Last day of campaigning in NYC mayoral election for candidates Adams, Sliwa

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Campaign events continued for one final day before Election Day in the race for mayor of New York City.

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- Campaign events continued for one final day before Election Day in the race for mayor of New York City.

Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa spent the day on the campaign trail Monday looking to lock in undecided voters.

"You elect Curtis Sliwa, and on January 2 we roll back the mandates, we give all of these brave men and women back pay," Sliwa said.

That's the promise from long-shot Republican candidate Sliwa, who spoke outside the 17th precinct in Midtown, his arm in a sling after he got hit by a taxi cab on Friday.

"I've never had these problems in the subway, only with cabs," he said.

Sliwa also promised that if he is elected mayor, he will lose the red beret he is always spotted wearing.

On a more serious note, he said the mayor's vaccine mandate is outrageously unfair.

"You got a clear choice-you want Eric Adams?! Then you will be electing a person who is not friends of the cops, firefighters, sanitation workers," Sliwa said. "Especially the hospital workers and teachers and is de Blasio two-point-zero."

Meanwhile in Harlem, Adams busted a move. His campaign stop felt more like an early victory party and more like Sunday morning than Monday night.

"You don't have to be a Christian to know what Esther said in 4:14, God made me for such a time as this," Adams said.

He said he supports vaccine mandates but says the mayor could have handled things better with city unions and urged him to fix the fall out and the imminent loss of so many first responders.

"We have one mayor right now, Mayor De Blasio. He must sit down with the unions and come to resolution to keep New Yorker's safe," Adams said.

He also blasted Sliwa for wading into a nasty fight about safety.

"To be hurling things from the sidelines when neither one of us is the mayor that's irresponsible to me, Adams said. "But I'm not going to aggravate the situation because we're talking about police and fire."

Adams also called Sliwa a clown and said he's not serious enough to take on one of the most difficult jobs in America.

"This is one of the most important elections in our history and I don't want New Yorkers to be fooled," he said. "We made that mistake with Donald Trump. We thought it couldn't happen and we saw what happened."

Sliwa warned the mandate will mean fewer firefighters and cops, but both candidates say they want to empower police.

The founder of the unarmed vigilante group Guardian Angels says he wants to hire thousands more officers.

While retired officer Adams has proposed bringing back a toned-down version of Stop and Frisk, that he calls Stop, Question, and Frisk.

With a lopsided electorate of Democrats outnumbering Republicans 8 to 1, Adams is sounding more confident than ever, even going so far as to say voters "love" him.

"It's clear that there's a deep love affair with a person who's a police officer, a state senator, a borough president," Adams said. "People know who I am. I'm not new to his. I'm true to this."

A poll last week had Adams up 40 points. He's poised to become only the second African American to lead America's largest city.

Voters will make their choice Tuesday.

If Adams wins Tuesday, his plans to step up arrests may run into a roadblock if Alvin Bragg, the Democrat running for Manhattan district attorney wins.

The progressive candidate says he's going to reduce prosecutions, specifically on gun possession cases, which he says often just lead to recidivism.

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