*New York City Mayoral 2nd Democrat Debate

The Democratic Parry are currently going through their primary for New York Mayor nominee. The frontrunners are much disgraced Italian pizza pervert and former governor of New York Andrew Cuomo and Indian-Ugandan millennial socialist member of New York State Assembly Zohran Mamdani. For most of the campaign Cuomo was the clear favourite but Mamdani has recently surged in the betting markets, moreso on betting exchanges than with bookmakers. If you read my post on arbitrage, you'll know exactly what to do.

I will be looking more into the mayoral race with the view to taking a position on which of these two will win the Democrat primary. My initial instinct is that Mamdani's surge is a chance to get Cuomo at a discount, as to all intents and purposes, Cuomo was forced out when he no longer suited the Democrat party agenda. He still holds appeal with old school democrat voters and New York is a state that has been shifting right the past few election cycles. This harms any politician that runs on modern left wing progressive social and economic policies because the move to the right has largely been a rejection of these. Mamdani is very much of said modern left.

I also don't get the impression that the American right is fundamentally hostile to Cuomo. Tucker Carlson stuck up for his brother Chris Cuomo when he got in trouble at CNN around the time he resigned as governor. This is relevant because there are a lot of ancestral democrat voters who have voted for Trump or right wing candidates in recent elections because they're disillusioned with the direction the democrat party has taken. They are not right wing by ideology, so they are willing to vote for a Democrat candidate if said candidate aligns with their values. I think he will have a fair amount of goodwill from these crossover voters. These are my initial thoughts, hopefully the New York democratic mayoral primary will be a good opportunity for us over the next couple of weeks.

I will be watching tonight's mayoral debate in hopes that it will help me better understand the dynamics in the race. With that, tonight's second mayoral debate also has mention markets up on Polymarket:

https://polymarket.com/event/nyc-mayoral-2nd-democratic-primary-debate-mentions?tid=1749756817413

Mention markets are still very new and are a big source of opportunity. I haven't delved fully into them and it will require a fair bit of backtesting before I start putting real money into them. So consider tonight picks to be for fun, maybe take a shot every time one of these hits. l will be using it as something to spice up tonight's debate a little bit while also giving me more data for my backtesting.

-Trump 15+ times Yes at 95c - the NY field is quite obsessed with Trump and couldn't stop talking about him int he 1st debate. I expect this to continue in the second though at 95c this probably only has marginal value.

-Pizza No at 83c - it looks like it came up last debate because question was asked about favourite pizza. I don't think this will come up otherwise

-COVID Yes at 80c - very relevant to Cuomo's time as governor

-MAGA/Make America Great Again Yes at 61c - likely because or Trump mentions

-AI/Artificial Intelligence Yes at 38c - more likely to come up when one of the candidates is young

-Knicks No at 78c - don't think it's really relevant

-Rikers Yes at 74c - Rikers island is a target on Eric Adams' back

-AOC No at 58c - not really relevant, no matter how much she wants to be

-Sanctuary City Yes at 77c - still a hotly debated topic among New York democrats

Let's see how these go tonight. I'm sure it will be an entertaining debate.