One thing is certain in New York City’s race for mayor: There’s no love lost between the top candidates, Democratic nominee and state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani and former Democratic governor-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo.
And as the two prepare to face off in their first general election debate Thursday, along with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, a review of the tape from Mamdani and Cuomo’s two Democratic primary debates shows how they have positioned themselves in diametric opposition to each other — and as the answer for voters seeking to address the other’s shortcomings.
To Cuomo, the almost 34-year-old Mamdani is a young man in a hurry whose lack of experience should disqualify him from leading America’s largest city. Not only that, Cuomo considers Mamdani to be the face of a wing of the Democratic Party that he believes is leading the whole organization astray on issues from support for Israel to economic policy.
To Mamdani, Cuomo is the manifestation of a broken Democratic Party establishment, a root cause of the affordability crisis at the center of his entire campaign, and a politician who has lost the public trust after being accused of sexual misconduct, allegations Cuomo denies.
Perhaps no exchange typifies the pair’s disdainful dynamic than one from the NY1/Spectrum News primary debate in early June, when both men were asked about their experience.
Cuomo responded by arguing that “inexperience is dangerous” before taking Mamdani head on.
“He’s never dealt with a City Council, he’s never dealt with the Congress, he’s never dealt with the state legislature, he’s never negotiated with a union, he’s never built anything, he’s never dealt with a natural emergency, he’s never dealt with a hurricane, with a flood,” Cuomo said.
“He’s never done any of the essentials, and now you have Donald Trump on top of all of that — and he’s never dealt with what I think is the greatest national threat that we face, in this president. To put a person in this seat at this time with no experience is reckless and dangerous.”
Mamdani was ready with a laundry list of his own, as well as a dig at a rival who spent much of the primary campaign — and his time on the debate stage — incorrectly pronouncing his name as “Mamdami.”
“To Mr. Cuomo: I have never had to resign in disgrace; I’ve never cut Medicaid, I’ve never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA, I’ve never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment, I’ve never sued for their gynecological records and I have never done those things because I am not you,” Mamdani replied.
“And furthermore, the name is Mamdani: M–A-M-D-A-N-I. You should learn how to say it, because we’ve gotta get it right,” he said.
A direct foil
As the two men staked out their lanes in the Democratic primary, each constantly invoked the other to explain their theory of the case.
Kicking off the first primary debate, which was hosted by NBC 4 New York, Mamdani’s first answer laid out his pitch to enact progressive policies by freezing rent-stabilized apartment costs, making city buses free and enacting universal child care — all while framing his platform in diametric opposition to Cuomo, at that point the longtime polling front-runner.“I will pay for this by taxing the 1%, the billionaires and the profitable corporations that Mr. Cuomo cares more about than working-class New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.
When asked how he’d turn his policy proposals into enacted reality, Mamdani attacked Cuomo again, arguing that in the state Legislature, he successfully “overcame” the objections of “a governor then who didn’t want to raise taxes on billionaires and corporations. That was then-Gov. Cuomo.”
Cuomo has taken a similar path, repeatedly contrasting his experience as a former governor and federal housing secretary to Mamdani’s, contending that his younger opponent is all flash, no substance by comparison.
“Mr. Mamdani is very good on Twitter with videos, but he actually produces nothing,” Cuomo said during that same debate.
And at the second debate, Cuomo framed himself as the only candidate on the stage with a record of translating plans into action.
“Everyone has a plan — they had a plan to build LaGuardia Airport, nobody did it until I did it. They had a plan to build the new Moynihan train station, but nobody could do it until I did it. They had a plan to finish the Second Avenue Subway, but nobody could do it until I could do it. Now we have plans to build affordable housing, and we do need hundreds of thousands of units,” Cuomo said.
“It’s one thing to have a plan. It’s another thing to have the ability to do it. And that’s where New York City has fallen down time and time again,” Cuomo continued.
Regrets, they have few
The NBC4 debate moderators asked the Democratic primary candidates to share the biggest regret of their political careers. Like most of the candidates on the stage, both Cuomo and Mamdani delivered self-serving answers, and each focused on the other candidate in sharing their faux regret.
“One of my regrets is having trusted leaders within our own party, leaders like Andrew Cuomo, because what we’ve seen is that kind of leadership has delivered us to this point where we are under attack by an affordability crisis on the inside and a Trump administration on the outside,” Mamdani said.
“Democrats are tired of being told by leaders from the past we should continue to simply wait our turn, continue to simply trust when we know that’s the very leadership that got us to this point,” Mamdani said.
Cuomo’s response took a similar tack, at least in terms of political strategy, saying his regret was that “the Democratic Party got to a point where we allowed Mr. Trump to get elected, that we’ve gotten to a point where the rhetoric has no connection to reality, where a person who has served in government for several years, only passed three bills, believes they have the experience and credentials to run the greatest city on Earth — and that the Democratic Party seems OK with that.”
The two candidates’ symbiotic toxic relationship has been so obvious that it sometimes led to them breaking the fourth wall to acknowledge the dynamic.
During the NY1 debate, each mayoral candidate was given the opportunity to ask an opponent a question. Cuomo asked an allied candidate a pointedly critical question about Mamdani.
When Mamdani initially sought to continue a previous back-and-forth instead of taking the opportunity to ask his question of another candidate, it caused the debate’s moderators to press pause.
“Wait, who are you going to ask your question to?” one of the debate’s moderators asked Mamdani.
“I feel like most people would have known I’m going to ask Andrew Cuomo a question,” Mamdani replied.
“I knew,” Cuomo chimed in.