In late March, New York state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani took to social media to make an extremely unusual plea for a politician. “Please stop sending us money,” Mamdani said.
At the time, Mamdani was still well behind former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in polls for the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, but he had raised just under $8 million — the maximum amount candidates are allowed to spend under NYC’s campaign finance system if they want to receive public matching funds.
There was one issue: Team Cuomo was not going to stop at $8 million, and he didn’t. While he similarly hit the $8 million cap for his campaign, Cuomo also had an allied super PAC, Fix The City, which would go on to raise an additional $20 million, much of it from billionaire Michael Bloomberg, according to campaign finance records.
Shortly after, a group of progressive operatives came together to form a super PAC backing Mamdani, though it had a bit of a twist. Most super PACs generally aren’t interested in small-dollar donations. They can raise unlimited sums under campaign finance law, and tend to pursue donors who can provide seemingly unlimited cash.
This super PAC, with the on-message moniker New Yorkers for Lower Costs, would end up raising about a third of its $1.5 million haul from grassroots donors.
