Judge rules Jim Walden must stay on ballot in crowded NYC mayoral race

MANHATTAN (CN) — A Manhattan judge on Thursday shot down a bid from Jim Walden, a longshot ex-candidate for New York City mayor, to have his name removed from the November general election ballot.

In a four-page ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman found that the city’s election board properly rejected Walden’s application to suspend his campaign and get pulled from the ticket.

Earlier this week, the board found that Walden was three months too late.

“The court only has the authority to review whether the board of elections enforced the law reasonably, not whether the law itself is reasonable,” Pearlman wrote. “Here, as the board of elections followed the law precisely as written, refusing to accept a declination of candidacy more than 3 months after the deadline for such paperwork, the court finds that the board was not arbitrary and capricious.”

The ruling doesn’t bode well for a potential effort by current Mayor Eric Adams to duck out of the race. Despite repeatedly stating that he’d see his campaign through to the end, Adams is rumored to be considering exiting the race in exchange for a job in the Trump administration as part of a broader effort to coalesce moderate support and beat Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.

A proud democratic socialist, Mamdani stunned his party opponents in June with a handy victory in the Democratic primary, which has panicked conservative politicians and some local business leaders.

Walden dropped out of the race last week to reduce the odds of a Mamdani mayoralty.

But the city’s election board found that Walden suspended his campaign too late to remove him from the ballot, and in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York Supreme Court, Walden claimed the board’s findings would lead to his voters being “effectively, disenfranchised.”

“If the board lists petitioner’s name on the ballot, after petition[er] has terminated his campaign in an application filed with the Campaign Finance Board, voters will be fundamentally misled by being ‘forced to consider candidates who are unwilling or unable to serve in the office for which they would appear on the ballot,’” Walden claimed in the petition.

Following the judge’s ruling on Thursday, Walden lamented that the court’s ruling “is better” for Mamdani, since his name on the ballot could presumably take votes from the other candidates: former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Republican activist Curtis Sliwa and the incumbent in Adams.

“Well, I promised to fight. I did. I gave it my all. I lost,” Walden said in a social media post reacting to the order. “I asked City Hall to get involved (crickets). I volunteered to move out of state (BOE wouldn’t agree because I truthfully said I would return after Election Day). I wish it would have been different.”

Considering Walden, who was running as an independent, iced his campaign amid dismal polling, his presence on the ballot is unlikely to make or break the race. But Thursday’s ruling could have far-reaching efforts on other candidates’ efforts to coalesce behind a challenger to Mamdani.

Even President Donald Trump has been urging the candidates to get behind Mamdani’s strongest opposition, whoever that may be.

“I would like to see two people drop out and have it be a one-on-one,” he told reporters last week.

Trump, a Queens native, hasn’t minced words when it comes to his distaste for Mamdani, who he’s branded a “communist.” Reports suggest his administration offered Adams an ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia if he withdrew from the race and backed another candidate.

Adams, who abandoned his Democratic label to avoid a crowded primary race, is polling in fourth place as an independent. His campaign said Thursday that the mayor will be conducting his own poll to gauge his viability in the race, but Adams himself remains steadfast that he’ll keep running no matter what.

Neither Cuomo nor Sliwa have expressed any willingness to step aside and endorse someone else. They’re polling in second and third place, respectively.

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