Quitting race, NYC mayoral candidate calls to unite against Mamdani’s ‘antisemitic obsessions’

JTA — Attorney Jim Walden announced Tuesday that he is suspending his bid for mayor of New York City — and imploring other candidates to do the same to stop frontrunner Zohran Mamdani from winning November’s general election.

“For those still trailing in the polls by month’s end, I implore each to consider how history will judge them if they allow vanity or stubborn ambition to usher in Mr. Mamdani,” he said in a statement. “His past words reveal his extreme bigotry toward police, his authentic commitment to communism, his antisemitic obsessions, and his sympathies for terrorists.”

Walden, an independent, had been polling a distant fifth, at about 1%. With him out of the picture, the election is officially a four-man race among Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary in June; second-place finisher Andrew Cuomo; incumbent Eric Adams, who is running as an independent; and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Walden made antisemitism one of the key issues of his campaign. He laid out a policy on fighting antisemitism that included urging the City Council to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, reviewing curricula at schools for bias related to Israel, and demanding that protest organizers state whether a foreign group is paying for the event.

Walden outlined parts of his plan to combat antisemitism during a mayoral forum at B’nai Jeshurun, an Upper West Side synagogue, in June.

“People have to understand that if you look at the data, it’s not just a problem of antisemitism. It’s a problem with anti-Muslim hate, anti-trans hate and anti-black hate,” he said. “The hate crime policy in my administration is going to be the same for everyone, which is we’re going to have a city-based prosecution system that makes examples of people that engage in hate crime, particularly against most at-risk communities, including the Jewish community.”

During the forum, Walden said that he would have a Jewish advisory council if elected. When asked to name one person who’d be on the council, he named a friend, Sara Silver, who Walden said “saved my life — metaphorically — when I was struggling earlier in my life.”

“Jim says I saved him from a life of pumping gas. But no; I think I saved him from being a personal injury lawyer in Philadelphia,” Silver, who was chief of staff for Walden’s campaign, told the New York Times in February.

Walden, in a July interview with WNYC, criticized Mamdani’s support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Walden said he believed Mamdani, if elected, would cancel “any contract with any Israeli business or any company that does business with Israel.”

“Israeli private equity has about $26 billion worth of investments in New York and New York City,” Walden said. “There are a tremendous number of businesses and institutions that also have contracts with Israel. This is an antisemitic policy.”

Mamdani has not said if or how he would seek to have New York City comply with the BDS movement. He has also said that New York City is experiencing a “crisis of antisemitism,” and that “there’s no room for it in this city, in this country.”

Walden’s statement implored “a leading candidate” to “deploy an uber-aggressive field operation soon” to beat Mamdani.

The other candidates have vowed not to back out, and Adams’ team reiterated that stance in the wake of Walden’s announcement. Cuomo’s praised Walden’s decision and reiterated the “existential threat” of Mamdani’s candidacy but did not comment on Walden’s call for other candidates to step aside.

In the days after the June primary, thousands of Jewish voters alarmed by Mamdani’s win flocked to a WhatsApp group they hoped would be used to mobilize them against him. But without a candidate solidifying as the opposition, anyone-but-Mamdani voters are frustrated and, increasingly, resigned to a Mamdani win in November.

“In a choice between values and ambition, values must win,” Walden said in his statement. “For months, I have been steadfast in my view that, unless there is a one-on-one race in November, a Trojan Horse will take control of City Hall.”