NEW YORK – She may not have much – or any – chance to topple incumbent Democrat Bill de Blasio to be New York City’s Mayor, but Republican Nicole Malliotakis has already shown she has enough true grit to be a serious candidate with good ideas, the New York Times said in an editorial praising her.

With a Cretan father and Cuban-born mother, the New York State Assemblywoman, whose district runs from Staten Island – the only borough carried by Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential campaign – to parts of Brooklyn, has shown she has the mettle to handle the Mayor’s job and go head on against the incumbent.

Getting there is another matter, of course, with successful Republican candidates a rare breed across the city and an even more endangered species as Mayor, apart from Rudolph Giuliani, who had big name recognition, and Michael Bloomberg, one of the country’s richest persons.

The Times likened her task of beating De Blasio, if he should be nominated again, to the myth of Sisyphus, doomed for eternity to push a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back on him every time, an unwinnable task.

But she’s got the GOP and Conservative fields to herself and has become a bit of a firebrand unafraid to go after the incumbent as someone she has branded as presiding over a shaky city with a crumbling transit system, a falling quality of life and with, she said, illegal immigrants running amok and committing serious crimes while ultra-liberal De Blasio makes excuses.

“She has guts,” the Times editorial said of her, even if she has to put some distance between the policies of Trump, for whom she voted, and her own vision of what New York City should be, and it doesn’t look anything like De Blasio’s, whose critics have painted even darker images right of out Blade Runner, including the remake.

“Whether her message can resonate across the heavily Democratic city is a question. But we’re pleased that she is prepared to give her Democratic opponent a lively challenge,” the Times said, wondering if she can raise enough money (where are the rich Greek-Americans?) to qualify for city matching funds and take on De Blasio’s machine: if he’s the nominee again which seems like a shoo-in bet.

“Should she fall short, we’d encourage the Mayor to debate her anyway. The city would be the better for it,” the Times said, something those in her district have long known.