(The Center Square) — New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte is hoping to lure away disaffected New York City business owners chafing over Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in Tuesday’s mayoral election.
“We have a message for NYC businesses looking to flee Mayor Mamdani’s higher taxes: Come to New Hampshire,” Ayotte, a first-term Republican, wrote in a flurry of social media posts Wednesday. “Our state is safe, prosperous, and free — what NYC used to be long ago.”
Ayotte also dipped into her unused gubernatorial campaign funds to pay for a billboard truck ad to drive around downtown Manhattan, seeking to lure business owners with a similar pitch.
“NYC BUSINESS OWNERS: MAMDANI GOT YOU DOWN? Come on up to New Hampshire for no Communism, less red tape and less taxes!” the ad, paid for by Kelly for New Hampshire, reads. “We’ll help you keep more of your hard-earned money.”
New Hampshire Republican Party chairman Jim MacEachern echoed Ayotte’s pitch and said the GOP-led state government is “ready to partner with job creators leaving Mamdani’s hellscape.”
“If you want safe streets, low taxes, and common sense, the Live Free or Die state is waiting,” MacEachern said in a statement. “Unfortunately, too many New Hampshire Democrats share Mamdani’s tax-and-spend mindset, but we won’t let them turn our state into Massachusetts or New York.”
Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman, cruised to victory in Tuesday’s mayoral election after defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa to become the city’s first Muslim chief executive and its youngest leader in generations.
But Mamdani’s rise has sent shockwaves through New York’s political establishment and drawn national attention from Republicans who have criticized the city’s dramatic shift to the left.
He has vowed, if elected, to eliminate fares to ride New York City’s public bus system, make the City University of New York “tuition-free” and freeze rents in municipal housing. He has also called for taxing the state’s top earners and raising New York City’s minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030.
That has drawn scrutiny from NYC business groups, some of whom have publicly suggested that Mamdani’s proposals will lead to an exodus from the city.
Ayotte’s advertising pitch is similar to others before Tuesday’s election by Republicans in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other lower tax states after Mamdani defeated former Cuomo in the June primary.
