Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa won the GOP mayoral primary in New York City on Tuesday, though he faces low odds of winning November’s general election.
Sliwa was declared the winner over restaurateur Fernando Mateo with a more than 40-point lead with nearly 70 percent of votes tallied.
Both candidates waged bitter campaigns centered around support for law enforcement amid a rise in violent crime in the city. Sliwa, who founded a group of volunteer crime fighters without any legal authorization, cast himself as uniquely qualified to reverse the spike and said he would hire 3,000 more police officers.
Sliwa, also a radio host, won the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, a personal lawyer for former President Trump who was elected New York City’s mayor as a Republican in 1993.
However, the New York City of today is much different than the one Giuliani led in the 1990s.
Democrats have since established a deep stronghold in four out of the city’s five boroughs and have a yawning voter registration advantage over the GOP, making the ultimate victor of the Democratic primary the overwhelming favorite to win the November general election.
A winner has not yet been declared in the Democratic primary, which is using ranked-choice voting and will not likely be called until next month.