Far-left Democratic New York State Rep. Zohran Mamdani, once a long-shot candidate, appears to have emerged as a top contender in the New York City mayoral race — with disgraced former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo no longer viewed as the sole frontrunner.
While several recent polls have shown Cuomo leading ahead of the June 24 the Democratic primary, one survey showed Mamdani, an open socialist, ahead by 4 percentage points. The two men, along with five other candidates, clashed during the final New York City Democratic mayoral debate on Thursday night, with both Cuomo and Mamdani facing heated attacks from each other as well as some of the lower-polling candidates.
The two leading candidates exchanged a war of words during the debate, with Cuomo claiming that Mamdani is too inexperienced to lead the nation’s largest city.
“Experience matters and I think inexperience is dangerous in this case,” Cuomo said during the debate. “Mr. Mamdani has a staff of five people. You’re now going to run a staff of 300,000 employees.”
Meanwhile, Mamdani attacked Cuomo over the fact that he resigned from the governorship in disgrace.
“I’ve never had to resign in disgrace,” Mamdani said. “I’ve never cut Medicaid. I’ve never stolen money from the MTA. I’ve never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment.”
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio sniped at Cuomo in a post to X on Thursday, during the debate, stating that the former New York governor was “scared” of Mamdani.
“Wow, @andrewcuomo is REALLY scared of @ZohranKMamdani!” de Blasio wrote in his post. “He’s not even faking it… And Andrew is REALLY disrespecting all the New Yorkers who support Zohran.”
During the debate, Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander, the New York City Comptroller, also attacked Cuomo over his sexual harassment allegations. Cuomo, who took office as governor in 2011, resigned in disgrace in August 2021 after he was accused of sexually harassing multiple women. Cuomo has denied all wrongdoing.
“Everyone here knows you sexually harassed women, that you created a toxic work environment,” Lander said.
“Those are just bold-faced lies,” the former Democratic New York governor replied.
Cuomo recently stated that he regrets resigning as governor in 2021, telling The New York Times in a June 3 interview that if he “had to do it again,” he would not have resigned.
“Yesterday’s Democratic primary debate for the NYC Mayoral race confirms what we have known all along, which is that not a single one of the Democrat candidates stands for policies that will put New Yorkers first. The panel of Democrat candidates is fraught with corruption, antisemitism, pro-sanctuary city policies, and radicalism,” Republican strategist Nicole Kiprilov told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “As one example, last night’s debate continued to shed light on Cuomo’s horrific track record, demonstrating his repeated failures as Governor of New York. New Yorkers need and deserve a mayor who will champion policies that tackle the city’s high crime rate, illegal immigration crisis, affordability crisis, failing education system, and bloated city bureaucracy.”
“These are all major issues that the various Democrat candidates, such as [City Council Speaker] Adrienne Adams and Andrew Cuomo, have fueled and exacerbated in our city,” Kiprilov added, naming another one of the lower-polling candidates in the race.
Cuomo’s campaign and Mamdani’s campaign both did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated to reflect Kiprilov’s statement.
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