Very possibly, but I’m wondering what he would say about why he would be endorsing the “communist” that would be plausible.

The same as when he said he likes Xi and Kim - nothing, he just does it and his base doesn’t care.

I think most on the left would see right through it.

I don’t think it’s about the actual left (of which Mamdani is on the rightmost edge). It’s an extremely tiny percentage of population, even in New York.

It’s about the democrats, for whom the labels “socialist” and “communist” are already scary. Add in to that the dumb-ass “horseshoe theory” popular among many centrists, and I believe many of them would fall for it and think Mamdani is an agent of Trump, sent to New York to “destabilize” the city or whatever other nonsense. I’m not saying it would meaningfully sway the election at this point, but it would make Mamdani even less effective at delivering his vision during his term.

TBH I think it would have been smart for trump to endorse Mamdani. It’s looking likely he will win anyways, so delegitimizing him in the eyes of a large percentage of voters would be helpful to fascists. However, “smart” and “trump” almost never belong in the same sentence.