A Republican gubernatorial candidate in blue New York with a familiar-sounding last name is making a surge with a simple message: Time to get tough on crime.
Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has managed to surge ahead of other GOP contenders with a pro-law enforcement theme he is driving home.
And he believes the most recent surges in crime in the Big Apple and beyond will propel his family back into power in the Empire State, Just the News .
“This is honestly an epidemic of crime all around New York,” Giuliani told “Just the News, Not Noise” on Wednesday, promising to take a hard stance against lawlessness.
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If elected, Giuliani said, on his first day in office he plans on telling the New York Assembly speaker and state Senate majority leader that “very simply, until there’s a full repeal of bail reform, and we end this war on our cops, I will not be funding their top priorities in the budget.”
New York Police Department data shows that crime in the Big Apple is getting worse. Overall crime increased by more than 25% in May 2022 from that month the previous year. In May 2021, crime increased by more than 20% from May 2020 in the city.
From 2020 to 2021 New York state saw an 8% increase in violent crime and a nearly 5% increase in murders. Compared to 2012, the state saw murders rise by more than 25%.
“Well, look, I remember when Time magazine in the early ’90s did the famous cover that said ‘New York was the rotting apple’ and that it was ungovernable,” Giuliani said. “There’s another guy named Giuliani who came in and took it from over 2,000 murders a year to eventually less than 600 a year,” he added, referring to his father. “That’s the exact same kind of attitude that I will be taking home.”
He also pledged that under an Andrew Giuliani administration, “we will relight” the “economic flame that is New York.”
“Our greatest chapters are yet to be written,” he said. “We just need another Giuliani there, turn it around.”
Ahead of the June 28 New York gubernatorial primary, Giuliani has a 5-point lead over Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin at 28% to 23%, according to a poll late last month from John Zogby Strategies, Just the News reported.
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