Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor, invited Charlotte Bennett, the first woman to publicly accuse former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment, to Wednesday night’s debate, one of several guests he brought to underscore his criticism of Mr. Cuomo.
During a section of the debate in which the candidates were each allowed to ask another candidate a direct question, Mr. Mamdani told Mr. Cuomo that Ms. Bennett was in the audience and asked him to address the sexual harassment allegations against him.
Mr. Cuomo has denied the allegations from Ms. Bennett and other women. In his response at the debate, he did not address Ms. Bennett but suggested that Mr. Mamdani was not “mature” and pointed out that several lawsuits against him regarding the harassment claims had been dropped.
In addition to Ms. Bennett, Mr. Mamdani’s campaign said that he brought six other New Yorkers as guests who were intended to draw attention to Mr. Cuomo’s record as governor. They include Vivian Zayas, whose mother died after contracting the coronavirus in a nursing home on Long Island.
Mr. Cuomo has faced criticism that his actions during the pandemic might have led to a disproportionate number of deaths at nursing homes. The former governor has defended his leadership and laid blame for the state’s death toll on a lack of clear guidance from the federal government.
Mr. Cuomo’s campaign criticized Mr. Mamdani’s invitations as a political stunt that would not connect with voters. Melissa DeRosa, a longtime aide to Mr. Cuomo, wrote on social media that Mr. Mamdani’s choice to bring an entourage did not reflect “how a confident front-runner behaves … and it’s not even an effective hit.”
In 2024, Ms. Zayas and Peter Arbeeny, whose father died of Covid-19 shortly after having been in a nursing home during the pandemic, called on the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Cuomo over his role in a state report that undercounted the number of nursing home deaths, as well as over whether he lied to Congress about decisions he made during the pandemic.
The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into Mr. Cuomo earlier this year, which his campaign called a blatantly political attempt to interfere with the mayoral race.
Mr. Arbeeny was a guest of Brad Lander, the city comptroller, during the second debate in the Democratic mayoral primary, and Mr. Lander drew attention to him from the stage.
Mr. Mamdani’s other guests Wednesday night include Bishop Orlando Findlayter, who endorsed Mr. Cuomo in the primary but now backs Mr. Mamdani; several people who are members of unions that have endorsed Mr. Mamdani; and Kasha Phillips, a single mother who says she became homeless after New York State pulled its support from a rent-subsidy program for homeless families.
“These are the people who lived through Andrew Cuomo’s disastrous record,” Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani, said in a statement.
Mr. Cuomo’s campaign did not respond to questions about whom he might bring with him to the debate.
His campaign on Wednesday night pushed back against the criticism over his role in deaths at nursing homes by drawing attention to a 2022 radio commercial featuring Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee and a radio host.
In the commercial, for a law firm looking for clients who wanted to sue nursing homes over deaths in the pandemic, Mr. Sliwa asked a lawyer whether it was true that Mr. Cuomo “mandated that nursing homes had to take in Covid patients?”
The lawyer, Jeffrey Guzman, replied, “No, never” and said that Mr. Cuomo had only provided guidance.
Mr. Sliwa will have his wife and staff members with him at the debate, a spokeswoman for his campaign said.
He will also have three surrogates in the spin room after the debate: Robert Holden, a conservative Democrat and city councilman from Queens; Frank Morano, a Republican city councilman from Staten Island; and Sammy Ravelo, a retired police lieutenant and founder of the Dominican American Republican Club.
Mr. Mamdani is not the first candidate to bring guests to a debate in hopes of throwing his opponent off kilter. In 2016, Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign held a news conference ahead of a debate against Hillary Clinton with women who had accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault or sexual harassment. Mr. Trump also tried to seat the women in his V.I.P. box during the debate, a move that was blocked by organizers.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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