Red beret-wearing Republican Curtis Sliwa likes his chances in a crowded NYC mayor’s race

NEW YORK (AP) — Curtis Sliwa, the colorful creator of New York City’s Guardian Angels anti-crime patrol group, ran for mayor four years ago and wound up losing to Democrat Eric Adams by almost 40 percentage points.

This time around, the red beret-wearing Republican believes the math may be more in his favor.

Even in an overwhelmingly blue city, the 71-year-old hopes that with three polarizing candidates splitting the Democratic vote, he can maintain the support he secured last time while picking up backers from the other side of the aisle with his message that he’s best positioned to fight crime.

Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state lawmaker and democratic socialist, is the Democratic nominee after upsetting former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the primary. Cuomo, who resigned as governor four years ago after sexual harassment allegations, is running as an independent.

Meanwhile, Adams, wounded by a federal bribery case and the Trump administration’s extraordinary intervention to drop the charges, skipped the primary altogether and is instead campaigning for a second term as an independent.

“Zohran obviously is very unique. He’s way to the left, but then again, Cuomo and Adams, listen to the way they talk. They’re Zohran-lite,” Sliwa told The Associated Press. “I will be the alternative.”

Even if he doesn’t win, Sliwa might play the spoiler. While some Mamdani critics have urged Sliwa to drop out and throw his support behind someone with a better chance of beating the Democratic nominee, Sliwa says that isn’t happening.

‘Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang’

Sliwa is hoping to ride to victory on crime, an issue that helped Adams, a former police captain, win the pandemic-era 2021 election.

This year’s Democratic primary was dominated by discussions of New York’s high cost of living, but Sliwa believes crime is “beginning to creep up and almost be equal” to other issues voters care about.

Sliwa’s Guardian Angels — a band of beret-wearing citizens — patrolled graffitied subway cars and the rough-and-tumble streets starting in the late 1970s, when crime was rampant. The city, by every measurable metric, has gotten much safer. So far this year, the city has had its fewest shooting incidents and shooting victims in decades. Crime is down this year in nearly every category, according to police.

But in Sliwa’s telling, crime is “exploding.”

In the Bronx, “blood is pouring from the streets.” The “madams and pimps” on the outskirts of Queens need to be arrested and the “Johns” should be named and shamed. When women ride the subway, they get “perved on,” Sliwa said.

If the crime stats won’t paint the picture, Sliwa is happy to.

As Sliwa spoke with a small gaggle of journalists on a street corner at a recent campaign stop, he illustrated an argument about the statistics by forming his hand into a gun — a “9 millimeter,” he said — and pointed it at his surprised spokesperson. “Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!” he said.

In another interview, he recounted how, in 1992, he was shot multiple times in what prosecutors later said was an attempted mob hit. Sliwa had been blasting Gambino crime family boss John Gotti on the radio. The mob boss’s son, John “Junior” Gotti, was charged with ordering the shooting, but multiple juries deadlocked and prosecutors eventually gave up the case.

‘Still trying, still striving’

Sliwa, like President Donald Trump, has long been a larger-than-life New York City tabloid figure.

His campaign has shades of some national Republican talking points — bashing the state’s bail laws and saying the National Guard should patrol high-crime areas. But he has also criticized some of the president’s actions and urged him not to weigh in on the mayoral race.

For many years, he co-hosted a local radio show with left-leaning civil rights lawyer Ron Kuby. More recently, he’s become an animal-rights activist, and his large collection of cats featured prominently in his first campaign for mayor.

George Arzt, a veteran Democratic political consultant in New York, said Sliwa’s appeal boils down the fact that he’s “really a likeable guy” who’s “enjoyable to hang around.”

“He’s a guy who’s enjoyable to listen to, but does he spout the Republican line? No. Is he a Democrat? Certainly not,” he said. “But he’s someone you like listening to. He’s funny.”

But many voters in the city are also aware of Sliwa’s baggage from decades portraying himself as a crime-fighter — not always honestly.

In 1992, he admitted to faking several of the Guardian Angels’ early exploits, including a story that he was kidnapped by transit police officers and a tall tale about returning a wallet with $300 inside to an elderly mugging victim.

Last year, members of the Guardian Angels roughed up a man in Times Square while Sliwa was doing an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity about crime by new immigrants in the city. Sliwa told the host that “our guys have just taken down one of the migrant guys,” and baselessly accused the man of being a “shoplifter.” The man was from the Bronx.

But his message still resonates with some.

As he strolled up and down a Bronx block recently, shaking hands and passing out campaign cards, he ran into Noemi Molina, 62, who froze at the sight of him: She had known about Sliwa since he started the Guardian Angels and had been seeing him in the news for decades.

“He’s still trying, he’s still striving,” said Molina, who said she would vote for him. “He’s still trying to get things done. He’s trying to help.”