NEW YORK (AP) — are meeting for their final debate Wednesday evening, as Democrat Zohran Mamdani looks to maintain his steady lead in a race increasingly seen as his to win and as former Gov. Andrew Cuomo amps up pressure on Republican Curtis Sliwa to drop out.
With just days left until early voting begins, Cuomo has made a series of urgent pleas to the city’s conservative voters to ditch Sliwa and instead to support him, casting the Republican candidate as a “spoiler” whose presence in the race will deliver Mamdani a win.
But Sliwa, the swaggering creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, has forcefully maintained he will not exit the race and has in turn ramped up his criticism of the former governor.
Mamdani came under attack from Cuomo during . But the state assemblymember suggested he would try to stay above the fray and keep his focus on voters during Wednesday’s 90-minute faceoff, airing live on Spectrum News NY1 and being streamed on .
“While my opponents are focused on speaking about each other and which one of them should drop out, my focus will be on New Yorkers themselves and the concerns I’ve heard from them,” he told reporters Tuesday, according to the Daily News.
Still, early Wednesday, Mamdani’s campaign released a statement saying he would be bringing a group of guests to the debate who were “directly harmed” by Cuomo’s policies when he was governor, previewing a potential line of attack.
Opponents of the 34-year-old democratic socialist have focused on his relatively thin political resume, his pro-Palestinian advocacy and to take over the city — and even arrest Mamdani — if he wins.
Last week, he was able to deflect much of Cuomo’s verbal onslaught while launching his own broadsides at the former governor’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the sexual harassment allegations that Cuomo denies but led to his resignation in 2021.
Mamdani also got help from Sliwa. The Republican’s sharpest attacks were reserved for Cuomo, forcing the 67-year-old into a defensive posture at a time when he needed to land significant blows against Mamdani to stifle the Democrat’s momentum.
Cuomo, who is now running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, has been courting conservatives and moderates, framing himself as a more viable candidate than Sliwa.
“Republicans believe Mamdani is an existential threat,” Cuomo said in a radio interview this week. “Then you do what you need to do to stop the existential threat.”
But Sliwa appears more committed than ever to remaining in the race.
“The billionaires are not going to determine who the next mayor is. You, the people will,” he said in a campaign video this week that called for his supporters to cast their ballots on the first day of early voting this weekend.
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