How Republicans can win New York?

Is Maud Maron crazy? Bill Ackman certainly thought the Republican candidate for Manhattan DA was, she tells me, when she asked him for $2 million. While the billionaire hedge fund CEO said he could easily raise the money she needed to fund her campaign in a single night, ultimately he chose not to – and instead focused on backing Andrew Cuomo for mayor.

Ackman thought “oh, she’s a nice lady, but she’s crazy,” Maron recalls. “She’s running as a Republican in a Democratic city.”

Fast forward six months and Cuomo is on the brink of losing to Zohran Mamdani – and Ackman has cast a vote for Maron, who he now calls “great.”

“I’m not crazy, I’m just ahead of the curve,” says Maron, a former public defender “And I am trying to find the least obnoxious way to say ‘I told you so’ to all of the big donors in New York.”

Maron is fighting an uphill battle of her own against current DA Alvin Bragg. The Democrat is expected to win. But she contends that it is Cuomo’s anticipated loss that should change Republican calculus in the city – and end the failed strategy of always backing the least worst Democrat.

As a recent candidate herself in two Democratic Congressional primaries, Maron knows about New York Democrats. But her critical view of DEI (for which she was called a “racist”), of trans issues (on which she said “any dude who feels like a woman is supposed to be treated like a woman – that’s absurd”) and staunch support of Jews (over which she was suspended from her post as parent council president for criticizing a letter that defended October 7) put her out of step with the party that has been captured by its progressive wing. She was beaten on both occasions and switched teams.

Those losses, combined with Cuomo’s expected defeat, augur well, Maron argues, for Republicans.

“Donors in the past have put in a lot of money to convince Republicans to register as Democrats because they thought the Democratic primary decides the election. But if you felt like your vote would count whether you were registered as a Democrat or a Republican, you would see an exodus from the Democratic party.

“Cuomo has already started that process by standing as an independent. Once you get people to say ‘I’m not just going to vote straight Democrat, I’m going to go listen to both candidates and see who’s better,’ then there’s a vote to be gotten.”

That the blue and red tectonic plates have shifted is beyond doubt with a certain New Yorker now residing in the White House and with the very real prospect of a Republican moving into the Governor’s mansion in neighboring New Jersey for the first time since 2013. The most recent polls show a dead heat between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli.

“Trump won all seven swing states and the popular vote really just by turning up and talking to people. Republicans win where Republicans show up and fight with some money and some infrastructure, that’s what we see in New Jersey too.

“And there’s something going on with the Democrat party. There’s a switcheroo happening where working class people are now finding themselves more drawn to and represented by the Republican party. You saw it with Robert F. Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard joining the Trump campaign. There’s a lot of Democrats out there who want something better than what the Democratic party is offering right now, which is far left extremism.”

But why should anyone listen to – let alone donate $2 million to – a candidate who is likely to lose on November 4 to a District Attorney so bad that the conviction rate has fallen every year since he took over in January 2022 and now stands at just 35 percent?

“Far left progressive prosecutors are winning because big donors like George Soros are funding the Democratic Socialists of America. But the backlash has started: Chesa Boudin was recalled in San Francisco and George Gascon was voted out of Los Angeles. When enough voters see what extreme leftism looks like in practice, they’re ready for an alternative.

“Republicans need to copy the DSA because they did a really smart thing. They invested a ton of money and recruited candidates when nobody took them seriously. You have to show up and you need money and you need infrastructure. In New York, that just has not been happening.

“As a Republican I haven’t been able to raise the millions of dollars that you would need to have a real fighting chance.” In the end Maron raised $500,000, still four times more than the last Republican DA candidate.

The further left the Democrats track, Maron says, the greater the opportunity for Republicans.

“Moderates can’t win in the Democratic primary, that’s why we have Mamdani. Democrats have lurched so far to the left because every single Democrat in office is worried about a challenger from their left. So they all tack left with their loony legalized prostitution, legalized marijuana, safe injection sites, they don’t arrest people for jumping the turnstile or beating up a cop. They are not worried about a challenger from the Republican party.”

Maron laughs at the thought of standing for mayor herself – “not a job I’m after” – and says the city needs another Michael Bloomberg. “I don’t think Curtis Sliwa will run again. New Yorkers won’t be put off by voting Republican if it’s somebody like Bloomberg who knows how to run things and turn things around.”

Politics is a contact sport these days, which is perhaps one of the reasons Maron, a mother of four who lives in Manhattan, wouldn’t seek the mayor’s office. Recently her nine-year-old son asked her why people were calling her racist. “It can get kind of nasty sometimes. But it does make the kids a little bit tougher and stronger.”

Maron predicts that under Mayor Mamdani “New York is about to have a rude awakening.” But, if her analysis is correct, when the contest is held again in four years time the Big Apple will be also low-hanging fruit, ripe for the plucking by Republicans.