Curtis Sliwa, who recently campaigned as the Republican candidate for New York City mayor, is backing Andrew Giuliani — the son of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani — for governor.
The red-beret wearing Guardian Angels founder slammed the state Republican Party leadership for attempting to “anoint” Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin to be the GOP’s standard bearer for governor.
Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, the 2014 GOP nominee for governor, is also making another run for the statehouse.
Sliwa claimed that Andrew Giuliani — who served as a White House aide to former President Donald Trump — is the best GOP candidate to take on Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul — or whomever ends up the Democratic Party nominee.
“I ran into Andrew all the time on the campaign trail. I observed the way he works a crowd. He plunges into a crowd like it’s a mosh pit,” Sliwa told The Post Sunday.
“Andrew is a natural when it comes to retail politics. He’s even better than Rudy.”
Sliwa said he and papa Rudy will stump with Andrew together on the campaign trail.
“We’re the three horsemen,” Sliwa quipped.
Zeldin has amassed the overwhelming support of the county Republican and Conservative Party leaders across the state — and it’s likely he will secure the delegates at the GOP convention to be the party’s favored candidate. That would force Giuliani and Astorino to gather Republican voter signatures to qualify to compete in a primary.
“We’re going to take it to the GOP leadership. They should have given Andrew a fair shake,” Sliwa said.
“Stop this nonsense of trying to anoint Lee Zeldin the nominee.”
Sliwa won the Republican primary for mayor with about 70 percent of the vote, defeating rival Fernando Mateo. He lost handily to Democrat Mayor-elect Eric Adams in the general election, though he performed surprisingly well in parts of the city.
He also complained that some elements of the Republican Party worked against him in both the primary and general election.
Andrew Giuliani said Sliwa’s endorsement “means the world to me.”
“I’m very excited for Curtis being on board. It will be entertaining to campaign with him whether people like it or not,” he said.
Astorino said he agreed with Sliwa that the Republican nomination should not be a coronation.
“We agree with Curtis that the nomination will be earned and not awarded by decree,” Astorino said in a statement.
The Zeldin camp dismissed Sliwa’s endorsement of Giuliani.
“The endorsements for Congressman Zeldin‘s candidacy for Governor have been pouring in from all corners of New York and all walks of life. Hundreds of endorsements have come in from Members of Congress, State Senators, State Assemblymen, County Executives and others and these have included Republicans and Democrats,” said Zeldin spokeswoman Katie Vincentz.
She said Zeldin has stumped in all of the state’s 62 counties at least twice, has won seven races in purple districts, has been endorsed by 57 of the 62 GOP county committees, raised millions for his gubernatorial bid and has been declared the presumptive GOP nominee.
