The City Council’s former GOP leader says it’s smarter for party faithful to back Dem ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo than Republican Curtis Sliwa for mayor to stop Democratic Socialist front-runner Zohran Mamdani.
“I am no fan of Andrew Cuomo, but I also don’t want to light my vote on fire,” ex-Republican council minority leader Joe Borelli said on Fox News Channel’s “Saturday in America Kayleigh McEnany” program.
“Do you want someone with their foot on the gas pedal for socialism, or do you want someone who has their foot on the brake sometimes,” Borelli said.
“If you’re gonna light your vote on fire and vote for Curtis Sliwa, I can’t help you,” he said of the struggling Republican candidate.
Mamdani defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary, leaving the ex-gov to run on the independent “Fight & Deliver” ballot line in the Nov. 4 election.
Cuomo is still significantly trailing Mamdani, while Sliwa is even further behind them both — and draining votes away from Cuomo, Mamdani foes gripe.
“Sliwa is polling at half of what he was polling this week in 2021 [during his previous mayoral bid] and half of the vote percentage he actually got that year in what can only be considered a blowout loss,” Borelli added to The Post.
“Just because he has been an ineffective and unserious candidate, it doesn’t mean the rest of us have to throw away our Republican vote,” Borelli said.
“People have a choice to make,” said Borelli, who served as Staten Island’s South Chore councilman for 10 years and four years as the GOP minority leader, resigned from public office earlier this year, before he was term-limited, to take a private lobbying job.
The Sliwa campaign declined to comment to The Post.
