New York City mayoral race draws millions in Long Island contributions

Long Islanders have contributed millions of dollars to help support — and oppose — candidates running in this year’s race for New York City mayor, according to a Newsday analysis of Campaign Finance Board disclosures. 

Backing for Mayor Eric Adams is outpacing former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as the top money-getter from Long Island contributors since Cuomo's Democratic primary loss. But overall, supporters still have given more money for Cuomo.

As of the most recent available filings, there have been more than 3,000 contributions from Long Islanders, totaling at least $2.85 million of the roughly $51 million so far in the race. Nearly 40% of the Long Island money comes from five ZIP codes clustered on the Gold Coast of Nassau County.

The Long Island tallies are certainly an undercount.

The figures don't include tens of thousands of dollars from contributors whose employers are on Long Island but who live elsewhere, mostly in the city.

Nor do the figures include millions from those who have summer homes and businesses on the Island — perhaps the race's biggest contributors — but who didn’t list on disclosure forms one of Long Island's 199 ZIP codes.

But factoring those people in would mean that almost a quarter, if not more, of all contributions to the race have come from people with Long Island connections.

Like other donors elsewhere, Long Islanders gave the most money to support Cuomo — at least $1.44 million — but contributions all but stopped after his stunning loss June 24 in the Democratic primary, by 12.8 percentage points, to democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman representing Queens. Since then, Long Islanders gave Cuomo's campaign just $218, the disclosures show. 

Cuomo didn't formally announce until three days after the most recent disclosure period closed on July 11 that he'd continue his campaign, as an independent, despite having lost his party's primary, so contributions made since his announcement wouldn't be in the latest disclosures. 

Long Islanders’ new top choice, according to reported donations, is Adams, who has raised at least $224,000 from residents of Nassau and Suffolk counties since Cuomo’s loss and is also running as an independent. Adams has raised at least $982,500 from Long Islanders since the race began.

Outside-the-city donations to a candidate aren’t as valuable as from a New York City resident, whose contributions can be matched 8-to-1 with taxpayer dollars. Adams has been repeatedly denied all matching funds by the Campaign Finance Board, which has cited allegations of illegal conduct.

Adams' spokesman Todd Shapiro did not comment for this article, nor did Cuomo's spokesman Rich Azzopardi, or Mamdani's campaign.

Azzopardi posted last week on X that Cuomo didn’t seek matching funds this time because "this wasn’t an active campaign during the last filing period."

After losing the primary but before saying he'd keep campaigning , Cuomo opted not to drop out of the race and would have appeared on the ballot as an independent no matter what.

Brett Weinblatt, 43, of Glen Cove, had contributed $250 on June 5 to Cuomo. Within days of Cuomo's primary loss, Adams relaunched his campaign, and Weinblatt gave $500 to Adams, followed in July by another $2,100.

While Weinblatt prefers Adams, he said he’d be content with either candidate — as long as it means Mamdani doesn’t become mayor.

"I put my money behind Mayor Adams because I just think he's the best option out of everyone running," said Weinblatt, who runs a commercial real estate brokerage in the city.

He doesn’t like Mamdani's proposal to raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers and big corporations, an idea Weinblatt said could mean businesses leave the city. 

Weinblatt, a registered Republican, said he’s donated in the past to support President Donald Trump and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaigns.

On Long Island, 536 donors supporting Mamdani gave an average of $107; 564 donors for Cuomo gave an average of $2,559; and 930 donors for Adams gave an average of $1,057. Among the others who will join them on the Nov. 4 general election ballot are Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who got an average of $85 from 348 donors, and independent Jim Walden, who got an average of $682 from 137 donors.

Political strategist Bradley Tusk, a top adviser during the Bloomberg mayoralty and whose namesake firm helped Cuomo, said that donors who give in races where they aren’t voters generally fall into several broad categories, including small-dollar donors giving because they feel inspired or ideologically aligned and big-dollar donors, who are more transactional, such as a business owner.

"So, if you were a Long Island business that has really big contracts with the City of New York, you might think that it’s a good idea to donate to whoever you think will win the next election," he said.

And then there are the more affluent, he said, who might be horrified at the prospect of a Mayor Mamdani, who has promised to seek tax hikes on the rich.

"Fundamentally, whether it’s in East Hampton or the Upper East Side, I’m not sure the message is different," Tusk said, adding: "You could imagine that at a fundraiser in the Hamptons right now, Adams or Cuomo are just saying, ‘Mamdani is the death of New York City, and I’m the only one who can stop him, and therefore you need to give me lots of money.’"

Newsday reported last month that since Mamdani’s win, the Long Island Democratic Socialists of America, which phone-banked for Mamdani, has seen a spike in interest, and the Island's socialists are fired up.

Long Island, particularly the East End, has long been what Newsday in 1992 called a "gold rush" for political fundraising, reporting how David Dinkins, the 106th mayor, had raised campaign money in the Hamptons. 

Cuomo and Adams are no strangers to the East End and fundraising there and have been for years. Over the July 4 weekend, Adams was out in Bridgehampton and Southampton.

"This race is so significant, folks," he said in the Hamptons, according to a video posted to YouTube. "This race is not just about what happens in New York City. This country will fall like dominoes if we do not ensure that this race turn out right."

And Cuomo was in the Hamptons speaking last month at a synagogue, lamenting how in the primary he "didn't debunk" Mamdani enough.

Across the Island, donations ranged from $1 to $250,000, from the Queens-Nassau border to Orient. The average was $799. But the top five ZIP codes were all on stretch of the Gold Coast — the North Shore of Nassau County. 

The Long Island ZIP code 11050, which includes Sands Point, Manorhaven, Port Washington and Flower Hill gave the most of any Long Island ZIP code in the race, at least $321,900 — directly to candidates but also to super PACs, which can evade limits placed on traditional candidate donations, such as contribution caps, as well as bans on those who do business with the city and corporate contributions. 

But the analysis of campaign finance records does not capture the full scope of the impact to the race of people with Long Island connections.

For example, billionaires Mike Bloomberg, who owns an estate known as Ballyshear, a 22,000-square-foot mansion on 35 acres overlooking Peconic Bay, gave $8.3 million to the pro-Cuomo super PAC Fix the City, and Bill Ackman, a hedgefunder who owns a Bridgehampton estate, gave $500,000, according to the records. Neither of the men, who both live in the city, listed Long Island as their primary residence. (Over the weekend, Cuomo was to headline a fundraiser in East Hampton hosted by the general counsel for a real estate developer that Ackman controls, according to The New York Daily News. Ackman now backs Adams.) 

Fix the City reported $25.49 million in contributions, spending $14.66 million to support Cuomo and $7.67 million to oppose Mamdani.

Marcia Brier, a Staten Island native who now lives in East Hampton, contributed $100 to Cuomo within days of his declaring in March. She said she backs him because of his track record. She'd given to him in the past, she said, when he ran for governor the first time. She likes how he handled the responses to Superstorm Sandy and the COVID-19 pandemic.

"He takes action," she said, and she plans to give again, to his independent run.

"It's not political when he gets down to work," she said. "It's about solving problems." She added: "He gets things done. He's not worried about if people are going to like him better."

And even though she no longer lives in the city, she said that the city affects Long Island, noting how common it is for Long Islanders to commute to the city for work — about 306,000, according to government statistics. 

"New York City is a critical part of New York State," she said. "But I feel that New York City is everybody's city, and that it really needs somebody who can get things done and can work with other people — people not like themselves, people with different political views."

Shaniqua Fleury, 48, of Wyandanch, said she'd never donated to a local political race before, but thinks Cuomo is a better candidate and the city needs him, and that Adams practices cronyism. She contributed $25 the day Cuomo declared.

"If we were not in such dire times, maybe somebody else would be better. But I think for right now, systems and structures need to be put in place, and they need to be put in place immediately," said Fleury, an administrator for the city public schools who had also donated to support President Barack Obama and Kamala Harris.

Mamdani donor Raaid Bacchus, 37, of Valley Stream, thinks that the sexual harassment allegations that drove Cuomo from office in 2021 are disqualifying — "just a line that once you cross, you can’t come back."

And Bacchus likes Mamdani. Bacchus said the candidate is fresh and charismatic. He said he likes Mamdani's focus on issues like affordability. He met Mamdani at a Brooklyn fundraiser in January, and the $40 ticket was a contribution.

Back then, Bacchus thought that Mamdani had no chance.

"It’s just nice to see a guy up there trying to be positive and smiling about things. That’s a really big part of his appeal. That was the same with Obama — the youthful energy and the real willingness to make change, as opposed to just being another guy in a suit," said Bacchus, who works in the city.

Bacchus said he hopes that electing left-leaning candidates like Mamdani, who has gotten $57,400 in support from Long Islanders, $9,830 of which since winning, would influence politics and policy on the more politically conservative Island.