American activist and radio talk Curtis Sliwa is the Republican nominee for the 2021 New York City mayoral election. He is running against Democrat Eric Adams. 

About 170,000 New Yorkers cast their ballots during nine days of early voting, the Wall Street Journal reported, further quoting political consultant Jerry Skurnik as he said that the turnout would be more than the 1.15 million people who voted in 2017.

As of early Tuesday, Adams led the polls. 

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Who is Curtis Sliwa?

An activist and radio host-turned-politician, Curtis Sliwa can be usually seen wearing a red-beret. He lives with his 16 cats in a 750-square-foot studio apartment. 

Sliwa is the founder and chief executive officer of the Guardian Angels, a nonprofit organization for unarmed crime prevention.

Incidents from his past have usually made headlines. Sliwa was once kidnapped and shot multiple times in a mob hit. A gunman hiding in the passenger seat of a taxi jumped out and shot the Republican in the groin and legs. He managed to escape through the front window of the moving cab but had to undergo surgery for internal injuries and leg wounds.

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Prior to founding the Guardian Angels, he was night manager of a McDonald’s restaurant on Fordham Road in the Bronx. 

Sliwa has been working as a radio broadcaster for three decades. In 1994, the then city-owned and operated WNYC hired Sliwa, who had been released by WABC. Since 1996, he has hosted various radio programs on WABC. In 2000, he became the co-host, with attorney Ron Kuby, of the long-running Curtis and Kuby in the Morning. The show lasted eight years before Citadel Broadcasting replaced the team with Don Imus.

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The Curtis Sliwa LIVE program began national syndication in 2008. WABC retained Sliwa until November 2009, when his show was cancelled after a contract dispute. In 2014, Sliwa returned to WABC, replacing Rush Limbaugh who moved to WOR-AM.

It was on March 8, 2020 that Sliwa announced that he would be running for mayor of New York City in 2021 as a Republican. Sliwa, unlike his rivals, did not support Donald Trump in either 2016 or 2020, and does not support the former President’s claims of election fraud.