This is The Sprint for City Hall, a limited-run series on the critical race for mayor of New York City.
The homestretch of the mayor’s race has officially arrived. The second and final debate is set for Wednesday, early voting begins on Saturday, and somehow, there’s only two weeks left in this extraordinary race.
Today we’ll look at how the issue of age is shaping the campaign, what to watch for in the debate and scenes from a soccer game turned campaign event.
We’ll start with the headlines.
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This colorful profile shows how Zohran Mamdani’s years at the elite Bronx High School of Science paved his path to politics.
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Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee for mayor, has emerged as a full-fledged protagonist on the city’s biggest stage — and he’s ready to fight anyone trying to push him off.
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Did last week’s debate move the needle for Andrew Cuomo, who desperately needs a jolt of momentum? It’s not clear that it did. There will be another debate tomorrow.
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Cuomo, the former governor, is seeking to tie Mamdani to figures who said they opposed homosexuality, an effort that accelerated over the weekend after Mamdani posted a picture of a meeting he recently held with a prominent imam in Brooklyn. Mamdani, a state assemblyman, strongly supports protecting the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. New Yorkers.
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One sign you’ve made it in politics: You spark a cottage industry of impersonators. Mamdani now has that status.
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But some Democratic mayors of major cities — Eric Adams of New York and now, John Whitmire of Houston, among them — are skeptical, to say the least, of Mamdani.
CHARTING THE RACE
When a birthday becomes a campaign issue
Over the weekend, Mamdani turned 34. He marked the occasion with a video that aimed to mobilize his supporters, while lightly poking fun at those concerned about his inexperience.
“You’re worried about a 33-year-old becoming mayor of New York City, and I want you to know, I hear you,” deadpanned Mamdani, who would be the city’s youngest mayor in a century if he wins. “That’s why this weekend, I’ll be making a change. I’m turning 34. And I’m committing that for every single day from here on out, I will grow older.”
To his supporters, the moment captured so much of what they like about Mamdani: They see him as a fresh face and a crisp and disarming communicator who is running, in many ways, a joyful campaign.
But to his critics — and certainly to many undecided voters I’ve heard from (thank you for writing in!) — his age and relatively limited résumé are among the more serious qualifications-based issues of the race. In June, Nicholas Fandos clearly laid out Mamdani’s challenge.
“He must persuade New Yorkers to entrust what many consider to be the hardest job in the country, second only to the presidency,” to an “upstart who until recently managed just five paid staff members,” he wrote, in a piece that examined discussions of Mamdani’s preparedness.
Yet if the electorate was ever in the mood for generational change, this would appear to be the moment.
Some voters are still smarting from Joe Biden’s insistence on seeking re-election as president despite concerns about his age, and they continue to believe that the Democratic Party was not straight with them about Biden’s abilities (of course, he later dropped out of the race after a debate in which those vulnerabilities were on vivid display).
Across the country, we’re seeing growing numbers of younger politicians jumping into big races, setting up fierce primary battles.
In his birthday video, Mamdani, who is more than three decades younger than Cuomo and Sliwa, cracked that getting older was “not something I ever wanted to do. But I know it matters to you.”
Quote of the week
“This is the result of the Democrats’ self-destruction. So I’m supposed to help them? How come they don’t help themselves?”
In an interview on “The Nate Friedman Show,” an incredulous Sliwa dismissed the idea that he would bear responsibility for a Mamdani victory if he didn’t step aside as a way to consolidate the anti-Mamdani vote around Cuomo.
What we’re watching
As we enter the last stretch of the race, Dana Rubinstein, a veteran of New York City political reporting who is helping to lead our coverage of the mayor’s race, flags two big things to watch this week:
The candidates will face off on a debate stage for the last time before early voting starts on Saturday. This may be Cuomo’s final opportunity to pull a rabbit from a hat and change the trajectory of a race that every poll indicates will conclude with Mamdani in City Hall. Does he take any interesting risks onstage, or does he play it safe?
Sliwa is also facing calls to drop out, but has so far remained steadfast about running. Will he stay in the race as the pressure campaign continues?
On the road with Mamdani and Cuomo
Mamdani’s campaign has been successful at making some of his supporters feel like they are part of a movement. One way it does that is by infusing politics with memorable activities, like a New York City scavenger hunt. The latest example of that came Sunday, when his campaign helped host a soccer tournament. Maya King was on the scene, and she sent the following dispatch:
Hundreds of Mamdani’s most ardent (and athletic) supporters took to the field on Sunday at Maimonides Park on Coney Island for the Cost of Living Classic, a tournament the Mamdani campaign hosted to energize its base voters and draw attention to his plans to lower costs in the city.
Multiple teams, donning campaign-issued soccer jerseys that were color-coded according to their borough, competed against one another. Fans wore soccer scarves bearing the campaign’s blue, white and orange logo.
Mamdani, a soccer fanatic and former recreational player, arrived shortly before the tournament’s final match, though he stuck to the sidelines, cheering on the players rather than hitting the field himself.
Cuomo, for his part, has pursued a more traditional campaign schedule. Earlier that day, both he and Mamdani attended a gathering that put the candidates’ pitches to key voting blocs — the room consisted largely of Black and Latino organizers and community leaders — on display.
During the June primary, Cuomo performed well in predominantly Black areas, while Mamdani lagged behind. But Mamdani has worked to make inroads, and polls show him gaining some ground with Black voters, a constituency that plays a large and essential role in the Democratic coalition in New York.
Quiz
During last week’s debate, Mamdani and Cuomo agreed on little — except on their choice for the city’s best-ever mayor. Who was their answer?
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Ed Koch
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David Dinkins
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John Lindsay
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Fiorello La Guardia
Scroll to the bottom to see the answer.
key dates to Remember
Wednesday: Leading contenders general election debate (7 p.m., NY1).
Oct. 25: The last day to register to vote in person or online. Applications to register by mail must be received by this date.
Oct. 25 to Nov. 2: Early voting.
Nov. 4: Election Day. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
We want to hear from you
Thanks so much to everyone who has shared their perspectives on the race. I promise to get back to you soon if I haven’t yet!
A reader call out for this week: For those of you who have settled on your choice of candidate, but have one big reservation about that person — who is your choice and what’s the reservation?
I’m at [email protected].
Answer to the quiz: Cuomo and Mamdani both said Fiorello La Guardia was New York City’s best mayor. Sliwa’s answer was Rudy Giuliani with “a little bit of Michael Bloomberg thrown in.”
Katie Glueck is a Times national political reporter.
The post When It Comes to Being Mayor, Is Age Just a Number? appeared first on New York Times.
