Walden’s Unity Poll Idea: More Symbolic Than Impactful Even As Cuomo Vows Active Indie Bid

Long-shot mayoral candidate Jim Walden has recently proposed a so-called “unity poll,” in the five-candidate race in order to pick a single candidate to run against Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, who is running a populist campaign that has many people worried.

Mamdani secured the Democratic nomination for mayor with a staggering 12.4 percentage‑point lead over Cuomo and is ahead in the early polls predicting voter preference in the general election, His populist campaign proposing free city buses, affordable child care and city run grocery stores has it its appeal to many voters although he’s still running below the 50 percent threshold. He is being labeled as posing “an existential threat to the future of New York City,” according to a statement from Jim Walden’s campaign who is floating the idea of all the candidates putting aside their own egos and differences to unite behind a single candidate. A splintered vote is likely to result in the election of Mamdanhi, Walden surmises.

Walden, 59, a former federal defense attorney, has no prior experience in elected office and is currently polling at just one percent and seems willing to be one of the candidates dropping out.

“If the poll that comes out in October (providing that the other candidates agree to Jim’s proposal) shows that Cuomo or Adams or Sliwa have polled first, Jim will drop out of the race,” Justin Copeland, Walden’s chief of staff said. “He cares more about NYC than his political career. That is why he has proposed this radical idea.”

However, as of the present, other major candidates have largely dismissed Walden’s proposal. Both Adams and Sliwa have publicly rejected the idea.

As of Sunday, July 13, Cuomo officially endorsed the idea. In the early polls, his independent candidacy was running second to Mamdanhi, so at this point, Cuomo could be the chief beneficiary if lower polling candidates dropped out.

Adams dismissed any thought that he’d drop out. “Are you kidding me?” Adams supposedly snapped at one reporter who posed the drop out question to him over the weekend.

Mamdani himself has not publicly commented on either the proposal or Walden’s labeling of him as an “existential threat.”

Sliwa perhaps had the most animated reaction, refusing to withdraw. In an interview with Bloomberg, he stated, “They have come up with all kinds of ways to get me out of the race. And truly the only way would be if something unfortunate happened to me, like me being hit by a Mack truck... That’s not happening.”

The Mamdani, Adams, Cuomo, and Sliwa campaigns did not respond to Straus Media’s requests for comment by press time.

Cuomo on July 14 released a video saying he intends to hit the campaign trail as an independent after losing in the Dem primary.

”I am truly sorry that I let you down,” he said in the video, “but as my grandfather used to say, when you get knocked down, learn the lesson and pick yourself back up and get back in the game and that is what I am going to do. The fight to save our city isn’t over.”

If polls show he is not running second to Mamdahni by early September, he will drop out,” according to the New York Times, citing what it said were three people familiar with the former governor’s thinking.

At least in the early going, Mamdani holds a commanding lead and the independent opposition is split. But if nobody other than Cuomo embraces the idea, Walden’s “unity poll” idea may be far more symbolic than impactful.