The problem with any of that for the establishment is that he’s just too tame and well liked. It would accomplish more for him and his movement than it would for them. It would honestly be quite hard to ratfuck him at this point. The best thing they can do is make him look horrible as mayor and try to kill the movement with unpopularity.

Regardless of if the other candidates drop out and coalesce the field around Cuomo, it’s too late for them to remove their names from the ballot, which is essentially the kiss of death. They will need 100% of their combined vote share, and no amount of campaigning between now and Election Day will stop at least a few percent from going to them. The only way they can be removed from the ballot is if they literally move out of New York State and fight their own ballot presence in court as illegal, in which case it would be far more obvious what’s happening.

Any of those would be too conspicuous in the run up to the election. The bourgeoisie can grease the palms of the city council members to get in his way, but the structure of the municipal government puts most of the power in the hands of the mayor.

The most likely form of ratfuckery will be them lobbying the state lawmakers in Albany, particularly governor Hochul, to throw as many roadblocks up in the way of Mamdani’s agenda as possible. I could also see them “encouraging” the police unions “benevolent associations” to mutiny against Mamdani. That way they could spin it as the salt-of-the-earth being upset with the champagne socialist while obscuring their role in it.

He’ll be AOC’d. Too popular to not support publicly, but the behind-the-scenes against him will be off he scale so that he’s either rendered impotent or brought to heel. Or both.

It all depends on Trump. Democrats and most Republicans are happy to just quietly sabotage socialists, but Trump and his particular Republican faction might actually do something drastic.