The Most Important Man in New York

Republican Curtis Sliwa is the most important man in New York City right now—not because he will win the mayoral election, John Ketcham argues, but because he can determine who will.

Indeed, Sliwa does not appear to have a viable path to victory. And a new poll shows that if he dropped out, former governor Andrew Cuomo comes close to defeating frontrunner Zohran Mamdani—40.7 percent vs. 44.6 percent. But in a three-way race, Sliwa gets 19.4 percent vs. 28.9 percent for Cuomo and 43.2 percent for Mamdani.

“Cuomo and Sliwa share similar bases,” Ketcham writes, “which is why Cuomo picks up much more new support than Mamdani in the AARP/Gotham poll’s two-way simulation.”

Read his analysis here.

If elected as New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani’s policies “would disproportionately affect middle-class and poorer New Yorkers,” Nicole Gelinas writes, “who may not be aware of the cascading potential consequences of these policies.”

Take the proposed rent freeze. Pausing tenants’ rent for at least four years means that apartment and building upkeep will decline, as landlords are forced abruptly to cut costs. “The 9.3 percent of rent-stabilized buildings considered ‘distressed’ could see their landlords walk away from responsibility for the properties altogether—leaving them in limbo,” Gelinas points out. Apartment supply will likely fall, too. “Already, owners keep tens of thousands of apartments off the market because it’s not worth it to rehab them for a below-market rent,” she writes.

Read more about how rent freezes could affect lower-income New Yorkers the most.

A new city council bill proposes menu-labeling mandates for all New York City restaurants. That means high-salt and high-sugar items would need warning labels both online and in print. The problem, Jarrett Dieterle argues, is that mandates are expensive, and there’s little evidence that warning labels lead to healthier ordering. “The FDA estimated the per-item cost for nutritional analysis of a menu item at a restaurant to be between $280 and $1,030,” he writes, “with extra costs for updating menu boards ranging anywhere from $591 to $1,773.” And “in the few studies that have found some effect from menu-labeling rules,” he observes, “the impact has been so modest as to be negligible.”

Read his take.

Progressives often talk about building a Scandinavian-style social democracy in the United States. If government were more generous, the argument goes, we’d have a stronger economy, healthier middle class, and clean and orderly public spaces.

With its housing vouchers, transit subsidies, an expansive Medicaid program, rent-regulated apartments, food stamps, a cash-welfare program, and more, New York City already largely follows the Scandinavian model. Residents aren’t necessarily any better off.

“The city is still wealthy but grows slowly,” Stephen Eide writes. “Its middle class is fleeing. Public disorder remains chronic. Though New York continues to attract a disproportionate share of talent, the quality of its public services hardly justifies the cost of living.”

Read more about New York’s experience and why it serves as a cautionary tale for other U.S. cities.

“The U.S. government has become a gargantuan monolith. Slow to move and expensive to operate.”

Photo credit: Roy Rochlin / Contributor / Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images