Summer in the Hamptons is over — and for Wall Street fat cats, the schlep back to the city has never been scarier.
The big bet among Big Apple power brokers is when – not if – Eric Adams will drop out of the NYC mayor’s race, On The Money has learned. But even with Adams gone from the crowded field, alarms are growing that no one can stop the Maoist Zohran Mamdani from becoming mayor.
One big problem: GOP hopeful Curtis Sliwa tells me he’s going nowhere, regardless of pressure he gets from city business leaders — or even President Trump.
“NO spells NO, Charlie,” Sliwa DM’d me Thursday morning. “I now have $4 million in matching funds. The $ are flowing in. I’ve raised more in the last 2 quarters than Cuomo and Adams combined.”
Indeed, many of Adams’ top Wall Street supporters sound exhausted. They tell me they expect the current mayor – with his dismal poll numbers and ethical baggage – to step aside at any second. But that might not be enough to stop Mamdani mania among young voters and rank-and-file Dems in this overwhelmingly Democratic city.
As reported, Adams might take a job in the Trump administration or maybe, according to one top Wall Street executive, a think tank (which if you know Adams and his haphazard mayoralty, seems like an odd fit). Speculation is also swirling that Adams has been offered a private sector gig by a worried fat cat to drop out, sometime next week if not sooner.
Whatever he does, the idea is that with Adams gone, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo can have a clearer shot at Gracie Mansion and prevent a communist takeover of City Hall.
As for Sliwa, who knows what he will do if offered the right private sector job by some hedge fund manager sweating the notion of a Mamdani mayoralty. But I do buy Sliwa’s sincerity when he tells me for like the 100th time he has no intentions of dropping out.
He also says that at least so far, no one in the White House is directly pressuring him — or offering him a cushy job like you’re hearing about Adams.
One problem for Sliwa is that dropping out would be costly. The public money made available to candidates must be paid back if a candidate quits the race, and Sliwa has been a beneficiary of those “matching funds.”
That said, people who know Sliwa say he’s not motivated by money and never was. It might not matter if he too is offered a White House or private sector sinecure to give up. The longtime activist for safe streets also believes he can win a three-way race against Mamdani and Cuomo.
The fat cats have never been crazy about the notion of a wild-card populist like Sliwa running the show, though they prefer him to Mamdani. The same goes for Trump, who has had a sometimes-fraught relationship with Sliwa. Their problem is when they crunch the poll numbers, with Sliwa saying he’s in it, win or lose, a three-way race gives the edge to the Maoist.
As The Post exclusively reported Thursday, Trump told billionaire NYC businessman John Catsimatidis that he’s worried Mamdani will win a three-way race, and he wants both Adams and Sliwa to drop out.
Trump, despite his big properties in places like Palm Beach, the home of Mar-a-Lago, still has significant holdings in New York City real estate. So do people like Steve Witkoff, his special diplomatic envoy. There are also the Kushners, whose real estate family business is run by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared.
How this all unfolds is unclear. I ran the dropping-out speculation by a senior Adams’ adviser who labeled it “Cuomo bullshit.” Maybe, but I’m not hearing the buzz from the Cuomo peeps. It’s coming from financial backers of Adams who now see no path for him winning in November.
Cuomo, polls show, can beat Mamdani in a head-to-head battle. But Wall Street and city real estate types are at bottom realists, and that’s why even with Trump now egging Adams and Sliwa to drop, they remain in a post-Labor Day gloomy mood. With Sliwa still in the race, pulling as much as 20% of the vote, Mamdani wins a three-way contest, and maybe easily, business leaders fret.
A Mamdani mayoralty is a scary thought for the city’s business community dominated by Wall Street and real estate. If you believe Mamdani’s past statements, putting him in charge of the city could lead to massive tax increases, defunding the police, government-run groceries – stuff that will totally upend what’s left of the NYC economic base that hasn’t decamped to Florida.
As one Wall Street money dude put it to me: “There is a silver lining here if Mamdani wins; property values on Long Island particularly in the Hamptons are going to soar.”
