Former US governor seeks to court conservative voters, but is accused of ‘fear mongering’ in final stretch of mayoral race.

New York City – The race for mayor of the largest city in the United States has New Yorker Chris Berwick saying things he never thought he would.

As the November 4 election day approaches, the self-described moderate conservative has been weighing the three-way contest between Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

“I have to do what’s best for New York,” the 58-year-old told Al Jazeera outside his apartment complex in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. “It’s wild that this is actually coming out of my mouth: Andrew Cuomo is best for New York.”

Of course, Berwick, a regular Republican voter, said he would prefer to cast his ballot for Sliwa, a New York stalwart who rose to prominence by leading a controversial volunteer crime-fighting group, the Guardian Angels, in the 1980s.

But in the Democrat-dominated metropolis, he feels it would be a waste.

“So it’s the lesser of two evils,” the retired contractor said. “I don’t like Cuomo, but I’m not into socialism…I don’t think this country was built on it.”

Cuomo’s campaign hopes that there are many voters in the city like Berwick, willing to hold their nose and vote for a Democrat to stop Mamdani, an avowed democratic socialist who surged to surprise success in the June Democratic primary on a broad and ambitious platform of affordability and progressive reform.

Peeling off conservatives, while rallying independents a