My “Coverage” of the 2025 NYC Mayoral Election
On July 29 and September 12 of 2025, I published two New Leaf Journal reports on the then-upcoming New York City Mayoral election, which transpired on November 4, 2025. In the first report, I wrote about seeing then-independent candidate Jim Walden’s campaign car parked in Brooklyn Heights. I noted in that first article that Mr. Walden’s car had Connecticut plates. In my second article, I wrote about Mr. Walden’s unsuccessful attempt to have his name removed from the ballot after he withdrew from the race – an attempt which hinged on his assertion that his primary residence was in Connecticut.
Returning to the first article about Mr. Walden, I noted – before it became an issue – that Mr. Walden’s Connecticut license plate could raise questions about his actual place of residence, but that such questions would not be unprecedented in the recent history of New York City mayoral elections. I will refer readers to my first Walden article for my contemporaneous, ultimately prescient assessment. But in my assessment, I noted that there was one candidate whose New York City bona fides were beyond reproach:
Say what one will, but there are no questions about Curtis Sliwa’s New York City citizen bona fides.
Curtis Sliwa was the Republican nominee for Mayor for the second consecutive time in 2025. He had garnered 27.8% of the vote in a distant second-place finish to the quotable Eric Adams in 2021. 2021 proved to be the high-water mark of Mr. Sliwa’s mayoral ambitions. Many Republican voters in 2025 shifted to a Democrat – former three-term Governor Andrew Cuomo (running as an independent) – who nevertheless lost decisively to now-Mayor Zohran Mamdani for the second time in five months in the general election. Mr. Sliwa was left with just 7% of the vote in third place. Mr. Mamdani assumed office on January 1, 2026.
Sliwa Yard Signs Seen in Brooklyn Heights
One may wonder why I am writing about Curtis Sliwa and the 2025 Mayoral Election in May 2026 – with Mr. Sliwa back leading the Guardian Angels and Mr. Mamdani creating voluminous social media content from Gracie Mansion. There is a reason. I present to you a photograph I took on Mother’s Day, May 10, 2026, in Brooklyn Heights:
I was surprised to see four pristine, like new, Curtis Sliwa lawn signs laying on a pile of trash bags. I thought about taking one of the signs as a memento, but they are a big (and I do not have a lawn), so I settled for a photograph that I could share with readers of The New Leaf Journal.
It should go without saying that it was surprising to see the signs six months after election day – perhaps even more surprising than finding a discarded Christmas Tree in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in May 2025 – but other non-date-related factors contributed to the surprise. I did not see any Sliwa signs in Brooklyn Heights or neighboring neighborhoods during election season. There were not many campaign signs as a general matter, but the ones I did note in the broader Brooklyn Heights–Cobble Hill–Boerum Hill–Carroll Gardens–Columbia Street Waterfront District–Gowanus area were generally for Messrs. Mamdani and Brad Lander (Mr. Lander was New York City Comptroller and finished third in the primary behind Messrs. Mamdani and Cuomo). There was no signs of, or for, Mr. Sliwa – and I believed that I was perhaps the only person in the broader area following his campaign. Moreover, I will note that Brooklyn Heights is not a lawn neighborhood. There are a good number of tiny backyards, not not lawns (you can find some small lawns a couple neighborhoods over in Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill, but not in Brooklyn Heights). Was there a Sliwa-sign manufacturing shop in the Heights? We may never know the answer.
Mother’s Day Conclusion on Frances Sliwa
Because I came across the Sliwa signs on Mother’s Day, I thought it would be fitting to add a note about Mr. Sliwa’s late mother, Frances Sliwa, who passed away in 2017 at age 93. Drawing from a New York Times obituary for Frances Sliwa, she was born Francesca Bianchino in Brooklyn, New York, on April 10, 1924. Her father, Fidel Bianchino, was a ditch digger, and her mother, Nicoletta, was a seamstress, both from Bari, Italy. Frances Sliwa worked as a saleswoman before studying concept therapy and teachings seminars. Frances married Chester Sliwa, a merchant, and took his last name. Curtis Sliwa was born on March 26, 1954. For readers not in the know, a young Curtis Sliwa founded the public safety patrol group, the Guardian Angels, in 1979, and he remains head of the Guardian Angels to this day. According to a the obituary, Frances Sliwa, despite some initial concerns about her son’s safety (which turned out to be well founded in one notable incident), helped the Guardian Angels by working as bookkeeper, administrator, and publicist for the Guardian Angels. Of his mother, Mr. Sliwa explained: “All the naysayers, everyone who was opposed to us, she took the time to show them documentation and explain who we were,” adding that his mother used the pseudonym “Fran White” when conducing public relations on behalf of the Guardian Angels. After her death, Mr. Sliwa wrote: “You gave us the best lives that any children could have in being brought up in this ever confusing world.”
