New York City – For Jessica Dejesus, deciding who to vote for as the next mayor of New York City came down to the final minutes.
The 40-year-old resident of the Mott Haven neighbourhood in the Bronx admittedly had not been following the race closely, but planned to vote for former Governor Andrew Cuomo. She recalled his near-nightly television appearances when he was governor of New York State amid the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He was our guy during the pandemic,” she reflected.
But a day before the election, Dejesus saw a video on TikTok detailing US President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Cuomo.
While her feelings towards the candidates in the mayoral race may be ho-hum, Dejesus knows she is no fan of Trump. The nod made her give upstart candidate Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, a closer look.
“We can’t have that. I don’t disagree with everything Trump does, but he cut back on food stamps, and that affects a lot of people,” she said, referring to restrictions on US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in a bill passed by Trump and Republicans earlier this year.
“I understand you have to stop bad people coming over the border, but there are a lot of good immigrants here as well,” she said, referring to Trump’s mass deportation drive.
Walking into her voting site, she told Al Jazeera she still had not made up her mind. “I’ll have to wait until that paper’s in front of me,” she said.
Moments later, she emerged: “I voted for Mamdani!” she said.
‘You really have no choice’
A neighbourhood like Mott Haven, which was solidly mixed during the June primary in its turnout for Mamdani and Cuomo, shows just how reactive Trump’s endorsement could be to the race: a poison pill for some and a final nail in the coffin for others.
Trump, meanwhile, hoped his endorsement, soon followed by that of billionaire Elon Musk, would help rally conservative New Yorkers who came out in atypically large numbers in the city’s 2024 presidential election.
“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice,” Trump said in a social media post on Monday.
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“You must vote for him and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”
Cuomo has also been explicitly reaching out to Republicans, hoping to court their votes. About 11 percent of New York’s 4.7 million voters were registered with the Republican Party in 2024.
Recent polls have shown Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa carrying about 14 percent of the vote – not a huge amount, but potentially enough to close Mamdani’s lead over the former governor.
It remained unclear how successful the action from Trump – who has also threatened to target city funding if Mamdani was elected – would be. But for some staunch supporters of Sliwa, Trump’s intervention did little to change their minds.
“[Trump’s endorsement] doesn’t change my vote. Sliwa is for the people and I have faith in that,” said Artemio Figuero, a 59-year-old city street cleaner, who spoke to Al Jazeera in Jackson Heights, Queens.
“He was a protector of the neighbourhood,” Figuero added, referring to Sliwa’s stewardship of the vigilante anti-crime Guardian Angels group.
