Sliwa, 69, isn’t new to the rodeo. He founded the Guardian Angels in 1979 — a street-patrol crew born in the crime-ravaged Bronx — and spun it into a decades-long persona as a radio firebrand, neighbourhood vigilante, and walking emblem of New York grit. He stood for mayor in 2021 and lost heavily to Eric Adams, but never really left the trail. Now he’s back — still a Republican, still loud, still proudly fringe — and if the polls are right, still stuck in third place.