Billionaire and radio host John Catsimatidis prefers Eric Adams over fellow Republican in mayor’s race

NEW YORK — An eccentric billionaire grocery store magnate, a red beret-wearing vigilante who fosters cats and a nightclub-hopping Democratic mayor are at the heart of a battle over the GOP ballot line for New York City mayor.

GOP megadonor John Catsimatidis wants his fellow billionaires to line up behind Mayor Eric Adams’ longshot reelection bid to block the ascent of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, according to several people familiar with internal discussions and granted anonymity to speak freely about closed-door strategy.

But the actual Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, said he won’t be cowed from leaving the race.

Catsimatidis relayed his support for Adams in a brief interview with POLITICO, commending the mayor’s working relationship with the Trump administration, while staying diplomatic about Sliwa.

“The only people who are going to help Eric Adams is Washington, whether it’s (border czar) Tom Homan, whether it’s Donald Trump,” Catsimatidis said. “And Tom and Donald Trump want a safe New York.”

Finance executives and aligned Republicans have been huddling since Mamdani’s primary night upset on how to derail the election of a democratic socialist targeting the wealthy. And boosting the Trump-friendly independent candidate Adams at the expense of Sliwa has emerged as consensus — even as the mayor faces campaign finance hurdles and dismal approval ratings.

Sliwa is insistent he will actively campaign and said pressuring him to drop out is futile.

“I’m not getting out of this race unless they figure out a way to put me in a pine box and bury me six feet under,” the Guardian Angels founder told POLITICO.

Catsimatidis, Sliwa’s boss at WABC radio, did not deny he’s pulling for Adams but stressed that Sliwa is a longtime friend.

“Right now, Curtis has to make up his own mind,” Catsimatidis said.

Billionaire Bill Ackman separately has promised to bankroll a viable business-friendly candidate against Mamdani, a state lawmaker whose ascendant campaign shocked the establishment. But the ballot lines for November are set.

Sliwa, known as much for his decades of patrolling the subways as he is for his heavy-handed antics and many foster cats, said he’ll run on the GOP and independent “protect animals” ballot lines.

So far, the New York GOP has his back. Former Gov. George Pataki and state party chair Ed Cox fundraised Thursday with Sliwa among Asian Americans.

The party is preparing for a general election with Mamdani as the presumptive Democratic nominee, and the tenacious Adams, business leader Jim Walden and primary loser Andrew Cuomo as independents. Whether Cuomo runs an active campaign remains unclear.

Sliwa railed against Adams as corrupt, referencing his since-dropped bribery charges, and blamed the mayor for the pressure campaign to get Sliwa out of the race.

“He’s a crook,” Sliwa said in an interview. “A lot of good men and women lost their careers who happened to be Republican conservative prosecutors because of Eric Adams, and he’s the luckiest man alive because he should be in a jail cell right now with Bobby Menendez.”

Adams has denied wrongdoing and called the prosecution against him politicized.

Sliwa said that even a Trump intervention, direct request or offer to join his administration would not succeed in removing him from the race for mayor.

“If the president were to call, I, very respectfully, would say, ‘President Trump. I’m interested in only one job: being mayor of the city of New York,’” Sliwa said. “I’m the Republican nominee. I’m the ‘protecting animals’ independent party nominee, and I’m running ’til November 4, until the vote to figure out who our next mayor is.”