Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Sunday, October 26th. Today on Forbes, anyone but

Mamdani. These billionaires are spending big to stop him from becoming NYC's mayor.

Zoran Mamdani is riding high. The 34-year-old Democratic Socialist New York State Assemblyman remains well ahead of former

governor, Andrew Cuomo, and talk show host Curtis Sliwa in the race for New York City mayor.

This is despite making more than a few enemies in high places. And in October 13th rally,

Mamdani declared, quote, billionaires like Bill Ackman and Ronald Lauder have poured millions of dollars into this race

because they say that we pose an existential threat.

I am here to admit something.

They are right.

Hedge funder Ackman did indeed put $1.75 million into political groups spending against

Mamdani, the official Democratic

nominee, as of October 22nd, and Cosmetics' air, Louder, has contributed another $750,000.

But while these two billionaires were named-checked by the mayoral frontrunner, they

aren't the only billionaires breaking open their considerable

piggy banks to oppose Mamdani. In fact, 26 billionaires and members of billion-dollar families

from around the country have sunk at least $100,000 each into supporting Cuomo, now running

as an independent, or one of the other candidates running against Momdani, according to a Forbes analysis.

In all, these billionaires have donated over $22 million to back opposition campaigns,

flooding the airwaves and mailboxes of Big Apple residents with anti-Mamdani messages.

Over half of those donations, about $13.6 million, came before Mamdani won the Democratic primary on June 24th.

More than half of that was donated by former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who endorsed Cuomo and flooded a group called Fix the City Inc. with $8.3 million in cash in June.

Since then, Bloomberg and Mamdani have reportedly met for what was described as a, quote, cordial discussion. Other big liberal donors, Netflix

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