One day after Mayor Eric Adams ended his re-election campaign, the three candidates running to replace him hit the campaign trail or worked the phones to solicit donations, seeking to capitalize on his exit.
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and front-runner in the race for mayor, held a news conference to assail budget cuts that his chief rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, made to a rental assistance program. Mr. Mamdani also took a swipe at President Trump, who had warned on social media hours earlier that he would cut federal funding for New York City if Mr. Mamdani was elected.
Appearing at a news conference in Washington Heights with a woman who was hurt by Mr. Cuomo’s budget cuts, Mr. Mamdani said that he was heading toward victory, and Mr. Trump was having a hard time accepting it.
“I think that Donald Trump is going through the stages of grief,” Mr. Mamdani said.
Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, insisted he would not leave the race during his own news conference, held outside a subway station on the Upper West Side. Mr. Sliwa, who is in third place in the polls, has faced calls to end his campaign so that voters who oppose Mr. Mamdani’s left-leaning positions could coalesce behind Mr. Cuomo, a third-party candidate who is polling in second place.
Mr. Sliwa attacked his two rivals as a “double-headed hydra” that would hurt the city and argued that Mr. Cuomo, a registered Democrat, could not connect with working-class Republican voters. They most likely harbor resentment toward the former governor for his positions on certain criminal justice issues and his actions at the beginning of the pandemic, he said.
“Let’s actually approach the voters, and let’s see if we can get Andrew Cuomo to actually go out into a crowd,” Mr. Sliwa said. “I don’t know if he’s allergic to people, but he seems to have a phobia. But let’s all get out into the streets, the subways, the buses, and let the people decide.”
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