Crosstalk, laughter and zingers peppered the live-and-lit final mayoral debate Wednesday night.
Democratic Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, Republican Curtis Sliwa and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, sparred enthusiastically with each other in their last shared appearance before voters take to the polls on Saturday, when early voting starts.
As Cuomo attempts to turn out Republican and independent voters, Sliwa has refused to suspend his campaign amid calls to drop out in order to unite anti-Mandani voters behind Cuomo. Election Day is Nov. 4.
The often animated responses to the moderators — NY1’s Errol Louis, WNYC/Gothamist’s Brian Lehrer and THE CITY’s Katie Honan — were met with cheers and jeers from a live audience at LaGuardia Community College in Queens.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who will also be on the Working Families Party ballot line, is the race’s frontrunner, with enduring double digit leads over Cuomo since July. Both Sliwa and Cuomo repeatedly attacked him over his left-wing positions, his lack of experience and his statements on Israel.
Later in the debate, Cuomo came under sustained attack by both rivals over allegations that he sexually harassed more than a dozen women.
Nonetheless, the candidates did agree on several issues.
For one, Mamdani planned to ask Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay on if he wins the election, the New York Times reported — and both Sliwa and Cuomo said they’d do the same if elected.
All the candidates also said yes when asked if they would fund parks at 1% of the city budget — a promise that has been made in past administrations and left unfulfilled. Sliwa said 2%.
“Keep your hands off the parks, you greedy developers!” Sliwa said. “Two percent! Two percent!”
Here are some top takeaways from the debate.
1. Ballot Proposals
Mamdani refused to say where he stands on the six yes-or-no proposals that will appear on voters’ ballots.
Three items that would fast track affordable housing and bypass the City Council are especially divisive, opposed by some labor unions as well as the Council. Both Sliwa and Cuomo at the debate repeated what they told THE CITY last week on the measures: Sliwa is opposed to all six and Cuomo is in favor.
But Mamdani, after at first avoiding a direct answer, was forced to respond after Louis pressed the question a second time.
“I have not yet taken a position on those,” Mamdani said, inviting jeers from the opponents flanking him on stage.
Cuomo threw up his hands and tipped back and forth.
“What is your opinion, Zohran?” Sliwa cried at one point.
2. Experience or Liability
As he’s been doing since before the primary election, Cuomo touted his many years working in government, both as HUD secretary and as governor. Often in the course of his replies, he lectured on how the government works — from the MTA’s relationship with the city to how the Rent Guidelines Board sets rent hikes for stabilized apartments.
His responses often took jabs at 34-year-old Mamdani’s lack of management experience and paltry record as a state lawmaker in Albany, where he passed three bills.
But Mamdani flipped Cuomo’s years in government into a liability, pointing to low points in the former governor’s record.
“You will hear from Andrew Cuomo about his experience, as if the issue that we don’t know about it. The issue is that we have all experienced your experience,” Mamdani said heatedly.
He listed a litany of what he framed as Cuomo’s offenses: taking a multi-million-dollar book deal during the COVID pandemic, cutting MTA funding and providing tax breaks to a company associated with Elon Musk.
At another point, Cuomo explained how he’d speed up the timeline for building housing just like he quickly rebuilt LaGuardia Airport.
Mamdani took the opportunity to flip it again.
“You can see in Andrew Cuomo, someone who had 10 years to deliver on so much of what he’s spoken about, he says that taking five years to build affordable housing is the sign of an incompetent government,” Mamdani said. “By his own words, that means he must have led an incompetent government.”
Cuomo told Mamdani he “didn’t really understand government,” and explained that the governor doesn’t build housing, but allocated funding for it.
“I allocated more funding for housing than any governor in the history,” Cuomo said. “You’ve never accomplished anything. There’s no reason to believe you have any merit or qualification for eight and a half million lives. You don’t know how to run a government.”
Sliwa split the difference between his two rivals.
“Zohran, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin,” Sliwa said. “And Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.”
3. Sexual Harassment Allegations Follow Cuomo
Sliwa, Mamdani and the moderators raised the multiple allegations of sexual harassment more than a dozen women made against Cuomo during his time as governor..
Mamdani noted that one of Cuomo’s accusers, former aide Charlotte Bennett, was in the audience and said that Cuomo sought her gynecological records as part of discovery in a lawsuit he filed against her. He also pointed out Cuomo has used millions of dollars in taxpayer money to fund his legal team.
“What do you say to the 13 women you sexually harassed?” Mamdani asked Cuomo.
Cuomo defended himself, denying he sexually harassed anyone and pointing out the cases were dropped.
“My question to you: why won’t you say BDS against Uganda?” Cuomo asked Mamdani, repeating a line of previous questioning that linked Mamdani appearing in a photograph with an anti-gay Ugandan official and the country’s imprisonment of gay people.
4. Eric Adams’ Long Shadow
Though Mayor Eric Adams suspended his reelection campaign, all candidates took the opportunity to dunk on his policies and reputation.
Both Sliwa and Mamdani said they would refuse Adams’ endorsement, while Cuomo said he would accept it.
Even when mentioning how he’d try to keep Tisch on as police commissioner, continuing an Adams appointment, Mamdani threw Adams under the bus.
“Eric Adams staffed the upper echelons of the NYPD with corruption and incompetence. Commissioner Tisch took on a broken status quo, started to deliver accountability, rooting out corruption and reducing crime across the five boroughs,” Mamdani said.
As the candidates discussed if they’d try to close Rikers Island by the 2027 deadline enshrined in law — a task Sliwa and Cuomo rebuffed — Mamdani said he’d attempt to do so, “knowing that Eric Adams had no interest in actually following through on it.”
Sliwa said he often heard from New Yorkers who don’t feel safe on the subways and the streets, despite, as Sliwa said, “Eric Adams constantly heckering at us, ‘It’s the perception, the perception!’”
After the debate, Cuomo zoomed over to Madison Square Garden to join Adams courtside at the Knicks game.
5. How They’d Rank Each Other
When asked how the candidates would rank one another on a ballot if the election were held ranked choice-style — like in June’s primary — Mamdani said Sliwa would be his second pick. Sliwa didn’t return the favor.
“Oh, please, don’t be glazing me here, Zohran! Are you kidding?” Sliwa said. “I’d only vote for myself.”
Cuomo laughed, and also said he’d only rank himself.
Sliwa and Mamdani shared other moments of levity and agreement.
Sliwa said the worst time he’d ever experienced as a near-daily subway rider was 2017, known as the “summer of hell,” when the system was plagued by constant delays and malfunctions. He pointed out Cuomo was running the MTA at the time.
“I don’t trust you with anything,” Sliwa said to Cuomo.
“You’re right, Curtis,” Mamdani replied.
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