It was, on its face, a straightforward question: What were the nine mayoral candidates’ biggest political regrets?
Yet the question elicited one of the more revealing and contentious exchanges on Wednesday night in the first debate in the Democratic primary race for mayor in New York City.
Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assemblyman and Democratic Socialists of America member consistently polling in second place, suggested there was a time that he trusted the Democratic Party leaders “like Andrew Cuomo,” and that he now considered that a mistake.
Mr. Cuomo, the current front-runner, whose decades in politics come with both accomplishments and baggage, struggled to summon a single regret from memory. But he did make a point of lamenting Mr. Mamdani’s rise.
All of which prompted Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker, to interject, her voice laden with incredulity.
“No regrets when it comes to slow-walking P.P.E. and vaccinations in the season of Covid to Black and brown communities?” she asked, shaking her head with disapproval. “Really, no regrets? No regrets?”
The two-hour debate on Wednesday night was frequently chaotic and rife with 30-second soliloquies on everything from e-bikes and housing to the president’s deportation agenda and Israel. Not once in the debate did congestion pricing or climate change arise.
But President Trump and his attacks on immigrants and universities hovered over the whole affair, as did the current mayor, Eric Adams, who opted out of the Democratic primary amid swelling outrage over what federal prosecutors described as his quid pro quo with the Trump administration.
The prosecutors accused Mr. Adams of agreeing to aid Mr. Trump’s anti-immigration efforts in exchange for the government abandoning his criminal corruption case. (Mr. Adams, who is running as an independent in the general election in November, denies any such quid pro quo exists.)
With less than three weeks before the June 24 primary, polling has consistently shown Mr. Cuomo, the former governor who resigned in disgrace in 2021, in first place, followed by Mr. Mamdani. It is unclear how much, if at all, this debate will move the needle.
“It was like the I.R.T. at rush hour,” said Bill Cunningham, who worked as a communications director for former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “Everybody’s talking, pushing, shoving.”
In keeping with standard political practice, the underdogs all pounced on the front-runner, decrying Mr. Cuomo as a Trump-adjacent friend of plutocrats who had not lived in New York City for 30 years and moved here only recently to run for mayor.
And Mr. Cuomo did, at times, seem to be on his back foot, as he rejected Ms. Adams’s critique and endured withering questions about his office’s undercounting of pandemic nursing home deaths.
Basil Smikle, a Democratic political strategist, said that while he understood why the other candidates piled on Mr. Cuomo, they may have also helped him.
“You get to hear from him more,” Mr. Smikle said. “And I thought that it gave him an opportunity to show a little wit.”
Michael Blake, a former assemblyman from the Bronx who polled at less than 1 percent in a recent Marist survey, took some of the biggest political swings of the night, criticizing Mr. Cuomo throughout.
After the debate Mr. Blake said, “It’s pretty alarming and appalling that he had no regrets about what happened with women” — referring to the harassment allegations that drove Mr. Cuomo from office — and “about saying ‘shuck and jive’,” a racially insensitive phrase he used during the 2008 presidential election. “It speaks about a lack of humanity on how to address these issues.”
Mr. Blake, who is in a dispute with the city’s Campaign Finance Board about whether he will appear in next week’s debate, said he wanted to show voters that there were options other than Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Mamdani.
Brad Lander, the city comptroller, who has relentlessly decried Mr. Cuomo’s return to politics, said his lack of regret amounted to mental illness.
“Only a sociopath would have no regrets having done all the things he did,” he said after the debate.
Yvette Buckner, a Democratic strategist, said Mr. Cuomo missed an opportunity.
“Regret was one of the biggest questions New Yorkers would want to hear about, especially from the front-runner,” Ms. Buckner said. Instead, his answer provided an opportunity for Ms. Adams to attack him about his handling of the pandemic.
“She took the moment to shine and it created a real opportunity,” Ms. Buckner said.
Bill Mulrow, Mr. Cuomo’s campaign chairman, had a different take on Mr. Cuomo’s performance.
“What you saw on stage tonight was the Andrew Cuomo New Yorkers know and trust — a strong, steady leader who meets crises head on with calm and control,” he said.
Dana Rubinstein covers New York City politics and government for The Times.
Jeffery C. Mays is a Times reporter covering politics with a focus on New York City Hall.
The post In N.Y.C. Mayoral Debate, Democrats Assail Cuomo and Vow to Resist Trump appeared first on New York Times.
