Last night, the WNBC / Telemundo 47 / POLITICO mayoral primary debate took place with nine current Democratic candidates for mayor: former Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, Comptroller Brad Lander, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, State Senators Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, former Assemblymember and DNC official Michael Blake, and hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson.
I think the moderators did a good enough job of herding nine cats, even if there were some chaotic moments. That said, I must note that I am always and forever irked by the various formulations of the question “sure, crime might be down, but people feel unsafe, so what are you going to do about that?” I think that’s a rhetorical surrender to a false narrative — one which fails to acknowledge the fact that it is, of course, reporters who largely establish that narrative — and essentially an invitation for candidates to explicitly promise to crack down or increase surveillance or various other things that have long-standing potential repercussions. In any case, public safety did loom large over the debate, in ways ranging from the correct hiring level for the NYPD (most candidates want to increase headcount, with the exception of Mamdani), to treatment of mental health, to how the city would respond to the increasingly aggressive encroachment of the federal immigration enforcement apparatus.
Common Enemies
As expected, most of the other candidates and moderators went particularly in on Cuomo, given both that he has by far the most extensive and most controversial public record, and the fact that he is the very clear front runner — though certainly not a slam dunk, especially in the context of the ranked choice system. Notably, none of the candidates gave any real responses as to who they would rank second on their own ballots, but it was obvious that the progressive contingent was going to pains to avoid attacking each other, each hoping that they could hoover up some of the others’ voters that could rank them second or third or fourth or fifth.
Insofar as Mamdani, the progressive second-place poller, was attacked, it was by Tilson, the gadfly candidate who is currently fulfilling the role of business outsider — a role that apparently now must be filled in every significant election. He’s staked his campaign largely on broad opposition to progressive and socialist policies of the sort that Mamdani especially embodies. I did not think that in the year 2025 we’d still have candidates on stage sparring over the “defund the police”movement that was really only embraced by handfuls of activists and never fundamentally came to fruition, but here we are. Cuomo also went in on Mamdani, out of an understanding that the young assemblymember is his most acute threat, using his characteristically snide and combative approach to ding the young progressive on what is probably his weakest point, a relative lack of experience and, if we’re being honest, tangible results in Albany.
Still, it was mostly Cuomo caught in the crossfire, including the unexpectedly constant and remarkably hostile put-downs by former DNC vice chair and Obama White House alum Michael Blake, whose candidacy has not particularly broken through, but who clearly saw an opportunity to launch himself at the frontrunner and both damage him and raise his own profile. (Watching the debate last night, I made a meme of Cuomo as the ill-fated Kent from the movie Alien, with Blake as the facehugger egg that’s about to spring forth on the unsuspecting candidate).
One of the most memorable lines of the night came when the moderators were asking the candidates about public safety, and Blake said “the people who don’t feel safe are young women, mothers and grandmothers around Andrew Cuomo.” That set up one of the many moments when the former governor tried to dodge direct answers for his various scandals in office, including not just the sexual harassment allegations but the nursing home deaths, both of which candidates and moderators had to ask him about repeatedly before he finally gave some evasive responses that, as usual, framed these as unfair political attacks.
Adrienne Adams Comes Prepared — and Comes for Cuomo
I had said before that in this low-turnout race, where both name recognition and enthusiasm will play an outsized role, the debate would be an opportunity for candidates to hook into public awareness and generate interest as we head into the final sprint of the race. I also think at least a couple managed to successfully differentiate themselves and raise their profiles. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams had a strong showing, pointing frequently to her ongoing work in the Council to pass legislation addressing many of the issues that the moderators were raising, including e-bike safety and the regulation of so-called AI. She also pressed Cuomo on earlier cuts he had made as governor to social safety net programs like child care.
Lander Shows Up, Myrie Plays It Safe, Stringer Seems Over It, Mamdani Sticks to His Message
Comptroller Brad Lander, who suffers some from being a bit, well, boring, was, in my view, pretty direct and eloquent in his own sort of oddball way, and seemed empathetic and competent. Mamdani, for all of the criticisms over his experience and campaign positions, is undeniably good as a stage presence and was able to have message discipline, hammering various campaign planks – like a proposed Department of Public Safety that would, among other things, coordinate mental health treatment for people in distress on the subways, as well as freezing the rent for stabilized apartments. State Senator Zellnor Myrie, I have to say, came off a little bit canned and stilted, and former controller Scott Stringer seemed just a little bit exasperated by the whole situation — which, fair.
Trump
Policy-wise, I’m not sure we got any particular news out of the debate, though it was notable that, while they had some different approaches, each of the candidates emphasized a need to push back on the Trump administration’s ability to both target speech in New York and conduct unfettered immigration enforcement operations. They all supported the release of jailed activist Mahmoud Khalil and presented themselves as the right person to stand up to Trump as he undertakes an increasingly indiscriminate effort to crush opposition and arrest immigrants –– exemplified this week by federal agents detaining people showing up to their immigration court hearings at NYC courts.
The candidates promised not to capitulate to demands and uphold the city’s sanctuary policies, with Blake multiple times repeating his controversial idea of withholding taxes to D.C. The candidates also all broadly agreed that the city’s biggest expenditure — the Department of Education — could find some efficiencies, though they differ a bit on whether this was the result of administrative bloat or other causes. In addition to Trump, one subject of frequent attacks who was also not on the debate stage was Mayor Eric Adams, who was variously called incompetent, a flunkie for Trump, and so on.
Missing: Climate Change. Present: $7,800 Rent.
I was disappointed by a lack of any mention of climate change in the debate, which also does not seem to be a particularly robust campaign point for any of the candidates at this stage, but of course it’s hard to get to everything in this constrained format. One revealing question came late in the debate, when the moderators asked each candidate to reveal how much they paid in rent, with Cuomo leading the pack at $7800 a month.
Israel
There was also, predictably, some talk around Israel‘s ongoing devastation of Gaza and the domestic political and free speech conversations around it, with both Cuomo and Tilson both saying they’d visit Israel as their first trips as mayor. One moderator bizarrely pressed Mamdani on the question of not only whether he believes Israel has a right to exist, but whether he believes it is specifically a Jewish state, something I did not realize was some kind of litmus test.
All in all, it’s hard for me to say what the specific upshot of this was. Cuomo certainly got bashed plenty, but it’s not like people were largely unaware of his scandals. I will say, his refusal to answer some of these questions head-on does not particularly make him look like a man who’s made mistakes and learned from them, and I think he’s a bit more vulnerable than some of the polls would suggest. I don’t know necessarily that Mamdani gained ground so much as the other progressive challengers did, but the ranked choice system effectively means this is probably some ground gained by all of them. The dynamics of the race probably haven’t fundamentally changed, but they’re more interesting.
