On Thursday night the candidates for New York City mayor — Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa — squared off for their first debate ahead of Election Day, Nov. 4.
John Guida, an editor in Times Opinion, moderated a written online conversation to assess the debate and the candidates with Mara Gay, who writes about politics for Opinion, and the contributing Opinion writers Nicole Gelinas and Josh Barro.
John Guida: The debate covered a lot of ground about life in New York City: affordability, education, quality of life, transportation, debates over Israel and Hamas, President Trump. Who won and why?
Mara Gay: What a night for New York City Hall nerds. Mamdani’s performance was just OK but he won anyway, because Cuomo and Sliwa looked out of touch and badly dated. They were talking about Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and relitigating the 1991 Crown Heights riots. Mamdani looked and sounded like someone who lives in and understands New York City in 2025. He stayed on the message a majority of New Yorkers care about the most, which is affordability.
Nicole Gelinas: Sliwa, oddly, won. He showed easy fluency on issues and demonstrated empathy with voters; he was the only candidate to acknowledge two specific violent subway crimes — stuff that happens in the real world. This does not mean that Sliwa will be mayor, but it does mean that Cuomo lost. Cuomo didn’t perform disastrously; he was more relaxed than he was in the primary debates and he made some strong points, particularly on education and domestic violence. But Sliwa made too many of the quick rebuttals to Mamdani that Cuomo should have made. Cuomo was stuck on the defensive, fighting off both Mamdani and Sliwa, and he never effectively presented his own theme of governing experience.
Josh Barro: Mamdani won for the same reason he’s winning the campaign: He’s the only candidate with a coherent vision that addresses New Yorkers’ concerns about affordability, and who actually seems to want to be mayor. This campaign has been painful for me as a political centrist because Cuomo, the purported standard-bearer of the political center, has no vision and is the architect of many of the state-level policies that have led to the disorder in the city he now decries. (And he also has personal behavior problems.) Sometimes your side deserves to lose an election; this feels like one of those times. As for Sliwa, Trump’s dig at him as “not exactly prime time” is unfortunately apt.
Guida: Was there a pivotal moment?
Gay: When Sliwa began joining in on some of the attacks on Cuomo — notably when he questioned Cuomo’s dismissive tone around the sexual harassment allegations against him — the debate took a bad turn for Cuomo. “Come on, Andrew, all 13 women were lying? A state trooper, too?” The moment revealed weaknesses with Cuomo as a candidate that transcend policy debates and reminded voters about the former governor’s worst instincts.
Another turning point for me was the disgust I felt listening to Sliwa suggest that Mamdani would abandon Jewish New Yorkers, as he accused the former mayor David Dinkins, the first Black mayor, of having done during the 1991 race riots in Crown Heights. Cuomo piled on. Both men looked old. It was cathartic to hear Mamdani talk about the history of surveillance against Muslim communities after the Sept. 11 attacks and to mention Sean Bell by name, the unarmed Black man killed by the N.Y.P.D. in 2006 outside his bachelor party. The views Mamdani expressed represent the views of many, many New Yorkers, which is that we can have public safety without accepting racism in policing.
Gelinas: Cuomo stumbling and seeming uncertain on what should have been his best question: What’s his pitch to keep a major business from leaving New York City? His answer was too slow and negative, highlighting things the city would stop doing, rather than things the city would do. It was an opportunity to remind people of his infrastructure successes or to recommit to an immediately noticeable and measurable change in street disorder.
Barro: Mamdani was offered a mulligan on the “Should Hamas disarm?” question and he took it, saying, “Of course.” Cuomo seemed a little knocked off-kilter, as he had to keep attacking Mamdani for a position he’d already disclaimed. Mamdani’s opponents always hope to beat him by painting him as too extreme, and he shows awareness of this, acknowledging when he’s given out ammunition and looking for ways to defuse it. He did so again tonight.
Guida: What was something small but revealing? It could be about a candidate, a policy — anything.
Gay: It was interesting to hear Mamdani say he was open to scrapping a tax increase to pay for his universal child care initiative if an alternative were offered. This was the root of the bad blood between Cuomo and the former mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014 — de Blasio wanted to raise taxes to pay for a prekindergarten program, seeing it as a more reliable funding stream, and Cuomo wanted to allocate state funds without a tax hike.
Gelinas: When Mamdani said that he would “deliver the safety that is the cornerstone of an affordability agenda.” It was something we’ve heard over and over from Mayor Eric Adams: that public safety is the requisite for prosperity. Mamdani is clearly beginning to internalize that the public would acutely care about his performance on crime and disorder.
Barro: The moderators devoted 15 minutes to Israel, not a policy matter within the mayor’s purview, before they asked questions about the N.Y.P.D., education or housing. It’s another reflection of the ludicrous amount of space that Mideast policy has taken up in this campaign — sometimes because of the media, but often at the instigation of the candidates themselves.
Guida: What policy idea from any candidate struck you as most promising for the city?
Gay: I’m excited to see Democrats across New York begin to embrace Mamdani’s universal child care proposal. It’s practical; it could help many people (maybe me one day!) and it is a great way to make a great but expensive city an easier place to live in.
Gelinas: Cuomo’s idea to double the number of specialized high schools is solid. There is demand for rigorous secondary education, so why not meet that demand?
Barro: Nothing sticks out, unfortunately. While Mamdani is charming and shows a refreshing willingness to listen to his critics, he’s not deep. Cuomo and Sliwa aren’t deep either. I didn’t see a lot of policy wisdom on the stage.
Guida: What policy idea from any candidate struck you as least, or at least not very, promising for the city?
Gay: I think the mayor should retain control of the city’s public schools, and that this is the best way to ensure accountability. I’m curious about how Mamdani came to the conclusion that relinquishing mayoral control was a good idea, and I hope he changes his mind.
Gelinas: Yes, Mara, Mamdani comes off as muddled and weak on education — and just plain uninterested in it. The worst idea, though, remains Mamdani’s “department of community safety” plan to replace police officers with civilian social-services workers and clinicians on mental health calls citywide. An abruptly scaled-up program of clinician and social-services responses to people in distress beyond what the city already has would actually require more police officers, not fewer, to back up these civilian workers as they encounter dangerous and unpredictable situations.
Barro: Sliwa is obsessed with the idea that office buildings should be converted for residential use. This is one of those ideas that sounds clever but usually isn’t — most office buildings are inappropriate for residential use, with floor plans that are much too large and windows that don’t open. Converting them is very expensive, and the resulting layouts often don’t make sense as apartments. It’s an idea people talk about because they want to pretend it’s not necessary to build new residential buildings near people who might complain about them.
Guida: There was a lot of talk about standing up to Trump. Did anyone impress you with the way he said he would work with the president?
Gay: This is where, for me, the debate got a little messy. It was hard to follow, with several moderators and candidates talking over one another. Compared with the strength of Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago on this issue, the candidates in New York City seemed less compelling.
Gelinas: I was surprised that when Mamdani was asked what would be seen as his biggest accomplishment after a year in office, he put standing up to Trump ahead of achieving affordability. He said he would work with the president if the president wants to make New York City more affordable — a serviceable enough thought. But the best way to stand up to Trump is not to give him a new opportunity to exploit, like an increase in crime or disorder, real or perceived.
Barro: No, and I’m not sure there is very much to say. The president is a wild card. New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul has shown a good ability to balance fighting him in areas of disagreement with working constructively on issues of shared interest. But that balance necessarily involves a lot of improvisation; I don’t think you can describe on a debate stage how you’ll do it.
Guida: Did anyone miss Mayor Adams? If we could, for a moment, set aside the scandals and his baggage, how would you assess his mayoral record?
Gay: No, I didn’t miss him. Adams’s biggest achievement may come to be seen as the citywide zoning amendment that eases the way for at least some new housing development. But overall he was unfocused and mired in corruption scandals while New Yorkers were priced out of their homes.
Gelinas: I didn’t miss Mayor Adams. But we may miss him next year. Adams has made slow and choppy progress on crime and disorder, but at least it has been progress. One worthy Adams initiative is deploying police officers and mental health workers in co-response teams to engage with mentally ill people. The program has been slow to achieve results in part because it’s hard to recruit clinicians for this job.
Barro: Mayor Adams got the trash put into containers — finally! — and shepherded the City of Yes reforms that should lead to the construction of many new homes. He’s also gotten charter amendments put on the ballot that would make the city more friendly to new development. He had some misadventures with the N.Y.P.D., but he finally installed a great commissioner in Jessica Tisch (and actually let her do her job) and crime has been falling under her leadership. His accomplishments will linger longer than his embarrassments, and I think he’ll actually look like a pretty good mayor in retrospect. All three candidates on the stage would likely be worse than him.
Guida: Most attention going into the debate was on Mamdani and Cuomo. But as Nicole pointed out, there was a third candidate, Sliwa, the Republican nominee. He has been on the scene in New York for decades. What was your favorite moment of his?
Gay: Every City Hall reporter has a few Sliwa stories, but my jaw dropped when he said he had been shot in a mob-related attack in the back of a yellow cab. It did happen over 30 years ago, in 1992, so I was 4 years old.
Gelinas: He does present a different image without the beret. My favorite Sliwa moment was when he reminded the audience that he has two children with the Queens district attorney, its own tabloid story. (Look it up!)
Barro: His declaration that all parades deserve to exist and the mayor must go to every parade.
Guida: Mamdani has been the focus of intense attention, particularly for a Democratic Party eager for a new star. If he wins, he would be the most prominent Democratic Socialist in an executive office. What did you see in the debate as promise or peril for this future?
Gay: Mamdani appeared unprepared for the level of detail in some of the questions, like one from a moderator asking how he could promise to freeze the rent ahead of time when the law requires him to factor in inflation and other costs for landlords. It’s a reminder that while he has enormous political talent, the campaign has mostly been on his terms so far, whereas governing means managing a city in which many things are out of your control.
Gelinas: Yes, Mamdani continues to leave details out of his plans. He needed a follow-up question to his assertion that free buses would reduce transit assaults, drawn from a tiny sample. He needed a question as to why his argument for free buses — that many people can’t afford to get around — wouldn’t also hold for subways, thus imperiling all transit fares. Mamdani is proof that a smile and sticking to one theme (affordability), even superficially, can go far.
Barro: Mamdani is very likable. I even like him, and I think he’s way too left-wing. But some of the campaign moves that read as charming — offering New Yorkers a rose in a “Bachelor”-style ad, for example — could wear very thin once he actually is mayor if people feel their needs aren’t being met by city government. And most of the time, that is how New Yorkers feel. So I think he might be eaten alive.
Guida: Final question: Let’s assume that this debate does not meaningfully change the trajectory of a race that Mamdani seems on a path to win. He takes office in January 2026. What should his top priority be?
Gay: Universal child care. Then housing.
Gelinas: As Mamdani himself said Thursday night, public safety is the “cornerstone” of his agenda. The question is how he squares continuing Adams’s halting progress on crime and disorder with the D.S.A.’s anti-police and decarceration platform. If New Yorkers perceive that the city is spiraling out of fragile control — and subway assaults and homicides, a good proxy for that sense of control, continue to be disturbing — then he will lose control of his own agenda.
Barro: His first priority should be the one he has set out: affordability. But affordability can’t be achieved just through mandates and price controls. He needs to cut through the morass of regulations that make New York an incredibly expensive place to live and do business. There are hundreds and hundreds of regulations requiring us to bear costs that people elsewhere in the country don’t pay. If he fights this thicket of regulation, it really will be possible to freeze the rent, because landlords’ operating expenses will fall. But cutting costs for real means taking on entrenched lobbies in city government — often unions — that neither Democrats nor even Republicans in city government have showed much appetite to fight.
Source photographs by Michael M. Santiago and Spencer Platt, via Getty Images.
Josh Barro, a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of the newsletter Very Serious and is the host of the podcast “Serious Trouble.”
John Guida is an editor in Times Opinion.
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Mara Gay is a staff writer at New York Times Opinion who writes about politics. @MaraGay
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.
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