Rudy Giuliani Weighs In On NYC Mayoral Race With Four Days Left Until Election Day
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- With four days left on the mayoral primary countdown clock, Eric Adams still leads the pack according to a new poll.
The front runner is picking up some unsolicited, and apparently unwanted support, from a controversial former mayor.
As CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer reports, in every political contest, there are always one or two developments that even the best planned campaigns can never anticipate; this is definitely one.
Adams and Rudy Giuliani were never friends. In the 1990s, Adams frequently blasted Giuliani over his handling of police brutality.
So it was a bit of a head scratcher when Kramer asked the Republican former mayor, who has endorsed Curtis Sliwa, which Democrat would do the best job.
"New York being a heavily Democratic town, who do you think is the best candidate in the Democratic field?" Kramer asked.
"I have to say, with tremendous reluctance because there are so many negatives there, that at least Adams talks about reducing crime," Giuliani said. "I'm going to vote for Curtis. I'm a Republican, and if I had to, there's no question that Adams gives us some hope that he can be practical once elected."
Adams made it abundantly clear what he thinks of Giuliani's support.
"I don't -- don't with capital D, O, N, apostrophe, T -- need Giuliani's endorsement and don't want it, his endorsement," Adams said. "One of the ways you sabotage a campaign is that you come out and endorse the opponent that you don't want to win."
All this comes as a new poll by the New York Post has Adams in the lead in the hotly contested race.
Adams has 21.3, Maya Wiley 16.5, Kathryn Garcia 16.2, Andrew Yang 9.6 and Scott Stringer 7, with a margin of error of 3.1.
With early voting through Sunday and the primary election Tuesday, all the mayoral wannabes were out looking for voters. Stringer actually cast a vote his vote Friday.
"On a personal level, this is something that means a lot to me," Stringer said.
"This is gonna be a tight race ... but we are at play. We intend to win this thing," Garcia said.
"Our team just did a poll of the people that have actually voted, and it had us in the lead," Yang said.
Wiley talked to small business owners in Bay Ridge, charging that Adams has not filed proper taxes relating to a co-op he gifted to a former girlfriend
"You're being asked to run the most powerful and largest city in the country, and you can't even explain or show that you filed a gift tax form," Wiley said.
The big question mark, the big unknown, is what effect rank choice voting will have on the election; how many people will vote for just a single candidate, and how many will rank up to four others?