asian community, which surprised me
given that he's opposed to specialized schools and the number
(13:46):
one issue. But you had progressive state senators and state
legislators in New York City campaigning for Mendani. You had
a huge turnt among the Muslim population, which is not
a huge population in New York, but it's there. It
is there, and in some areas, in the Latino areas,
he did very very well. He did very very well.
Among some places, people were kind of either making this
(14:08):
analogy that it was all rich white people or it
was all immigrants. That's not true. It's just not true.
It's kind of a little bit of both. It was
a lot of affluent millennial my generation, unfortunately white transient
people who lived outside of Manhattan between Borough, between bay Ridge,
(14:32):
Brooklyn and Astoria, Queens. But there were also huge pockets
of recent immigrants that also supported Mendanni. It wasn't one
or the other. It was ancestral New Yorkers. People have
been there, multi generational New Yorkers in communities like the
one I grew up in that voted for Cuomo. It
(14:54):
was completely one side of that voted for Cuomo, people
who have been there forever. Now, I explained before were
about the working class issue. Here's where Cuomo had issues.
Working class voters are not as monolithically Democrat in New
York City as they used to be. Remember, New York
(15:14):
City is a nine to one Democratic city, but among
newly registered voters, it's close to one to one. From
twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five, New York City
added sixty eight thousand new active registered Democrats and fifty
seven thousand new active Republicans. Right, but it's not even
(15:36):
across the city. So Staten Islands, which obviously is the
reddest part of New York City and one of the
reddest parts of the state, they added almost six thousand
new registered Republicans. From twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five,
they added ninety four new Democrats. In the Bronx, Republicans
added eleven thousand and five new Republicans active Republicans Democrats
(15:59):
only had less than nineteen hundred Democrats one eight hundred
and ninety five. That's nine thousand more new Republicans in
the Bronx than Democrats. The bluest part of the city,
the most working part class part of the city, Queens
eighteen thousand, six hundred and forty three new Republicans, ten
thousand new Democrats, eight thousand more Republicans and Democrats in Queens.
(16:22):
So where do all these Democrats come from? These new Democrats,
these new progressors. Manhattan and Brooklyn, those two boroughs, twenty
two thousand new Republicans, fifty five thousand new Democrats. So
a party that is set in its ways or a
candidate that's set in its ways of winning traditional New Yorkers. One,
(16:42):
a lot of them have been outpriced out of the city.
But two, they're not as Democrat as they used to be.
And that's why Andrew Cuomo's campaign had issues. It was
a larger coalition of people. But they're not all Democrats anymore.
The Democratic Party had left them behind, and the ones left,
even in Staten Island, are the most progressive ones. These
(17:05):
pockets of where Democrats are living and where these progressives
are active in Astoria, in Williamsburg, in Bay Ridge. These
Democratic areas that are that are left, even in the
working class areas, are becoming more extreme because Centrists are
leaving to either become Republicans or Independents are not feeling
(17:26):
compelled to go vote, especially for Andrew Cuomo, who was
not a great governor. Resigned in disgrace. Whether it was
accurate his accusations or not, but it was resigned in disgrace,
and that most of the party had turned its back on.
And by the way, in twenty twenty five, as a Democrat,
was running as a straight white man, which does not
win you points. And I want fellow Republicans to hear
(17:50):
what I'm about to say. I know that we're gonna
have a very honest moment. What I want to say.
We spend the last decade laughing and mocking and battling
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama and Joe Biden,
and we are going to miss them compare to what
is coming. They are what is coming out of the
(18:14):
Democratic Party now. Out of the elements that are left
in this Democratic Party are whack a doodle duel. And
I know a lot of older Republicans, boomer Republicans say oh,
they'll grow up when they pay taxes. These people are
in their forty some of them, they're never growing up.
This is their world and they intend to change it
(18:36):
to make every part of the country look and act
like them. They are crazy and they are coming out
in full force. And then Donnie like AOC is just
the beginning of what we're going to see. I want
to talk to if there's any chance of a Republican
winning this mayor's race. I want to talk to if
(18:57):
there's any chance for an upset and if there's anything
that we can learn ahead of the midterms coming out
of this New York City mayoral election. So stay tuned. Okay,
So do the Republicans have a shot in hell in
November winning New York City. First of all, let me
explain the race. There was a rank choice voting in
(19:18):
the primary. There is not ranked choice voting in the general.
Whoever as the most votes wins, and it is a
five way race. New York State has very confusing election
laws that allow candidates to run under multiple parties. It's
called a Wilson vacoulaw so it allows candidates to create
their own parties, and Andrew Cuomo did so. Governor Cuomo
is on the ballot in November despite losing the Democratic primary.
(19:40):
He's under a party called the Fight and Deliver Party,
Andani will be under the Democrat Party and likely the
Working Families Party. Former US attorney and former registered Democrat
Jim Walden will be running as an independent. Current Mayor
Eric Adams will also be running as an independent, and
radio host and founder of the Guardian Angel Curtis Lee
will will be running as a rept Republican and the
(20:00):
Conservative Party candidate Sliwa ran in twenty twenty one and
received slightly less than twenty eight percent of the vote,
which is actually even worse than Trump did in thirty percent.
President Trump has substantially increased the support in New York
City every time he's run for office. Now, I want
to talk about the Trump of it all, right, because
a lot of diehard Trump voters believe if you just
(20:22):
run a Trump light candidate anywhere, you'll win, right. So,
twenty sixteen, Trump received four hundred and ninety four thousand
votes in New York City, about eighteen percent total of
the vote. I was one of them. In twenty twenty
he got six hundred and ninety one thousand votes, which
is twenty three percent. Once again, I was one of them.
And in twenty twenty four he received seven hundred and
(20:44):
eighty six thousand votes, or thirty percent of the vote.
I was one of them again too, if anyone's wondering,
but from four hundred and ninety four thousand to seven
hundred and eighty six thousand is a substantial gain over
twelve years. And actually the last number, one hundred and
eighty six thousand is more than Eric Adams received in
twenty twenty one. For Curtius Lee what to win, which
(21:07):
is very unlikely and I'm not going to sugarcoat it,
but a perfect storm would have to occur. Eric Adams,
Andrew Cuomo, and Jim Walden would have to take votes
from Mendannie a long Democrats who don't agree with it
either his personality or they can't vote for a socialist,
but they would also never vote for a Republican. I'm
(21:27):
talking about voters in the upper West and upper east Side,
the heavily Dominican areas of the Bronx, the Black areas,
of Brooklyn and Queens areas that will never vote for
a Republican unless they're Michael Bloomberg, but they will never
vote for a Republican. And Emerson Pole, which turned out
to be correct in this primary election, found that only
thirty five percent of New Yorker's right now are committed
(21:49):
to voting for Mendanni, twenty one percent are saying they'll
vote for Adams or Walden Cuomo was not included on
this list. Sixteen percent of their voting for sliwa and
twenty seven percent are undecided. Democrats would have to be
committed to the idea that it is more important to
stop their brand from being destroyed by Mandani, who will
be the face of the Democratic Party, then worried about
(22:11):
Sliwah serving one term, and they have to be committed
to trying to siphon off votes from Democrats. Everyone's sitting
there and asking me, can Curtis drop out? Can we
all endorse Eric Adams or vice versa? No, their names
will be on the ballot. You also don't want in
Eric Adams to drop out because there are voters that
(22:31):
will vote for Eric Adams but not for Curtis Leewa
and vice versa. And but also Curtis's name was on
the ballot. No matter what, no one's going to be
able to drop out together their name off of the ballot.
It is on the ballot. Slieba would have to run
a competent campaign where he gets an increased percentage of
the Trump vote out In twenty twenty one, he got
forty five percent of Trump votes that came out of
(22:54):
the twenty twenty election in New York. This time, he'd
have to get closer to sixty percent, which is one
hundred and sixty thousand more New Yorkers that voted for
Trump but had not voted for him in the last election.
And Democrats. The Walden Adams Cuomo coalition would have to
take about three hundred thousand Democrats with them in November,
(23:17):
which is no easy task. It's not like that's baked
in the cake. Is it possible? Anything is possible? Is
it likely? No? But can it happened? Yes? Some people
are asking online, like, you know, why did we pick
Curtis Leewall? Why did Republicans pick a candidate that's not
that strong? I mean Curtis. I like Curtis. I've met
him many times, perfectly nice person, but why didn't they
(23:40):
choose a stronger candidate. There was a story in the
New York Sun about I mean, Cuomo was not officially running,
but was all but officially running for a very long time,
and he was running on the idea of being a
stable force, especially for business and for police. So a
lot of Republicans who were considering running didn't want to
(24:03):
face Cuomo. The idea of Cuomo losing seemed insane. They
were like, this is not gonna happen. And Sliwa had
spent so much time energizing the base of the Republican Party.
He's been campaigning since twenty twenty one, so by the
time anyone looked around, Sleewa had it in the bag.
And they were and these moderate Republicans who with money
(24:24):
were betting on Cuomo. They were saying that this is
why would I have a Kamakazi fight if I can't
win the primary likely and Cuomo with a nominee that
I'll just stick with Cuomo. And I'm going to tell
my audience something I've never told anyone this. I got
a call. I want to say it was warm outside,
so I want to say it was Uh. It was
(24:46):
probably last late last summer, probably late last summer, and
I got a call from a former New York Yankee,
a multi time World Series winning New York Yankee from
the nineties, one of the legacy Yankees, part of the dynasty,
and he was interested in running for mayor. And we
had a whole conversation about what it would take, how
(25:06):
to beat Sliwa, how to do this race, How he
would you know, how much money he would have to invest,
the coalition he would have to build, because it's not
legitially any coalition, it's not the Bloomberg Coalition. Those coalitions
don't exist anymore. It's a new coalition. How would he
have to do that? And he ultimately decided against that.
And I was completely honest. I told him exactly, very frankly,
(25:28):
this is what you'd have to do in order to
run an effective campaign. And he just decided against it.
And I'd say, you st else I've never told anyone.
I was asked to run for the New York City
Council this year by the bye with the GOP. They
asked me many, many, many times to run for a
New York City Council seat, a competitive one that I
think if I ran, I would win. I'm not. I
(25:50):
think I could have won this one at it, but
I would have to give up everything, and I wasn't.
I mean, I would give not just the podcast, but
my pack and everything would have to be given up
because you can't hold any other jobs by being in
the city besides being the city council. And I worked
so hard to build it that I wasn't willing to
at this moment in my life give everything up to
run for office. So that's why, you know, that's why
I wasn' pick. That's why he wasn't picked either. But
(26:11):
the cards were built and decked there for quite some
time for Curtis Leewa, and people were so convinced about
Andrew Cuomo that they didn't go along with it. So
what does this mean for the general election? Now? Listen,
there are absolutely parts of the Democratic base that the
party doesn't understand. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the
(26:37):
rest of the coalition of the governing class of the
Democratic Party, they don't understand that there's a very vocal
and loud and strong part of their base in major
cities that reject core values of this country that truly
hate Jewish Americans, not just the state of Israel, but
hate the idea of Jews that really want socialism and
(26:59):
support for menality and race based identity politics infuse in
every area of our country. And the face of that
movement Mendannie if he is, if he wins in November.
If you think they were able to raise money off
of AOC, you have no idea what they'll be able
to raise off Mendonni. Because at least AOC was good
looking and enough people felt, you know, even though she
(27:19):
was they felt that she was either dumb or crazy
or whatnot, but there was a certain appeal to her
among people. That is not true of Mendannie whatsoever. And
he will and he is radical, and he will absolutely
be a fundraising magnet for Republicans. But on its face,
right on its face, what could this tell us about
the general election? It says that Democrats are really in trouble.
(27:43):
They really have to worry about this rising coalition of
their party because they're going to take on establishment figure
after established figure until he knock them all out or
they retire, and they're going to be the craziest people
they you know, forget about compromise a few issues. It
will be all out war at all times. Partisan hacker
(28:04):
to the maximum. Does it say about Republicans on its face, No,
I mean not really doesn't say that. This means it's
gonna you know, Republicans are going to win or Democrats
are gonna lose or whatever, because remember when Obama was president,
Republicans won mayorships in New York. When you know Democrats
won mayorships, Trump won. It doesn't mean one thing or
the other. But there is that educational divide that we
(28:27):
saw in this election that you should absorb for yourself.
Remember I said Quama won a lot of a bigger portion.
Couoma actually won more assembly districts than Mandani did. He
won a bigger physical region of New York. But this
ultra hyper educated progressive people, they just showed up like
(28:49):
you know, they were going to get one of those
free cars from Oprah Winfrey. They showed up in full
force like you've never seen before. And they couldn't compete
with that because they had. The Democrats that quota support
was counting on were lower educated, they did not vote
as often. Education is tied a lot with voting habits.
We are a party now that is really built on
(29:12):
its back of the working class and the less educated,
and going into this election, no matter if Trump is
victorious in Iran and as all of these successes, it
doesn't matter unless we can get these people to show
up and yes, show up early and vote early. It's
so important for Mandanni. This election was decided before election
(29:36):
day because he got so many early votes out. I
thought there would be a big spike for election day
for Quota, but there wasn't. Republicans are the party of
the working class, increasingly the party of blue collar people
of multiple races and ethnicities. We have to do the
job of getting these people to show up and vote
a next November or we're gonna lose a lot of seats.
(29:56):
We're gonna lose a lot of seats we should be
winning that. That's really the lesson to take home is
the educational splintering of our country and why Cuomo lost
was because non college educated people or those with just
a bachelor's or justice associates, do not vote as frequently
as those with the postgraduate There's less of them, but
(30:18):
they vote more frequently. And if you allow that to happen,
you are allowing yourself to be governed by the minority.
That's my segment for that. You know, we're going to
look around and we're going to say, how do we
lose all these seats if we don't wise up to
that fact now and organize now. And you know, I
hope there is some way in which the stars align
and courteously what can be elected mayor over Mandani despite
(30:42):
being very good for Republican fundraisers. Now, I want to
get see the ask Me Anything segment of this show.
This is the part that you guys send me emails,
but literally anything I will try to answer. I'll do
the research for you. I love these emails. I read
every one of them, and those that I don't answer
on the podcast I try to respond to individually. So
you can email me, by the way, be part of
the segment. Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot comsploral Ryan
(31:03):
at Numbers Game podcast dot com. Okay, this message comes
from Frank Leski. He says, Ryan, I am a longtime
fan and ossidious follower, have a but much higher vocabulary
than me. Frank, I remember a few months back you
talked about how if Democrats lost the Muslim vote in
the Midwest, the Israel issue would cease to be a
(31:24):
bipartisan issue, something I think absolutely sounds correct to me.
Has there been any data on this recently since twenty
twenty four election leading up to the twenty twenty six midterms?
Also a suggestion let us know any podcasts or shows
you're going to be on, and finally, are there any
podcasts that you love and would recommend? Thank you so much. Okay,
thank you for this wonderful email. I don't listen to
a lot of political podcasts. I've listened to a lot
(31:44):
of history podcasts and some comedy podcasts. I don't know
if you're into history podcasts. Usually what happens I get
into a thing and like I just I am completely
immersed in it, where I will listen to seven podcasts
on the same exact issue to see if I can spot,
you know, in accuracies are things I didn't know? So like,
this is so weird. Last month, May thirtieth was the
(32:05):
feast day of Saint Joan of Arc. I am a
practicing Catholic. I listened to, you know, fourteen hours of
Joan of Arc podcast. I'm not joking. I was completely
obsessed and engulfed, and I can't even tell you which
ones I listened to, because I listened to basically anyone
that had that in the title. Was I was trying
to listen to to absorb it. I don't have an
obsession right now. I'm actually just listening to an audio
(32:27):
book on the life of Woody Allen by Woody Allen,
which is actually really fascinating over the Mia Farroh stuff
because I never really heard his side of the story before,
and I kind of agree with him. Anyway. As far
as what shows I'm doing, I've just did Tommy Laarn
show that was great this past week. I put them
on my Instagram, which I'm not really great at because
I don't share a lot on social media outside of
just my ramblings on Twitter. But you can go to
(32:49):
Ryan Gurdusky on Instagram and I post my clips there
and check them out, and I'll try to do a
good job. If I got a big interview coming up,
I'm supposed to do Magan Kelly this week, and I
am supposed to do Will cow Majority. I don't know
what times or anything like that, but I'm supposed to
do those two shows. Okay, Now, what he was referring
to about the Muslim voat, which is the really part
(33:11):
of the question. What I said. I think I was
on CNN when I said this, that because the Muslim
boat was just a strong constituency in Michigan, that if
Trump won Michigan because of the Muslim vote, especially on
the Dearborn area, Democrats would see it as a warning
(33:32):
sign and say we have to move and just appeal
to just give up on the Jewish vote and just
appeal to Muslims as a voting block. That did happen.
Trump did win Michigan, and he won not completely just
because of the Muslim vote, but he won a huge
chunk of the Muslim voate. I think he might have
won the majority in some parts of Michigan. So that
(33:55):
prediction I had happened that he would do that. That
did happen. Has there been any polling on it? No.
I went through it and I just scrambling looking for
any polling data, but there's not a lot. There's no
nominees for the major parties in twenty twenty six, there
wouldn't be a lot of public polling data on it.
And there's not good cross tips on how the Muslim
(34:15):
Boat particularly feels about Trump right now, especially with the
Israel War things. So I couldn't really find anything, but
I will go back to the beginning of the show.
Look at Mandani. Mandanni wants to arrest Bee being Nanyaho.
Look at AOC, Look at all these Democrats. This is
definitely a shot a lens into the future. This is
(34:38):
what they're going to be about. There will be no nuance.
New York City has a ton of Jewish voters. It
is a ton of Jewish voters. It did not matter
the man who stands for worldwide in Fada one, I
think that they have made it clear because it's not
just the Muslims's progressives who also joined in that effort,
(35:01):
but it is. It is that. And also remember it's
not just Muslims in the Midwest. There's three hundred and
twenty one thousand Muslims in Michigan, but there's two hundred
and seventy thousand in Virginia, and seventy thousand in Georgia
and one hundred thousand in Arizona. And I think it
was Pew research pu out the trajectories within the next decade,
within the next ten years, probably less than that we
(35:22):
will for the very first time have more Muslims in
America then we have Jews, and they will live in
more important states. Jews are highly concentrated in a handful
of states, the most important being Pennsylvania, and then I
guess Florida, but Floria is no longer a swing state.
So Pennsylvania Muslim population is very high, and it's concentrated
in Georgia and Michigan and Minnesota, and there's a lot
(35:42):
in Arizona. There's a lot in Virginia. There's a lot
of Nevada. That's the swing states. Governor Abbott is bringing
them by the boat loads to Texas. So if Texas
ever becomes a swing state, yeah, they'll matter a ton.
So there's no polling yet doesn't mean that they won't
be polling. I think that the signs are very obvious
(36:02):
that that is how the party is headed. And you'll
have like the peep foota juge of the world still
trying to be very nuanced about the Israel issue for Democrats.
But then you will have a hardcore progressive who will
be like no fit global and fada all the way.
Who knows if they'll win, but they'll have a very
very strong base to work with and we just saw
(36:25):
it in New York City. That's my podcast for this
Thursday's episode. Stay tuned and check out Monday's episode. Actually,
listeners gaming the idea for the episode, so I'm responding
to This is why I love getting these emails. I
not only respond to them. Sometimes I make whole episodes,
but then we have a special guest to talk about
an issue that listeners asked me enough times about that
I said, let's make a whole episode. So please check
us out on Monday. Like and follow us on the
(36:46):
iHeartRadio app Apple podcast where big at your podcast, throw
us a five star. I check out and see how
my stars are doing, and I would love to get
one from you. It would really really help. So thanks
again for listening. I'll see you Monday.
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Kerdusky. Thank
you again for being here another episode. And I have
been receiving tons of emails, text messages, tweets, and it's
all about the same exact thing. What the hell happened
in New York City. So for those of you who
do not know, which I'm sure everyone does, but I'll
(00:22):
recap him Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has been the
favorite to win the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New
York City for a while now. He only announced three
months ago, but he has been a de facto Canada
in the race for well over a year and was
assumed to be the leading contender. He lost to an
upstart assemblyman named Zorn mom Donnie, probably the furthest left
(00:45):
wing candidate nominated by a major party in any major city. Yeah,
he's further left of the mayor of Chicago, Los Angeles,
washingty C. He's probably even to the left of the
mayor of Boston, which is pretty hard because she is
a flat out comedy not of actual comedy. But she's
very far green energy all the rest of it, He's
(01:05):
still left of her. Drew Cuomo ultimately received three hundred
and sixty two thousand votes to Mandani's four hundred and
thirty two thousand was forty three point five to thirty
six point five percent, is a seven point loss now
because of ranked choice voting. It's this way that New
York counts their votes, which is absolutely incredibly stupid. They
(01:26):
do this in the primary. We won't Mendanmi won't have
not officially won for a couple of days, probably until
Monday is my guest or Friday, but he is the
de facto candidate. Cuomo Head calls him to concede the election.
He is a vocal supporter of defunding the police. He
wants to arrest bb net and Yahoo if he visits
New York City. He wants to end the specialized schools
for gifted and talented students. He wants to raise taxes
(01:50):
to make public buildings green at the cost of three
point two seven billion dollars to tax pre payers. He
wants to freeze rents. He wants to have government controlled
grocery stores. He also opposes New York City working with
ice officers to port criminal aliens who can make crimes.
This shouldn't be shocking. It is AOC with testicles. He
(02:10):
is to the left of every other candidate in the
race and the city at home at large. There was
one canonam Paperboy Love. He might have been to the
left of Mandanni, but I don't really I didn't really
read up too much on him anyway. One of the
smartest comments I saw about this election came from Gavin
Wax He's the former president of the New York Young Republicans.
(02:30):
He's unknown for a very long time, and he said
on Twitter calling Mandanni a socialist and anti Israel on
repeat didn't hurt him, It helped him with those attacking
convinced no one politics is already incredibly radicalized locally and nationally.
Either offer a radical counter or accept the defeat with
a boiler played talking point in sloganeering. I agree with
(02:52):
what Gavin said, because that's what truth man. Donnie's message
as insane as it was to everyone with an IQ
above you know room temperature, which is a New York
one hundred degrees, So with anyone with an IQ above
one hundred, it seems like it's crazy. But to people
who are of the left persuasion are still in the
(03:14):
Democratic Party, that was the dreams and possibilities, realized what
he was saying was was speaking to their values, that
they could sit there and reach for the stars, that
they could make New York this progressive state, this progressive city,
which it's really more of an establishment Democrats city always
has been not really that much of a progressive city.
(03:36):
And he really reached to wealthy voters, wealthy, high income,
high college degree holding voters who want to make believe
that they are standing up for the working class even
though the policies that they advanced are punishing them. Because
while the right may may look at Mendonia's and kind
of Jihatas, which was like the stupidest hot take I
(03:57):
saw from a bunch of right wingers on Twitter, the
truth is he's just a cultural Marxist. He just views
society in the lens of identity and those who use
identity as a tool to bring Marxism. This is no
different than Chavez used race and economic anxiety to flip
Venezuela and once he did democratically one time. That's all
he needed Cuomo's message that the election was about you
(04:19):
owe me. Because of Andrew Cuomo, I'm the NEPO baby
who moved across the political spectrum while I was governor
and had to resign a disgrace. It was really about him,
and he was like, I can write these ships. I
can make everything calm and easy and make people want
to stay in New York at a slow pace. The decline.
I'm going to manage the decline of New York was
essentially Cuomo's message. It was his message as governor too. Men.
(04:43):
Donnie's message is about creating a progressive paradise in the
largest city in America. It has much more appeal than
managed a client. That's the difference between a lot of
neo liberalists and nationalists on the right and progressive on
the left. And he wasn't the only one who lost
New York City yesterday. Former Congressman, former my former congressman,
(05:06):
the first person I ever voted for. He was running
unopposed when I voted for him, But was Anthony Wiener.
He lost the city council seat when he ran because
he was running on this message over I'm going to
come back, and New Yorker said, no, we've seen this
movie before and we're kind of done with it. And
Wiener was a very far left ten years ago, thirteen
years ago when he had to resign in disgrace, or
(05:27):
fourteen years ago now, but he was The left has
moved so far left that Wiener is then considered a
more moderate voice in the Democratic Party now. And Cuoma
was a right winger, which is insane because he did
the endless the cash bail people living in most parts
of Manhattan, but especially the areas around the highly educated places,
(05:48):
like the people not necessarily in Manhattan, but off of Manhattan,
those who never I don't know, couldn't afford the ten
thousand dollars month rens, so they settled for the five
thousand dollars month ronds. A lot of them living off
their parents. By the way, they're only passing through New York.
They're going to settle here like they settle in a
number of cities in their life. They're very progressive, they're
very high educated. They vote often, they vote early, they
(06:11):
vote frequently, and they vote to the left. And New
York City is become a sponge for those kinds of people.
New York City. If you have blue hair and thirty
six genders and you don't know if you like a
boy or girl, you are a boy or girl, Why
would you stay in Long Island for why would you
stay in most parts of Connecticut or Kentucky or Ohio.
(06:32):
You don't have to. You can come to New York,
especially to these areas of high progressive activism, and find
a home. And maybe they won't stay there, but they
come to New York with this dream that New York
is still the New York I was born and raised into,
like the New York is this twenty four hour city
full of energetic artists when it's not. I mean it
(06:54):
was for a very long time, but it's not. It's
all corporate now and it's not a twenty four hour
city anymore. Artists aren't breaking any ground. It's not particularly
edgy like it used to be. And that's just my opinion.
But it's still the best city in America. But they're
passing through it and changing it. And as go New
York will go the rest of the country. I heard
this big thing. Let just New York burn. The entire
(07:16):
Democratic leadership is in New York City. Chuck Schumer, Haakim Jeffries,
all of these people, Jerry Nadler, all of these people
are in New York and they are looking at an
electorate that is mad and insane, and they have to
sit there and do something in order not to get
(07:36):
primary in order to move to that insane left. That's
where they're going to be running to. So you can't
just say screw it. New Yorkers deserve what they get.
San Francisco had that appeal and eventually elected this unknown
wman named Nancy Pelosi, who happened to be the third
most powerful person in the country or third line for
the presidency and most powerful person the House of Presentatives
(07:58):
for six years and fundamentally changed all of America. You
can't just sit there and say, oh, screw them whatever.
The people who lived away from Manhattan, those who depend
on the police, who work as police officers or in
the social services, who depend on social services, who were
less educated and made not a college degree so you're
(08:19):
not a post doctorate. They did not vote for Mendani,
but they didn't vote as much. I want to get
into the numbers so you can understand this sponge effect
of these highly progressive left wing voters in this very
small geographic area, how it changed the entire city. So
(08:39):
if you look at the area around Manhattan, on the
Brooklyn and Queen's side. There's a bunch of neighborhoods. New
York is broken up when they do elections by assembly district.
Assembly is the state house, right, we call it assembly
instead of state House. Whatever. The state Assembly districts. There
are sixty five Assembly districts in New York City. There
(08:59):
are ten that border Manhattan, thirty eighty, thirty four, thirty six,
thirty seven, forty six, fifty to fifty one, fifty two,
fifty three, fifty six, and fifty seven. If you're playing
at home, those are numbers you want to look at.
Was ten districts gave Mendani one hundred and thirty five thousand,
six hundred and twenty four votes out of the four
(09:22):
hundred and thirty two thousand he received. A third of
all of his votes came from these ten Assembly districts,
which represent about fifteen percent of all the Assembly seats
in New York, So one in three voters came from
only about fifteen percent of the entire geographic makeup and
(09:42):
population makeup of New York City. Cuomo, on the other hand,
he received about twelve percent of his total vote from
this exact area. He didn't underperform that much relative to
the rest of the rest of the city, I mean
matching it over. He underperformed, but it wasn't like wasn't
It wasn't he couldn't get one percent, you know what
(10:04):
I mean, He didn't get zero. He just did underperform.
But it didn't matter because he balanced it out in
these other areas further away from Manhattan, and he did
very well in some precincts, like in the Orthodox Jewish areas,
but that didn't matter because the vote total was incredibly
different of where they were voting. A story of Queens
(10:25):
which is one neighborhood, right, It's one little neighborhood in
that area, in that region, it had more voters than
all the other working white class or middle class, white
majority areas of Queen's County combined. So like Middle Village
(10:47):
that's the area I was born and raised in, had
twenty two hundred votes. Howard Beach, all very prominent italighborhood,
had sixteen hundred votes. White Stone another it's very Asian
and white mixed neighborhood twenty three hundred vot votes. Storia
this Beacon and progressivesm these voters that made AOC a congressman,
these voters that give the far left all their seats.
(11:09):
They had twenty five thousand votes. That's more than the
Borough Park, Brooklyn area Orthodox shoes. Everyone was excited they
were going to vote. They had eight thousand votes. This
progressive area had twenty three times as many. They had
more voters in that area than in the working class
black neighborhood, which has tons of voters. It's not the
(11:31):
people weren't there. They didn't vote, They just didn't show
up and vote. And I think it's important to realize
where now the New York Times of this whole entire
chart about what races broke up with it. It's very
stupid because highly educated voter, white voters live in areas
that might be majority black, but it's like fifty percent black,
(11:54):
twenty five percent white. But if you count the turnout,
it's actually a higher percent white and lower percent Pole.
So I don't want to do it by race when
it comes to that, except if you look at the
super majority areas like the Dominican part of the Bronx
which is essentially all Dominican, or the Black area of Queens,
which is all black. If you look at economics stuff
you look at finances, the wealthiest districts in the city
(12:18):
broke for Cuomo about two hundred f two thousand more.
That's Upperlyside, Upper West Side, everything else aside from that
in the one hundred thousand, one hundred and fifty hundred
and ten hundred and thirteen thousand range, they voted for Mendani.
Areas that had an income and at average income of
one hundred and seventeen thousand, six hundred dollars a year
(12:40):
or greater voted for Mendani by forty two point five
to twenty nine point three. Those of middle income, which
was sixty three thousand to one hundred and seventeen thousand
dollars income. This is from the New York Times. Sixty
three thousand to one hundred and seventeen thousand income voted
for Mindani by ten points. It was working class areas
that he gave Quamo thirteen point margin fifty two thirty seven.
(13:04):
A report from the Economists said that Quamo support was
the very rich and the very poor, and it was
Mendanni's support that were above living wage, college degree holders,
people who didn't own homes, transient people, millennial people, right,
That's who gave Cuomo his support. Cuomo did very well
(13:26):
in very white areas, very black areas, very Hispanic areas.
Mendanni did well in very mixed areas, areas where transients
have moved and displaced people and intergenerational people. There was
a huge support from the Asian community, which surprised me
given that he's opposed to specialized schools and the number
(13:46):
one issue. But you had progressive state senators and state
legislators in New York City campaigning for Mendani. You had
a huge turnt among the Muslim population, which is not
a huge population in New York, but it's there. It
is there, and in some areas, in the Latino areas,
he did very very well. He did very very well.
Among some places, people were kind of either making this
(14:08):
analogy that it was all rich white people or it
was all immigrants. That's not true. It's just not true.
It's kind of a little bit of both. It was
a lot of affluent millennial my generation, unfortunately white transient
people who lived outside of Manhattan between Borough, between bay Ridge,
(14:32):
Brooklyn and Astoria, Queens. But there were also huge pockets
of recent immigrants that also supported Mendanni. It wasn't one
or the other. It was ancestral New Yorkers. People have
been there, multi generational New Yorkers in communities like the
one I grew up in that voted for Cuomo. It
(14:54):
was completely one side of that voted for Cuomo, people
who have been there forever. Now, I explained before were
about the working class issue. Here's where Cuomo had issues.
Working class voters are not as monolithically Democrat in New
York City as they used to be. Remember, New York
(15:14):
City is a nine to one Democratic city, but among
newly registered voters, it's close to one to one. From
twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five, New York City
added sixty eight thousand new active registered Democrats and fifty
seven thousand new active Republicans. Right, but it's not even
(15:36):
across the city. So Staten Islands, which obviously is the
reddest part of New York City and one of the
reddest parts of the state, they added almost six thousand
new registered Republicans. From twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five,
they added ninety four new Democrats. In the Bronx, Republicans
added eleven thousand and five new Republicans active Republicans Democrats
(15:59):
only had less than nineteen hundred Democrats one eight hundred
and ninety five. That's nine thousand more new Republicans in
the Bronx than Democrats. The bluest part of the city,
the most working part class part of the city, Queens
eighteen thousand, six hundred and forty three new Republicans, ten
thousand new Democrats, eight thousand more Republicans and Democrats in Queens.
(16:22):
So where do all these Democrats come from? These new Democrats,
these new progressors. Manhattan and Brooklyn, those two boroughs, twenty
two thousand new Republicans, fifty five thousand new Democrats. So
a party that is set in its ways or a
candidate that's set in its ways of winning traditional New Yorkers. One,
(16:42):
a lot of them have been outpriced out of the city.
But two, they're not as Democrat as they used to be.
And that's why Andrew Cuomo's campaign had issues. It was
a larger coalition of people. But they're not all Democrats anymore.
The Democratic Party had left them behind, and the ones left,
even in Staten Island, are the most progressive ones. These
(17:05):
pockets of where Democrats are living and where these progressives
are active in Astoria, in Williamsburg, in Bay Ridge. These
Democratic areas that are that are left, even in the
working class areas, are becoming more extreme because Centrists are
leaving to either become Republicans or Independents are not feeling
(17:26):
compelled to go vote, especially for Andrew Cuomo, who was
not a great governor. Resigned in disgrace. Whether it was
accurate his accusations or not, but it was resigned in disgrace,
and that most of the party had turned its back on.
And by the way, in twenty twenty five, as a Democrat,
was running as a straight white man, which does not
win you points. And I want fellow Republicans to hear
(17:50):
what I'm about to say. I know that we're gonna
have a very honest moment. What I want to say.
We spend the last decade laughing and mocking and battling
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama and Joe Biden,
and we are going to miss them compare to what
is coming. They are what is coming out of the
(18:14):
Democratic Party now. Out of the elements that are left
in this Democratic Party are whack a doodle duel. And
I know a lot of older Republicans, boomer Republicans say oh,
they'll grow up when they pay taxes. These people are
in their forty some of them, they're never growing up.
This is their world and they intend to change it
(18:36):
to make every part of the country look and act
like them. They are crazy and they are coming out
in full force. And then Donnie like AOC is just
the beginning of what we're going to see. I want
to talk to if there's any chance of a Republican
winning this mayor's race. I want to talk to if
(18:57):
there's any chance for an upset and if there's anything
that we can learn ahead of the midterms coming out
of this New York City mayoral election. So stay tuned. Okay,
So do the Republicans have a shot in hell in
November winning New York City. First of all, let me
explain the race. There was a rank choice voting in
(19:18):
the primary. There is not ranked choice voting in the general.
Whoever as the most votes wins, and it is a
five way race. New York State has very confusing election
laws that allow candidates to run under multiple parties. It's
called a Wilson vacoulaw so it allows candidates to create
their own parties, and Andrew Cuomo did so. Governor Cuomo
is on the ballot in November despite losing the Democratic primary.
(19:40):
He's under a party called the Fight and Deliver Party,
Andani will be under the Democrat Party and likely the
Working Families Party. Former US attorney and former registered Democrat
Jim Walden will be running as an independent. Current Mayor
Eric Adams will also be running as an independent, and
radio host and founder of the Guardian Angel Curtis Lee
will will be running as a rept Republican and the
(20:00):
Conservative Party candidate Sliwa ran in twenty twenty one and
received slightly less than twenty eight percent of the vote,
which is actually even worse than Trump did in thirty percent.
President Trump has substantially increased the support in New York
City every time he's run for office. Now, I want
to talk about the Trump of it all, right, because
a lot of diehard Trump voters believe if you just
(20:22):
run a Trump light candidate anywhere, you'll win, right. So,
twenty sixteen, Trump received four hundred and ninety four thousand
votes in New York City, about eighteen percent total of
the vote. I was one of them. In twenty twenty
he got six hundred and ninety one thousand votes, which
is twenty three percent. Once again, I was one of them.
And in twenty twenty four he received seven hundred and
(20:44):
eighty six thousand votes, or thirty percent of the vote.
I was one of them again too, if anyone's wondering,
but from four hundred and ninety four thousand to seven
hundred and eighty six thousand is a substantial gain over
twelve years. And actually the last number, one hundred and
eighty six thousand is more than Eric Adams received in
twenty twenty one. For Curtius Lee what to win, which
(21:07):
is very unlikely and I'm not going to sugarcoat it,
but a perfect storm would have to occur. Eric Adams,
Andrew Cuomo, and Jim Walden would have to take votes
from Mendannie a long Democrats who don't agree with it
either his personality or they can't vote for a socialist,
but they would also never vote for a Republican. I'm
(21:27):
talking about voters in the upper West and upper east Side,
the heavily Dominican areas of the Bronx, the Black areas,
of Brooklyn and Queens areas that will never vote for
a Republican unless they're Michael Bloomberg, but they will never
vote for a Republican. And Emerson Pole, which turned out
to be correct in this primary election, found that only
thirty five percent of New Yorker's right now are committed
(21:49):
to voting for Mendanni, twenty one percent are saying they'll
vote for Adams or Walden Cuomo was not included on
this list. Sixteen percent of their voting for sliwa and
twenty seven percent are undecided. Democrats would have to be
committed to the idea that it is more important to
stop their brand from being destroyed by Mandani, who will
be the face of the Democratic Party, then worried about
(22:11):
Sliwah serving one term, and they have to be committed
to trying to siphon off votes from Democrats. Everyone's sitting
there and asking me, can Curtis drop out? Can we
all endorse Eric Adams or vice versa? No, their names
will be on the ballot. You also don't want in
Eric Adams to drop out because there are voters that
(22:31):
will vote for Eric Adams but not for Curtis Leewa
and vice versa. And but also Curtis's name was on
the ballot. No matter what, no one's going to be
able to drop out together their name off of the ballot.
It is on the ballot. Slieba would have to run
a competent campaign where he gets an increased percentage of
the Trump vote out In twenty twenty one, he got
forty five percent of Trump votes that came out of
(22:54):
the twenty twenty election in New York. This time, he'd
have to get closer to sixty percent, which is one
hundred and sixty thousand more New Yorkers that voted for
Trump but had not voted for him in the last election.
And Democrats. The Walden Adams Cuomo coalition would have to
take about three hundred thousand Democrats with them in November,
(23:17):
which is no easy task. It's not like that's baked
in the cake. Is it possible? Anything is possible? Is
it likely? No? But can it happened? Yes? Some people
are asking online, like, you know, why did we pick
Curtis Leewall? Why did Republicans pick a candidate that's not
that strong? I mean Curtis. I like Curtis. I've met
him many times, perfectly nice person, but why didn't they
(23:40):
choose a stronger candidate. There was a story in the
New York Sun about I mean, Cuomo was not officially running,
but was all but officially running for a very long time,
and he was running on the idea of being a
stable force, especially for business and for police. So a
lot of Republicans who were considering running didn't want to
(24:03):
face Cuomo. The idea of Cuomo losing seemed insane. They
were like, this is not gonna happen. And Sliwa had
spent so much time energizing the base of the Republican Party.
He's been campaigning since twenty twenty one, so by the
time anyone looked around, Sleewa had it in the bag.
And they were and these moderate Republicans who with money
(24:24):
were betting on Cuomo. They were saying that this is
why would I have a Kamakazi fight if I can't
win the primary likely and Cuomo with a nominee that
I'll just stick with Cuomo. And I'm going to tell
my audience something I've never told anyone this. I got
a call. I want to say it was warm outside,
so I want to say it was Uh. It was
(24:46):
probably last late last summer, probably late last summer, and
I got a call from a former New York Yankee,
a multi time World Series winning New York Yankee from
the nineties, one of the legacy Yankees, part of the dynasty,
and he was interested in running for mayor. And we
had a whole conversation about what it would take, how
(25:06):
to beat Sliwa, how to do this race, How he
would you know, how much money he would have to invest,
the coalition he would have to build, because it's not
legitially any coalition, it's not the Bloomberg Coalition. Those coalitions
don't exist anymore. It's a new coalition. How would he
have to do that? And he ultimately decided against that.
And I was completely honest. I told him exactly, very frankly,
(25:28):
this is what you'd have to do in order to
run an effective campaign. And he just decided against it.
And I'd say, you st else I've never told anyone.
I was asked to run for the New York City
Council this year by the bye with the GOP. They
asked me many, many, many times to run for a
New York City Council seat, a competitive one that I
think if I ran, I would win. I'm not. I
(25:50):
think I could have won this one at it, but
I would have to give up everything, and I wasn't.
I mean, I would give not just the podcast, but
my pack and everything would have to be given up
because you can't hold any other jobs by being in
the city besides being the city council. And I worked
so hard to build it that I wasn't willing to
at this moment in my life give everything up to
run for office. So that's why, you know, that's why
I wasn' pick. That's why he wasn't picked either. But
(26:11):
the cards were built and decked there for quite some
time for Curtis Leewa, and people were so convinced about
Andrew Cuomo that they didn't go along with it. So
what does this mean for the general election? Now? Listen,
there are absolutely parts of the Democratic base that the
party doesn't understand. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the
(26:37):
rest of the coalition of the governing class of the
Democratic Party, they don't understand that there's a very vocal
and loud and strong part of their base in major
cities that reject core values of this country that truly
hate Jewish Americans, not just the state of Israel, but
hate the idea of Jews that really want socialism and
(26:59):
support for menality and race based identity politics infuse in
every area of our country. And the face of that
movement Mendannie if he is, if he wins in November.
If you think they were able to raise money off
of AOC, you have no idea what they'll be able
to raise off Mendonni. Because at least AOC was good
looking and enough people felt, you know, even though she
(27:19):
was they felt that she was either dumb or crazy
or whatnot, but there was a certain appeal to her
among people. That is not true of Mendannie whatsoever. And
he will and he is radical, and he will absolutely
be a fundraising magnet for Republicans. But on its face,
right on its face, what could this tell us about
the general election? It says that Democrats are really in trouble.
(27:43):
They really have to worry about this rising coalition of
their party because they're going to take on establishment figure
after established figure until he knock them all out or
they retire, and they're going to be the craziest people
they you know, forget about compromise a few issues. It
will be all out war at all times. Partisan hacker
(28:04):
to the maximum. Does it say about Republicans on its face, No,
I mean not really doesn't say that. This means it's
gonna you know, Republicans are going to win or Democrats
are gonna lose or whatever, because remember when Obama was president,
Republicans won mayorships in New York. When you know Democrats
won mayorships, Trump won. It doesn't mean one thing or
the other. But there is that educational divide that we
(28:27):
saw in this election that you should absorb for yourself.
Remember I said Quama won a lot of a bigger portion.
Couoma actually won more assembly districts than Mandani did. He
won a bigger physical region of New York. But this
ultra hyper educated progressive people, they just showed up like
(28:49):
you know, they were going to get one of those
free cars from Oprah Winfrey. They showed up in full
force like you've never seen before. And they couldn't compete
with that because they had. The Democrats that quota support
was counting on were lower educated, they did not vote
as often. Education is tied a lot with voting habits.
We are a party now that is really built on
(29:12):
its back of the working class and the less educated,
and going into this election, no matter if Trump is
victorious in Iran and as all of these successes, it
doesn't matter unless we can get these people to show
up and yes, show up early and vote early. It's
so important for Mandanni. This election was decided before election
(29:36):
day because he got so many early votes out. I
thought there would be a big spike for election day
for Quota, but there wasn't. Republicans are the party of
the working class, increasingly the party of blue collar people
of multiple races and ethnicities. We have to do the
job of getting these people to show up and vote
a next November or we're gonna lose a lot of seats.
(29:56):
We're gonna lose a lot of seats we should be
winning that. That's really the lesson to take home is
the educational splintering of our country and why Cuomo lost
was because non college educated people or those with just
a bachelor's or justice associates, do not vote as frequently
as those with the postgraduate There's less of them, but
(30:18):
they vote more frequently. And if you allow that to happen,
you are allowing yourself to be governed by the minority.
That's my segment for that. You know, we're going to
look around and we're going to say, how do we
lose all these seats if we don't wise up to
that fact now and organize now. And you know, I
hope there is some way in which the stars align
and courteously what can be elected mayor over Mandani despite
(30:42):
being very good for Republican fundraisers. Now, I want to
get see the ask Me Anything segment of this show.
This is the part that you guys send me emails,
but literally anything I will try to answer. I'll do
the research for you. I love these emails. I read
every one of them, and those that I don't answer
on the podcast I try to respond to individually. So
you can email me, by the way, be part of
the segment. Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot comsploral Ryan
(31:03):
at Numbers Game podcast dot com. Okay, this message comes
from Frank Leski. He says, Ryan, I am a longtime
fan and ossidious follower, have a but much higher vocabulary
than me. Frank, I remember a few months back you
talked about how if Democrats lost the Muslim vote in
the Midwest, the Israel issue would cease to be a
(31:24):
bipartisan issue, something I think absolutely sounds correct to me.
Has there been any data on this recently since twenty
twenty four election leading up to the twenty twenty six midterms?
Also a suggestion let us know any podcasts or shows
you're going to be on, and finally, are there any
podcasts that you love and would recommend? Thank you so much. Okay,
thank you for this wonderful email. I don't listen to
a lot of political podcasts. I've listened to a lot
(31:44):
of history podcasts and some comedy podcasts. I don't know
if you're into history podcasts. Usually what happens I get
into a thing and like I just I am completely
immersed in it, where I will listen to seven podcasts
on the same exact issue to see if I can spot,
you know, in accuracies are things I didn't know? So like,
this is so weird. Last month, May thirtieth was the
(32:05):
feast day of Saint Joan of Arc. I am a
practicing Catholic. I listened to, you know, fourteen hours of
Joan of Arc podcast. I'm not joking. I was completely
obsessed and engulfed, and I can't even tell you which
ones I listened to, because I listened to basically anyone
that had that in the title. Was I was trying
to listen to to absorb it. I don't have an
obsession right now. I'm actually just listening to an audio
(32:27):
book on the life of Woody Allen by Woody Allen,
which is actually really fascinating over the Mia Farroh stuff
because I never really heard his side of the story before,
and I kind of agree with him. Anyway. As far
as what shows I'm doing, I've just did Tommy Laarn
show that was great this past week. I put them
on my Instagram, which I'm not really great at because
I don't share a lot on social media outside of
just my ramblings on Twitter. But you can go to
(32:49):
Ryan Gurdusky on Instagram and I post my clips there
and check them out, and I'll try to do a
good job. If I got a big interview coming up,
I'm supposed to do Magan Kelly this week, and I
am supposed to do Will cow Majority. I don't know
what times or anything like that, but I'm supposed to
do those two shows. Okay, Now, what he was referring
to about the Muslim voat, which is the really part
(33:11):
of the question. What I said. I think I was
on CNN when I said this, that because the Muslim
boat was just a strong constituency in Michigan, that if
Trump won Michigan because of the Muslim vote, especially on
the Dearborn area, Democrats would see it as a warning
(33:32):
sign and say we have to move and just appeal
to just give up on the Jewish vote and just
appeal to Muslims as a voting block. That did happen.
Trump did win Michigan, and he won not completely just
because of the Muslim vote, but he won a huge
chunk of the Muslim voate. I think he might have
won the majority in some parts of Michigan. So that
(33:55):
prediction I had happened that he would do that. That
did happen. Has there been any polling on it? No.
I went through it and I just scrambling looking for
any polling data, but there's not a lot. There's no
nominees for the major parties in twenty twenty six, there
wouldn't be a lot of public polling data on it.
And there's not good cross tips on how the Muslim
(34:15):
Boat particularly feels about Trump right now, especially with the
Israel War things. So I couldn't really find anything, but
I will go back to the beginning of the show.
Look at Mandani. Mandanni wants to arrest Bee being Nanyaho.
Look at AOC, Look at all these Democrats. This is
definitely a shot a lens into the future. This is
(34:38):
what they're going to be about. There will be no nuance.
New York City has a ton of Jewish voters. It
is a ton of Jewish voters. It did not matter
the man who stands for worldwide in Fada one, I
think that they have made it clear because it's not
just the Muslims's progressives who also joined in that effort,
(35:01):
but it is. It is that. And also remember it's
not just Muslims in the Midwest. There's three hundred and
twenty one thousand Muslims in Michigan, but there's two hundred
and seventy thousand in Virginia, and seventy thousand in Georgia
and one hundred thousand in Arizona. And I think it
was Pew research pu out the trajectories within the next decade,
within the next ten years, probably less than that we
(35:22):
will for the very first time have more Muslims in
America then we have Jews, and they will live in
more important states. Jews are highly concentrated in a handful
of states, the most important being Pennsylvania, and then I
guess Florida, but Floria is no longer a swing state.
So Pennsylvania Muslim population is very high, and it's concentrated
in Georgia and Michigan and Minnesota, and there's a lot
(35:42):
in Arizona. There's a lot in Virginia. There's a lot
of Nevada. That's the swing states. Governor Abbott is bringing
them by the boat loads to Texas. So if Texas
ever becomes a swing state, yeah, they'll matter a ton.
So there's no polling yet doesn't mean that they won't
be polling. I think that the signs are very obvious
(36:02):
that that is how the party is headed. And you'll
have like the peep foota juge of the world still
trying to be very nuanced about the Israel issue for Democrats.
But then you will have a hardcore progressive who will
be like no fit global and fada all the way.
Who knows if they'll win, but they'll have a very
very strong base to work with and we just saw
(36:25):
it in New York City. That's my podcast for this
Thursday's episode. Stay tuned and check out Monday's episode. Actually,
listeners gaming the idea for the episode, so I'm responding
to This is why I love getting these emails. I
not only respond to them. Sometimes I make whole episodes,
but then we have a special guest to talk about
an issue that listeners asked me enough times about that
I said, let's make a whole episode. So please check
us out on Monday. Like and follow us on the
(36:46):
iHeartRadio app Apple podcast where big at your podcast, throw
us a five star. I check out and see how
my stars are doing, and I would love to get
one from you. It would really really help. So thanks
again for listening. I'll see you Monday.
Host
Gill Alexander
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