Andrew Cuomo Has Bloomberg’s Cash. Zohran Mamdani Has These Guys.

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.

“‘We’re a Super PAC, usually we’re the bad guys, we don’t think we should exist, but we need to exist. What do you think about giving us whatever you can?’” is how Regina Monge, a progressive operative and the group’s chairwoman, summed up their pitch to donors large and small. “We didn’t know if it was going to work.”

With the 33-year-old Mamdani now in a neck-and-neck race with Cuomo in what has become the first major ideological and generational Democratic primary clash of the second Trump presidency, the work of the unusual group could prove critical.

The group has split its cash between getting out Mamdani’s base of young voters and targeting voters who did not know enough about Mamdani but were open to his message, particularly older Black and Hispanic women.

In mailers, digital and television ads, they’ve hammered Mamdani’s promises to lower costs for city residents while bashing Cuomo for cutting affordable housing and public transit funds while he was governor, and zeroing in on Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal.

“He sexually harassed young women, just like Donald Trump,” a female narrator says in the group’s broadcast television ad.

The group also ran what are called “social pressure” ads targeting young voters on streaming. These occasionally controversial ads work by reminding people their voting records are public and often resemble official government communications.

The group did receive large donations, mostly from Muslim and Arab donors around the country excited by the chance for Mamdani to become mayor of America’s largest city. Its largest single donation was $100,000, with sizable checks coming from the CEO of Rocket Money, Haroon Mokhtarzada; from Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (Mich.) campaign and from actress Jane Fonda.

It turned out motivating small and large donors required the same thing: convincing them Mamdani could win. The single-biggest fundraising text the group sent highlighted a poll showing Mamdani taking the lead over Cuomo in the final round of ranked-choice voting, the type of messaging that’s long been used to persuade bigger donors to fork over money.

Cuomo’s single biggest donor has been former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has poured $8 million of his own money into the super PAC, and DoorDash has given $1 million. Wall Street titan and major Trump donor Bill Ackman has also donated, as have real estate interests.

Most of Fix The City’s advertising has been standard broadcast television spots, frequently attacking Mamdani for his past support for defunding the police and quoting a critical New York Times editorial (while leaving out said editorial’s criticism of Cuomo, of course).

New Yorkers For Lower Costs might end up being a one-off: In most places and most cases, a super PAC raising cash from grassroots donors would simply be cannibalizing support that would otherwise go to the candidate. But it could also have a future ― it’s possible both Mamdani and Cuomo appear on the ballot in the November general election thanks to New York’s fusion voting system.

If it does, they might need to raise a lot more than $1.5 million.