GOP
GOP candidates have their strategy for November: ‘Stop Zohran Mamdani.’
Attacking the mayor will literally be on the ballot in some races, as Republicans petition for a new ballot line.
Brooklyn GOP Chair Liam McCabe, Assembly Members Michael Novakhov and Lester Chang, and Assembly candidate Anna Shpilkovskaya at a “Stop Mamdani Rally” on May 17, 2026. Megan McGibney
In front of a rally of over a hundred New Yorkers gathered on the Brighton Beach boardwalk in Brooklyn Sunday afternoon, several Republican candidates stood in front of a banner that echoed what they all had to say: Stop Mamdani.
“Zohran Mamdani represents everything that is going wrong in New York City,” said Assembly Member Michael Novakhov, who hosted the rally. “He represents the radical, antisemitic, anti-police, anti-American movement that has taken over today’s Democratic Party. And let's stop pretending otherwise. This is no longer the party of working people. This is a party controlled by radical activists, communist ideologists … agitators and people who make excuses for hatred and terrorism when Jews are the targets, that is the truth.”
The catalyst of Sunday’s rally was to get signatures on a petition to run on an independent ballot line: Stop Mamdani. Novakhov is preparing for a rematch with Democratic District Leader Joey Saban after narrowly defeating him last year. And he and the other candidates plan to run on the Stop Mamdani line along with their usual Republican and Conservative Party lines.
But the rally also served to stir up energy to fight Mamdani and his policies. And if Sunday was any indication, it’s a strategy the right is leaning into as it gears up for November.
“Right now we have a mayor who hates the police,” said state Sen. Steve Chan. “He hates you. He hates the Jews. We ran away from what this mayor is telling us that we should love. No, we don't love socialism. No, we don't love communism. This guy in office right now, he hates you, he hates the Italians, he hates the Chinese, he hates excellence, he hates the cops, he hates the military. Does this guy like anybody?”
Chan is facing a serious reelection challenge from Democratic District Leader Larry He. The Southern Brooklyn district backed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo over Mamdani 46% to 40% in the November mayoral election, while Republican Curtis Sliwa got just 13%. In 2024, Donald Trump won the same district by nearly 15 points.
Democrats are hoping to flip Chan’s seat on the way to winning back a supermajority in the state Senate. And Chan isn’t taking that kindly.
“Don’t you listen to any of them,” Chan said. “They’re full of shit.”
Across the water, on another beachfront boardwalk, a different set of Republicans were also turning up the heat. On Staten Island’s South Beach, GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman was joined by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and Assembly Members Mike Tannousis and Mike Reilly and talked about New Yorkers leaving for other states due to high costs. But even as Blakeman’s running against Hochul, it only took him a couple minutes to mention the mayor.
“We’re here in Staten Island because we are united in our effort to keep a check on Zohran Mamdani,” he said. He is bad for New York City. He is bad for Staten Island.”
In fact, Blakeman’s been campaigning just as much against Mamdani as he has against Hochul. The state Republican party sent a mailer this month showing the mayor and governor holding hands, pledging Blakeman would “protect you from the Hochul-Mamdani tax hikes.” In a May 15 X post, Blakeman shared another graphic of Hochul and Mamdani. That same day, Blakeman posted an AI-generated “South Park” spoof blaming Mamdani and Hochul for high utility bills.
Republican candidates elsewhere in the city are using the same strategy. Alina Bonsell, who’s running a longshot campaign for state Senate on the east side of Manhattan, is collecting signatures to run on the Block Mamdani ballot line.
Mamdani is new, but the strategy isn’t. Republicans unhappy with then-Mayor Bill de Blasio created a Stop de Blasio line in 2016.
Voters mostly avoided that line a decade ago. And Andrew Bard Epstein, a political consultant who advises Mamdani, said lashing out at this mayor won’t help Republicans. “Tens of millions of dollars were spent against the mayor last year using these same divisive, desperate talking points,” Epstein said. “They didn’t work then and they won’t work now. The mayor’s affordability agenda is broadly popular with voters across New York state, and so is he. Republicans will try to make him the bogeyman at their peril.”