An artist and a college professor, Elena Ailes has lived in Chicago for more than a decade, moving here from New York City in 2013 largely for “economic reasons.”
But she still cares about her old haunts, where friends and family still reside, and decided to make a modest campaign contribution — $25 — to New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani leading up to his Nov. 4 election victory, with Andrew Cuomo his biggest opponent.
“I donated for a few reasons,” seeing the contest as something of a “proxy battle for the ‘soul’ of the Democratic Party,” Ailes said. “I don’t think we need to throw trans people, or immigrants, or anyone at all, under the bus to win elections, and Mamdani’s campaign made that really clear.”
What’s more, Mamdani’s messaging — and consistency — on everything from Palestinian rights to housing affordability “really resonated with me.”
And she’s far from alone, as a Chicago Sun-Times examination found more than 800 people from Chicago, the suburbs and downstate Illinois collectively contributed more than $70,000 in campaign money to New York mayoral candidates over the last year.
Nearly 700 of those donors were responsible for giving roughly $36,000 to Mamdani — a democratic socialist who’s been compared to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson because of their similar far-left stances on income equality and other social issues — while 50 or so Illinois donors altogether gave about $24,000 to Cuomo, a more traditional Democrat who previously served as New York’s governor.
Mamdani beat Cuomo in the Democratic primary in June. Cuomo then opted to run as an independent in the general election last month but was handily beaten. Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels crime-prevention group, was the losing Republican candidate.
About 100 people from Illinois gave a total of $7,700 to Sliwa’s campaign, which overall took in about $1.6 million from nearly 18,000 private donations — which exclude public matching funds and giving by PACs, according to the examination of New York City Campaign Finance Board records.
About $400,000 of that total came from out of state, and a campaign official said Sliwa, whose group has had a long presence patrolling Chicago’s transit system, is “proud to have support from cities across the country.”
Mamdani’s campaign took in more than $4 million from more than 54,000 direct contributions — and about $1.2 million of that came from out of state.
Cuomo’s campaign took in about $6 million from more than 12,000 contributions, with $1 million or so from out of state.
Among the better-known Cuomo donors from the Chicago area: Dan Webb, a former U.S. attorney and the co-executive chair of the Winston & Strawn LLP law firm who gave $2,100 to Cuomo in August.
“I know Cuomo through my leadership position with No Labels” — a group that promotes bipartisanship and “common sense” politics — “and I believed Cuomo was the most qualified candidate in that race.”
“No Labels was raising money for Cuomo and I personally like him, so I decided to make this contribution.”
Cuomo’s top out-of-state donations came from:
- New Jersey, with more than $325,000 coming from nearly 500 donations;
- Florida, with almost $220,000 coming from over 300 donations;
- Connecticut, with more than $133,000 coming from almost 200 donations.
Illinoisans donated around the same total dollar amount to Cuomo as did residents of the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Nearly 30 of Cuomo’s Illinois donations came from Chicago addresses, four came from north suburban Northbrook, four came from Lake Forest on the North Shore and the rest came from a smattering of local communities, records show.
Additionally, a Chicago real estate firm gave $10,000 to a political action committee called Fix the City, Inc., that backed Cuomo, records show.
Nearly 400 of Mamdani’s Illinois contributions came from Chicagoans, while 29 came from near north suburban Evanston, 18 came from far west suburban Naperville, 14 came from near west suburban Oak Park and nine came from southwest suburban Orland Park, records show.
Mandami’s top out-of-state donations came from:
- California, with $326,000 coming from more than 3,600 donations;
- New Jersey, with $133,000 coming from more than 1,200 donations;
- Texas, with roughly $110,000 coming from more than 800 donations.
Illinoisans donated roughly the same total dollar amount to Mamdani as residents of Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and Washington state.
Outgoing New York Mayor Eric Adams collected more than $4,000 in campaign contributions from a dozen Chicago-area donors over the last year before dropping out of the race.