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THE MONEY VERSUS MAMDANI IN THE FINAL STRETCH OF NYC MAYORAL RACE  
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Meghnad Bose and Biplob Kumar Das
November 1, 2025
Drop Site News
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_ Unpacking the expensive eleventh-hour efforts by billionaires
targeting Zohran Mamdani. _

Zohran Mamdani speaks at a rally in Queens on Saturday, November 1,
during the final stretch of the campaign, Photo: Meghnad Bose

 

Former Governor of New York and mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo’s
billionaire donors have launched an expensive eleventh-hour effort to
disparage his electoral opponent, Zohran Mamdani, splurging on attack
ads against the Democratic nominee. The late surge drove independent
campaign expenses in this election over the $50 million mark on
Thursday, with more than $12 million spent in the second half of
October alone.

Independent expenses are those made by groups such as super PACs, and
the groups are not supposed to coordinate with a candidate’s
campaign. However, over the course of this NYC mayoral election,
Cuomo’s campaign was hit with two separate penalties
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totalling $1.3 million for suspected coordination with Fix The City, a
super PAC backing him.

Since early voting began on October 25, two billionaire-backed,
anti-Mamdani super PACs—Fix The City and Defend NYC—have shelled
out over $2.6 million in campaign ads, out of which nearly $2 million
has been spent on attacking the Democratic nominee.

An analysis by Drop Site News shows that as of Thursday, independent
expenses backing Cuomo were more than seven times the amount of money
put behind Mamdani. Cuomo has exceeded Mamdani by a staggering $36
million in outside support. The difference highlights just how much
independent expenses can skew the overall financial support behind a
candidate.

Subtracting independent expenses, the Mamdani and Cuomo campaigns are
on a more even financial footing, partly due to matching funds from
the city. Mamdani’s campaign has had $17 million at its disposal, of
which $13 million came from public funds, while Cuomo’s campaign has
had $14 million available, of which $8 million was from public funds.

Yet, once the independent expenses are added, the total amount backing
Cuomo or targeting Mamdani totals $56 million—close to two and a
half times of the amount backing Mamdani or attacking Cuomo.

The largest super PAC supporting Cuomo, Fix The City, has alone spent
$28 million, or 55% of all independent expenses in the election. The
super PAC has already raised an additional $7.2 million, which is
likely to be infused in the days leading up to polls closing on
November 4.

The $51 million in independent expenses in this NYC mayoral race, with
still a few days left for polls to close, is already 160% of the total
independent spending amount in the 2021 election. In 2017, independent
spending was less than $250k, and in 2013, the amount was just over $8
million.

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Graphs depicting campaign spending versus independent expenditures
between Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral
race (Graphs made by authors)

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Graph depicting differences in total spending between Zohran Mamdani
and Andrew Cuomo (left) and graph depicting amount Fix The City has
spent on Andrew Cuomo’s campaign compared to total independent
expenses (right) (Graphs made by authors)

BILLIONAIRES WHO SUPPORT CUOMO AND THE MESSAGES THEY BUY

 
Super PACs targeting Mamdani have been boosted in recent days by
big-buck donations from several billionaires.

Michael Bloomberg, former NYC Mayor and billionaire, contributed $1.5
million to Fix The City on Wednesday, four days into early voting.
This latest contribution took the total amount he has given to Fix The
City, the biggest anti-Mamdani super PAC, to $9.8 million. In
2023-2024, Bloomberg was the single biggest
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individual contributor to Democrats, backing them with more than $60
million, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data
by OpenSecrets.

On Tuesday, a week from Election Day, Ronald Lauder, former chairman
of The Estée Lauder Companies, and his wife Jo Carole Lauder,
contributed $500,000 to Fix The City, taking their total contributions
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towards the super PAC to $1.5 million. Ronald is also a Trump donor,
and in March this year, he gave $5 million
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to a pro-Trump PAC named MAGA Inc.Ronald is also the longtime
president [[link removed]] of
the World Jewish Congress. On its website, WJC states
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“Since the October 7th terrorist attacks against Israel, we have
intensified our efforts to defend the Jewish state in the hallways of
the United Nations in New York to the United Nations Human Rights
Council in Geneva, and around the globe, WJC advocates for Israel.”
The WJC website calls Israel “a beacon of democracy and innovation
in a volatile region” and says the country contributes to global
progress in fields such as humanitarian aid.William P. Lauder,
Ronald’s nephew and chair of the board of directors of The Estée
Lauder Companies, has contributed $1 million to Fix The City. And
William’s brother Gary, managing director of Lauder Partners, also
contributed $25,000 to Fix The City.The four members of the Lauder
family have spent over $2.5 million to target Mamdani and back Cuomo
in the mayoral race.Joe Gebbia, cofounder of Airbnb, who was appointed
by the Trump administration to the Department of Government Efficiency
(DOGE) and as a chief design officer at the National Design Studio
earlier this year, donated $1 million
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each to both Fix The City and Defend NYC on October 15.

Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager of Pershing Square
Capital and a prominent supporter of Donald Trump, contributed $1
million to the anti-Mamdani super PAC Defend NYC on October 14, and
$250,000 to Fix The City on October 15 taking his total spending to
$1.75 million.

In the lead-up to the mayoral primary in June, Mamdani had accused
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of artificially lengthening and darkening his beard in a mailer
attacking him. Mamdani, a Muslim candidate, had called the act
“blatant Islamophobia.” Fix The City had spent nearly $9,000 on
that mailer
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The latest infusion of big money in the general election has largely
been spent on ads vilifying Mamdani on the airwaves and across social
media. Some of these last-gasp efforts have taken an unconventional
approach. After two days of early voting, a text message
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sent by Defend NYC, backed by billionaire hedge fund manager Bill
Ackman, called Cuomo “flawed” but urged New Yorkers to vote for
him “to stop communism from coming to NYC.”The following day, the
same super PAC sent out a text which began with a tweet that said
“Cuomo murdered my husband and I am voting for him. That’s how bad
things are in New York”—one of two messages on which a combined
million dollars
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was spent by Defend NYC. The message went on to say, “We know what
she means… And if she can do it, you can do it too. If you do, we
will defeat Mamdani together.”

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_A text message blast sent by Defend NYC on October 28, 2025._

On Monday, Defend NYC spent $250,000 on a text message
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blast that said “🚨President Trump weighed in! 🚨He said what we
already know: This race is between Andrew Cuomo or Zohran Mamdani and
Cuomo is the ONLY choice for mayor. Cuomo is flawed but we have to do
our civic duty and vote for him to stop communism from coming to
NYC.”

A day later, Fix The City spent $1.15 million on a television ad
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that called Mamdani’s ideas “radically dangerous”.

The spending patterns of outside groups backing Cuomo and Mamdani show
two drastically different approaches: while groups backing Mamdani
have spent an overwhelming proportion of their resources on positive
messaging about his agenda, those backing Cuomo have spent close to
half of their resources in attacking Mamdani.

Groups favorable to Mamdani spent 83% of their money on efforts listed
as supporting him, and only 17% on expenses classified as opposing
Cuomo, according to a Drop Site analysis of data shared by the New
York City Campaign Finance Board. In stark contrast, independent
spending favorable to Cuomo focused considerably on attacking Mamdani,
with 42% of the funds, or around $18 million, spent on targeting the
Democratic nominee. Only $1.8 million, or 3.5% of the independent
expenditures, were categorized as either supporting or opposing Curtis
Sliwa, the Republican nominee.

The latest polls
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show Mamdani ahead of Cuomo, with the Democratic nominee holding a
double-digit lead. With less than a hundred hours to go before polls
close on Tuesday, the flow of the big bucks into the election is
unlikely to stop.

In the final stretch of this race, it’s money versus Mamdani.

_Meghnad Bose_ [[link removed]]_ is an
award-winning investigative journalist based in New York City._
_Biplob Kumar Das_ [[link removed]]_ is an
investigative reporter covering politics and business. He's based in
New York City._
 
_About Dropsite News_ [[link removed]]_:
Independent news on politics and war. Founded by veteran investigative
journalists Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, and Nausicaa Renner.  Drop
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and accountability. We are never afraid to take a stand for truth,
regardless of the partisan consequences or the risk of political or
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* Zohran Mamdani
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* Money in Politics
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* New York City
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