Mamdani Beats Cuomo And The Press Hacks (Again)

In the general election, the city’s two biggest tabloids, the New York Post and the Daily News, regularly attacked Mamdani, and called in both opinion pages and news sections for voters to coalesce around Cuomo, running as an independent.

By Ari Paul, FAIR

New York City baseball legend Yogi Berra said it best: It’s déjà vu all over again.

When Zohran Mamdani, a then-33-year-old democratic socialist state assembly member, beat disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in this year’s New York City Democratic mayoral primary, he also defeated establishment press attempts to scare the public away from a New Deal–like platform (FAIR.org, 6/27/25).

Cuomo, his billionaire backers and corporate media took a beating. But they picked themselves up, got back in the ring, and reverted to anti-Muslim fearmongering and law-and-order hysteria. They lost again.

Clearing road for ‘biggest liar’

In the general election, the city’s two biggest tabloids, the New York Post and the Daily News, regularly attacked Mamdani, and called in both opinion pages and news sections for voters to coalesce around Cuomo, running as an independent.

The reliably right-wing New York Post editorial board clung to its preferred candidate, hopelessly corrupt incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, until he dropped out of the race at the end of September. Then the paper pivoted from ridiculing Cuomo’s return to politics—calling him the “biggest liar in New York” (3/1/25)—to becoming one of his biggest cheerleaders (e.g., 10/21/25, 10/22/25, 10/23/25, 10/23/25).

The Post‘s front page outdid itself with racebaiting (“The Price Is White” was the headline on a story about Mamdani’s proposal to shift property taxes away from poorer, majority people-of-color neighborhoods—6/28/25) and open redbaiting:  “Sickle and Dimed,” complete with hammer and sickle, announced a story (7/16/25) about Mamdani wanting to raise taxes on the wealthy; “Trump to New York: Keep the Commie Out!” was the front-page headline on Election Day (11/4/25).

And in the eight days from October 16 to October 23, the paper featured Mamdani’s image or name on its front page six times (10/16/25, 10/17/25, 10/19/15, 10/20/25, 10/21/25, 10/23/25) in its effort to bring down his candidacy.

“Mam-Child: Beware, NYC Is No Toy to Hand to Nepo Baby like Zohran,” was the headline of the Post‘s October 27 front page—an odd criticism to advance when you’re trying to promote a rival who owes his career as a New York governor to the fact that he was the son of a three-term New York governor.

‘Entirely false and fabricated’

Despite the fact that the Post and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa symbiotically grew their gritty, street-level, law-and-order personalities together, the paper (10/21/25, 10/23/25) brought heat on the beret-wearing Republican in an effort to bolster the governor the paper once hated, demanding that Sliwa bow out and support the former Democratic governor (10/20/25). “Curtis Sliwa’s Checkered Past Catches Up to Him as Calls for Him to Ditch NYC Mayoral Campaign Hit Crescendo,” one headline (10/20/25) ran. “Just Walk Away, Beret!” screamed the paper’s front page the next day (10/21/25).

To show what depths of silliness the Post (10/27/25) sank to, it attacked Mamdani for his heartfelt speech about Islamophobia with this bombshell revelation: “The ‘aunt’ who Zohran Mamdani said was too afraid to wear her hijab on the subways after 9/11 is actually his dad’s cousin.” (It is very common in many cultures to refer to one’s parents’ cousins as “aunts” or “uncles,” including in South Asian communities.)

But wait, it gets funnier. The Post (10/28/25) quoted a London Times article (now deleted from its website, although some evidence of its existence still exists—X, 10/28/25; Semafor, 10/29/25) claiming, “Even Zohran Mamdani’s cheerleader Bill de Blasio now says the mayoral front-runner’s policy platform ‘doesn’t hold up,’” using most of the same words for a bold headline.

But online, the Post story (10/28/25) has been completely changed, even when you click the original link. The new piece carries the headline “Bill de Blasio Imposter Dupes Paper to Pan Protégé Zohran Mamdani’s Policy Platform: ‘Story Is Entirely False and Fabricated.’” The new story makes the British paper look stupid, but hides the fact that the Post also fell for the prank. (Both papers are owned by the Murdoch family.)

‘Uniquely unsuited’

The Daily News, owned by hedge fund Alden Global Capital but somewhat more centrist than the Murdoch empire’s Post, also threw its weight behind Cuomo in the hopes of bringing down Mamdani. “Cuomo Offers NYC a Path Forward While Mamdani Peddles Hollow Promises” ran the headline over its endorsement (10/26/25), calling his campaign “a house of cards built on sound bites and laced with antisemitism” and Mamdani himself “callow” and “mealy-mouthed.”

Like the Post, the Daily News (10/20/25) begged Sliwa to drop out “If [He] Cares About NYC and Not Just Himself,” in the hopes of thwarting Mamdani. “Cuomo would come to City Hall with more top-level government experience than any of his 110 predecessors going back four centuries,” it wrote (10/26/25), downplaying any concerns about the corruption and sexual harassment that come with that experience.

The paper even gave op-ed space (3/12/25) to a Cuomo administration health policy official to run a public relations piece sanitizing one of the administration’s biggest blemishes, its mishandling of the Covid pandemic (NPR, 1/18/21; STAT, 2/26/21; New York Times, 6/4/25).

The Daily News’ editorial page editor, Michael Aronson, said on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show (10/31/25) that Cuomo has “achieved a lot more in Albany than probably anyone in the past 40 years.” Aronson’s recollection of Cuomo’s state-level record didn’t include his infamous scandals, such as charges that he impeded state anti-corruption efforts (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, 7/24/14) or the bribery conviction of his associate Joseph Percoco (New York Times, 6/15/21).

Aronson, like Cuomo, also had difficulty saying Mamdani’s name correctly (New York Times, 10/22/25). “Help me make it easier to pronounce,” Aronson said, displaying the political and media classes’ out-of-touchness with the large role South Asians play in contemporary New York City. Some observers believe the mispronunciation of a fairly easy-to-say three-syllable name is intentional condescension.

The host helped Aronson: “Mamdani. Mom, like, everybody has a mom, right? We call her Mom…. Ronnie, Ronnie Reagan, Connie, Bonnie, those common girls’ names, that’s my little cheat sheet for anybody who’s still having trouble with it.” One wonders if the chattering classes have the same trouble with the names of someone like the Republican congressmember from Staten Island, Nicole Malliotakis.

The Daily News’ bias bled into its news section in a story (10/26/25) about Cuomo and Mamdani’s competing rallies the day after early voting began. Thirteen of the article’s first 14 paragraphs were devoted to the Cuomo rally, which attracted an audience of 300—before turning to the Mamdani event, which drew nearly 13,000 people to hear the candidate along with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

‘The stakes are high’

The New York Times editorial board, which announced (8/12/24) it would no longer be making endorsements in local races, remained silent on the race in October. Yet the board did run an editorial (6/16/25) before the primary, opining that Cuomo had “the strongest policy record of the candidates,” while Mamdani was “running on an agenda uniquely unsuited to the city’s challenges.”

Two days before the general election, the Times (11/2/25) ran a piece parroting one of Cuomo’s central attacks on Mamdani, under the headline “Even for Some Mamdani Supporters, His Thin Résumé Is Cause for Concern.” The subhead read: “Many voters struggle with a fundamental question about Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy: Is a 34-year-old state assemblyman ready to lead the nation’s largest city?”

“The stakes are high,” the Times warned, reluctantly admitting 17 paragraphs in: “To be fair, there may be no perfect preparation to lead New York City, and the office of mayor is frequently won not on the strength of a résumé but on ideas.”

You certainly wouldn’t think the stakes were high from the approach the paper took to its mayoral election quiz (10/27/25), headlined “What Do You and the NYC Mayoral Candidates Agree On?” These types of quizzes can be a good way for readers to cut through horserace coverage and inflammatory rhetoric, and focus on important policy matters. But the Times chose to squander the opportunity by throwing in a bunch of entirely unserious questions about things like preferred bagel orders, movies, baseball caps and hobbies. “Pick one: Six cats; one dog; no pets,” read one question.

The paper of record did run a story (8/30/25) on the actual political preferences of a demographic it takes very seriously: “How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?” (It turns out they’re wondering “whether anyone…can beat the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani.”)

‘Once again on the low road’

It wasn’t that long ago that these very same papers were rallying for Cuomo’s ouster from executive power. “It’s time for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to do one honorable thing: step down,” said the New York Post editorial board (8/3/21) in the midst of sexual harassment allegations. “If he refuses, lawmakers should remove him. Pronto.”

A headline from a Daily News editorial (8/4/21) at the time: “Even if Cuomo Was Just Clueless and Not Predatory, He Has Created a Workplace Rife With Sexual Harassment.” The Times editorial board (8/3/21) called for Cuomo’s resignation in the wake of a damning state attorney general’s report. “Mr. Cuomo has always had a self-serving streak and been known for his political bullying,” it wrote. “What this report lays out, however, are credible accusations that can’t be looked past.”

Cuomo has never admitted wrongdoing or apologized, yet New York media seem to have forgiven him simply because he was fighting an economic progressive. It took an upstate editorial board, Albany’s Times-Union (10/24/25), to deliver the clear message about Cuomo’s racist campaigning in the final weeks, and why he hasn’t been redeemed from his sordid past: “It is not surprising to once again find the ex-governor on the low road; the voters of New York City should ensure that he proceeds to the exit ramp.”

Failure to land punches

It says a lot about the city’s media oligopoly that they crawled back to a rejected, corrupt sleazeball as the one thing that can save the city from the fresh-faced progressive who vows to make life more affordable. And it is a positive sign that Mamdani was able to withstand this monied and organized onslaught.

Mamdani’s campaign and his supporters’ talent for creating captivating content for TikTok, Instagram and X is often credited for his success among younger voters (NBC News, 6/26/25; New York Times, 6/29/25). But Mamdani supporters point out that praising Mamdani’s social media game downplays the pro-affordability policy proposals and massive, enthusiastic door-to-door organizing that won the city over.

Still, the failure of the papers to land their punches can’t be ignored.