It was just minutes into the New York City mayoral debate when the moderators addressed the elephant in the room.
If elected, how would each of the three men onstage conduct his first official conversation with President Trump, who has yanked billions of dollars in federal funds from New York and threatened to send in the National Guard?
Both Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and front-runner whom Mr. Trump has called “my little communist,” and Andrew M. Cuomo, the former governor running on an independent ballot line, said they were open to working with Mr. Trump, but also more than ready to stand up to him to defend the city’s interests.
It fell to Curtis Sliwa, the Republican founder of the Guardian Angels who cultivates a tough-guy persona and has a fraught relationship with the president, to complain about the “testosterone in the room” and adopt a more conciliatory approach.
He even expressed admiration for Mr. Trump’s efforts to defund some New York City infrastructure.
“Take away the Q train project,” Mr. Sliwa said, referring to a subway extension along Second Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that New York City has been trying to build for a century. “If you try to get tough with Trump, the only people who are going to suffer from that are the people of New York City.”
The debate on Thursday night was fiery and traversed a veritable minefield of political issues, both hyperlocal and global. Mr. Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, and the first mayor in recent history to oppose Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. The New York City area is home to the largest population of Jews outside of Israel, and the Israel-Hamas conflict occupied a substantial amount of time.
But there was also granular discussion of issues over which the mayor exerts actual control, including the discipline of police officers and a local climate law that mandates building upgrades.
With fewer than three weeks to go until Election Day, conventional wisdom had it that the debate was one of the last opportunities for Mr. Cuomo to alter Mr. Mamdani’s trajectory. A survey of six political consultants immediately after the debate indicated that none of them thought it had moved the needle.
“If you liked a candidate, they said what appealed to you,” said Jason Ortiz, a Democratic political consultant. “If you disliked a candidate, they reinforced what you didn’t like. If you saw flaws, they were magnified.”
“It doesn’t change the fundamentals of the race,” agreed Stu Loeser, another Democratic consultant.
But for those who had not been following every twist and turn of a mayor’s race that soft-launched last year, stretched through the Democratic primary in June and will culminate in the general election on Nov. 4, the candidates did distinguish themselves from one another on various issues of consequence.
Mr. Mamdani said he opposed mayoral control of the New York City school system, a stance that puts him at odds with every recent mayor and with both of his competitors, but he declined to explain how he would change it.
Mr. Mamdani would keep the budgeted Police Department head count stable, while Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Sliwa would increase it. Mr. Mamdani would seek tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for his free buses and child care proposals. Mr. Sliwa would hike property taxes on universities and on Madison Square Garden.
There were some areas of agreement. None of the candidates raised their hands when asked if they would endorse Gov. Kathy Hochul’s re-election bid next year. Both Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Sliwa said they had used marijuana — Mr. Mamdani recreationally, Mr. Sliwa medically, for his Crohn’s disease. All of them said the 311 system that former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg established to handle nonemergency calls needed improvement.
The candidates also distinguished themselves in posture. When he wasn’t smiling, Mr. Mamdani energetically defended himself from Mr. Cuomo’s attacks. Mr. Cuomo attacked often and dismissed the many controversies that attended his long governmental career as merely “political.” Mr. Sliwa cast himself as the truth-teller among rivals with overactive imaginations.
“Zohran, boy, your fantasies are never going to come about in terms of funding everything you want that’s going to be free, free, free,” Mr. Sliwa said. “It’s a fantasy.”
When Mr. Cuomo said he would send teams of police officers and mental health workers to deal with emotionally disturbed individuals on city streets, Mr. Sliwa said he was also dealing in fantasy.
Mr. Sliwa’s outspoken performance impressed at least one power player. “I thought the questions were really provocative and I thought that Curtis Sliwa proved that he is ready for prime time,” said Kathryn Wylde, the chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a business group.
Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.
Dana Rubinstein covers New York City politics and government for The Times.
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