Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, speaks at a news conference in New York on June 17. Real estate titans and financiers are forming super PACs to try to defeat Mamdani. Photo / Scott Heins, The New York Times
In the blood sport of New York City real estate, where comity can be hard to come by, the developers of some of the city’s most prized parcels appeared to be in agreement about one thing when they met in private this week.
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor, had to be taken down.
“Our goal is anybody but Mamdani,” Marty Burger, chief executive of Infinite Global Real Estate Partners, wrote in one of two emails sent ahead of the meeting that were obtained by the New York Times.
To help, Burger proposed that his peers start by putting in US$25,000 ($42,280) each to a new super PAC, New Yorkers for a Better Future, or to seed other groups.
He cited potential ad campaigns attacking Mamdani; spending plans to boost specific rivals; and other efforts to register and turn out thousands of voters who typically sit out election day.
A month after Mamdani’s primary victory stunned New York’s business elite, its leaders have begun cranking open a powerful gusher of outside spending to try to stop the man whose socialist policies they fear could sour the city’s business climate.
But with fewer than 100 days to go, they are still very much searching for a unified plan that could work.
On Tuesday, the men whose companies run the Seagram Building and Hudson Yards joined the call for one anti-Mamdani super PAC, while leaders of a different super PAC invited donors to a US$1000-per-person fundraiser scheduled for today.
“Fighting Mamdani is expensive,” the organiser, Betsy McCaughey, a former Republican lieutenant governor, wrote on the invitation. “But allowing him to win will cost you more.”
All told, there are already at least five groups jockeying to claim a reservoir of potentially tens of millions of dollars — each with their own leaders and goals.
Several more groups are said to be in various stages of formation, including a campaign to register and mobilise anti-Mamdani voters that is likely to be run by Lisa Blau, an investor married to the chief executive of Related Cos., the developer of Hudson Yards.
Others involve Republican allies of United States President Donald Trump and a reality TV star who is a friend of Mayor Eric Adams.
Corporate leaders — some of whom already contend that Mamdani’s past support for defunding the police, which he has disavowed, could destabilise the city — may only find more motivation to donate to defeat him after a deadly shooting in midtown Manhattan sent the staff of the NFL, Rudin Management, and Blackstone into lockdown.
“This tragedy is not just a moment of mourning; it’s a call to reject policies that would make our city even more vulnerable,” said Jared Epstein, a real estate executive who co-hosted a fundraising call with 200 potential donors for New Yorkers for a Better Future last week.
It remains far from clear if the anti-Mamdani forces can find a successful path, especially when the opposition is divided among several more moderate candidates: Adams; former Governor Andrew Cuomo; Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee; and Jim Walden, a lawyer.
Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for the Mamdani campaign, predicted that the donors, whom she described as “Maga billionaires who spent millions trying to defeat Zohran in the primary”, would again fail.
“New Yorkers are ready to turn the page on endless corruption and backroom deals,” she said.
Mamdani, 33, has moved to meet his critics face to face.
He has scheduled a meeting with Jed Walentas, the Two Trees executive who leads the Real Estate Board of New York, and the board’s president, James Whelan, according to two people involved in the effort. It will follow meetings with other corporate executives whom he has tried to mollify.
A recent poll paid for by the board showed only long-shot paths to victory for Cuomo and for Adams, who opted out of the Democratic primary after the Trump Administration abandoned his federal corruption indictment.
The poll, which has not been previously reported, showed that more than 60% of New York voters view the mayor negatively, and more than 50% view Cuomo negatively, according to two people briefed on the survey. In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans six-to-one, those numbers bode poorly for anyone challenging Mamdani.
Three political consultants who have either started independent expenditure groups or have advised donors looking to fund one said they warned donors that the likelihood of defeating Mamdani is slim unless either the mayor or former governor drops out.
Some of the city’s wealthiest political donors appear to be holding their powder, at least for now.
“I tell everybody, don’t get excited,” said John Catsimatidis, a billionaire Republican businessman, who has hosted events for Adams and Cuomo. “Let’s wait a few weeks.”
Still, many of the city’s business class see Mamdani, who wants to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy to expand social services, as an existential threat and want to start fighting now.
“I’m 100% sure that this is not a money-lighting-on-fire session,” said Jason Haber, a prominent real estate broker and a longtime Democratic activist who led the fundraising call for New Yorkers for a Better Future with Epstein.
His real estate listings include a US$23 million penthouse near Gramercy Park. “Every single one of his plans will hurt the very people that he thinks it will help.”
There is early evidence of cross-pollination. Both Blau and her husband, Jeff Blau, attended the call for New Yorkers for a Better Future. Lisa Blau pitched the real estate crowd on her group, whose non-profit structure she noted would allow donors to avoid timely disclosure requirements, two attendees said.
And Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant in the city, started his own group, Protect the Protectors, ostensibly to do the same work.
In an interview, Sheinkopf disparaged other consultants for leading donors astray, but also acknowledged he was working with both McCaughey and former police commissioner Ray Kelly’s PAC, Save NYC, and the pro-Adams super PAC, Empower NYC.
“The usual gaggle of members of the political industrial complex are going to grab as much cash as they can,” he said.
Fix the City, a super PAC that spent US$22m for Cuomo’s losing bid in the Democratic primary, plans to continue operating as a pro-Cuomo, anti-Mamdani vehicle.
Empower NYC was the first super PAC directly supporting Adams, who has taken extraordinary steps to court big donors, including allowing billionaire financiers Bill Ackman and Daniel Loeb to vet his campaign manager. Abe George, a friend of Adams’ and its chair, said he hopes to raise US$15m for the mayor.
“This guy survived Covid and the migrant crisis,” George said in an interview. “Crime is down, jobs are up.”
Eleonora Srugo, a friend of Adams’ who stars in Netflix’s Selling the City, filed paperwork this week to start another, Save the City PAC.
Initially, Burger also argued for strategically supporting Adams.
“We need one of these two candidates to drop out of the race by mid-September,” Burger wrote in an email to associates.
“Tactically, we think spending money to try to move Adams in the polls helps accomplish this” by either boxing out Cuomo if Adams rises in popularity, or by persuading Adams to drop out of the race if he does not.
During the meeting to promote New Yorkers for a Better Future, Aby Rosen, whose RFR Holding LLC owns the Seagram Building, took issue with that approach, according to two meeting participants.
Organisers gave assurances the group would be candidate-agnostic.
Rosen and Burger declined to comment for this story.
Mamdani, for his part, has at least two super PACs supporting him. One has yet to report much fundraising. The other, New Yorkers for Lower Costs, has raised more than US$100,000 since the primary. This week, the group is launching a merchandise store. “Freeze the Rent” beer koozies will retail for US$6 a pop.
“The only faction that Adams and Cuomo have successfully consolidated are Trump donors, which only deepens their unpopularity with an overwhelmingly Democratic electorate,” said Bill Neidhardt, spokesperson for New Yorkers for Lower Costs.
New Yorkers for a Better Future, which only formed in July, appears to be having the most success with donors so far.
Jeff Leb, an operative behind it, said he had already raised millions, though he would not give a precise total. Ricky Sandler, a financier who co-hosted Tuesday’s event with Burger, has pledged US$500,000. (The pledge was first reported by Hell Gate, a local news site.)
“This isn’t just another election fight; it’s a stand against a risky ideology,” Leb said.
“Civic, community, and business leaders across the city aren’t about to hand New York’s future over to an extremist.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Dana Rubinstein and Nicholas Fandos
Photograph by: Scott Heins
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