In closing campaign messages to voters Monday, Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani offered an optimistic view of how New York might look under his leadership, while former Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned of what he sees as the dangers of the upstart frontrunner.
The contrasting visions were delivered on the eve of Tuesday’s mayoral election, which is seen as one of the city’s most consequential in decades.
More than 735,000 New Yorkers already voted early ahead of Tuesday, potentially putting the contest on track to bring record turnout after a campaign that has heavily focused on the city’s cost of living crisis.
Mamdani, who has polled as the favorite to win the election since winning June’s Demoratic primary, delivered his closing address in City Hall Park after walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn with supporters that included State Attorney General Tish James, City Comptroller Brad Lander and several City Council members.
His speech was replete with lofty descriptions about the possibilities of his potential mayoralty. At one point, he said his mayoral administration would be “a beacon” that allows people to “feel the light of City Hall” in their everyday lives.
“Ultimately, the question before us is very simple: Morning versus night. Do we want it to be morning again in New York, where we feel the warmth of the sun on our skin and the possibility inherent and innate to every new day,” Mamdani said, seemingly cribbing a line from ex-Republican President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning Again in America” campaign ad. “Or do we want to shiver in the night cast by a politics of fear and self-enrichment?”
Cuomo, who is running on an independent ballot line, delivered his closing message during a string of campaign stops across all five boroughs Monday. In an appearance on La Mega 97.9 before hitting the streets, Cuomo railed against Mamdani’s relative lack of experience and left-wing agenda.
“You need to know how the government works to actually make change, and Mamdani has never had a real job,” said Cuomo, who served as governor for 10 years before resigning in 2021 amid sexual and professional misconduct accusations he now denies.
“Your first job should not be mayor of the City of New York.”
Mamdani has served as a State Assembly member representing northwestern Queens since 2021. But Cuomo argued that isn’t close to enough of a resume, contending his own record, which includes time as both governor of New York and secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton, makes him well-equipped to take over the reins at City Hall.
“This is the most important election in my life. I have the experience to do the job,” he said before slamming Mamdani’s “socialist” agenda:
“Socialism did not work in Venezuela. Socialism did not work in Cuba. Socialism will not work in New York City. It will be a big mistake.”
Barry Williams/ New York Daily News
Andrew Cuomo speaks at a campaign stop on W. 181 and St. Nicholas Ave. in Manhattan on Monday. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Despite the sunny descriptions of his campaign, Mamdani would face serious — and immediate — challenges should he be elected.
The rent freeze on stabilized tenants Mamdani has made a central promise of his campaign could be complicated by last-minute maneuvers by Mayor Adams, who dropped his bid for reelection in late September.
Other central campaign planks, like his pledges to make public buses free, expand subsidized childcare and increase taxes on businesses and millionaires, would require state-level action from Albany, where Gov. Hochul has been resistant to tax hikes.
Compounding Mamdani’s potential problems, President Trump reiterated his threat Sunday to cut back on federal funding for New York in the event of his election.
“It’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York. Because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there,” Trump said on Fox News on Sunday. Mamdani is a democratic socialist.
During a campaign stop in Washington Heights, Cuomo seized on that Trump comment and argued being able to simultaneously both fight and work with the Republican president is key.
“We heard Donald Trump yesterday. He said if Mamdani wins, he’s going to cut off funding to New York … We need a mayor who can stand up to Donald Trump, who can get the funding that New York deserves,” he said.
In his City Hall Park remarks, Mamdani, who at 34 would become the youngest mayor in modern city history, said he’d be ready on Day 1 to launch legal actions against Trump over any funding cuts.
“I will take every single day after this election to put together my city government, my City Hall, to ensure that it is prepared, not only for the threats from Donald Trump, but also the threats from an affordability crisis that has put one in four New Yorkers in poverty,” Mamdani said.
Cuomo has in the final days of the campaign leaned into a strategy of depicting Mamdani as too politically extreme for New York, while accusing him of amplifying antisemitism by criticizing Israel’s war in Gaza.
Facing a deficit in the polls and needing to grow his base in order to have a viable shot at winning, Cuomo has also tried to attract Republican voters who might otherwise support GOP mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa, who’s polling last in the race.
In that vein, the ex-gov has said he’d be open to working with Trump, whose administration is pursuing an aggressive immigration crackdown in New York and other major cities.
“I know President Trump, I was governor when he was president in the first term. We worked together,” Cuomo said on Fox News on Sunday, adding he “would be open to a cooperative path that is doing good things in New York in cooperation with the federal government.”
