Out and about the Saturday before Election Day, Mamdani and Cuomo court Black voters

With three days until Election Day, Zohran Mamdani appeared on Saturday with many of the city’s Black power brokers. The Democratic mayoral nominee started the day at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, where he received about as much praise as he could from Sharpton, short of the civil rights activist making an endorsement. “It’s the Saturday before Election Day,” Sharpton told a packed audience at the House of Justice in East Harlem, which was largely Black and skewed older. “Only one candidate showed up.” 

Sharpton added that Mamdani has shown up at other events, including his March on Wall Street and NAN’s Triumph Awards in September. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running for mayor as an independent, missed both events. During the primary, the situation was somewhat reversed: Sharpton praised Cuomo and criticized Mamdani.

In his remarks at NAN’s 145th Street homebase, Mamdani quoted scripture (and Sharpton). He spoke about the Reconstruction era, calling it another time that the country has “teetered on the precipice of hopelessness.” “Those alive in 1865 knew what we know today: political freedom without economic freedom is no freedom at all,” Mamdani said.

After that, he attended services at the Hanson Place Seventh Day Adventist church in Fort Greene with state Attorney General Letitia James. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who recently offered a muted endorsement of the Democratic nominee, was there too. Mamdani’s campaign also let it be known that he spoke with Barack Obama on Saturday.

The final stretch campaign stops continue a concerted effort Mamdani has made since June to reach out to Black voters, who largely backed Cuomo in the Democratic primary. He appears to be making some strides. Recent polls have indicated that Black voters are moving toward Mamdani. An Atlas Intel poll taken Oct. 25 to Oct. 30 found that 51% of Black voters said they’d vote for Mamdani while 38% said they’d vote for Cuomo. A Marist poll taken Oct. 24 to Oct. 28 found that 56% preferred Mamdani, compared to 32% for Cuomo.

But Cuomo, standing outside the Marcus Garvey Village in Brownsville with Assembly Member Latrice Walker on Saturday, said he remained confident that he was the choice for Black voters. Earlier in the day, he was campaigning in the Black stronghold of southeast Queens, first in a parade in Cambria Heights and then in Rochdale Village with Mayor Eric Adams. “I am proud to stand here with him today … to encourage people to go out and vote,” Walker said. “I will see you at the polls as I lodge my vote for Gov. Andrew Cuomo.” 

Walker is a leading criminal justice reform advocate in the Legislature, who has gone on hunger strike twice to fight rollbacks to bail reforms. Asked about Cuomo’s law-and-order mayoral platform, which includes reversing a plan to replace Rikers with four borough-based jails and hire 5,000 more cops, she sounded a bit like Mamdani: “My stance is that the safest communities have the most resources, not the most police. When I think about criminal justice, period, I think about poverty.” She added that she had worked with Cuomo on bail reform laws and on raising the age for criminal responsibility to 18 years old when he was governor. 

As he walked along Pitkin Avenue with Walker, District Leader Anthony Jones and community leader Dee Bailey, Cuomo was embraced by several people, others honked and stopped their cars to talk with him. Many cheered. He was not mobbed in the way Mamdani is frequently surrounded by a crush of people when he goes out in public, but it was clear there was affection for Cuomo.

“I hope that all Black people, because I can represent that way, vote for you,” said Carolyn Richburg, a woman who observed Cuomo’s press conference at the Garvey apartments. “You know why? Because you care for everybody like your father, Mario Cuomo. He stood for something. Not only that, you married a Kennedy.” Cuomo, who was married to Kerry Kennedy more than a decade before they separated in 2003 and later divorced, laughed loudly. “All right, you got the last comment.”