Frontrunners Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani got into a number of heated spats over the importance of age, experience and personal integrity during Thursday night’s second and final Democratic mayoral primary debate, highlighting a set of issues that have emerged as key focuses in the final sprint of the 2025 campaign.
The debate, held just two days before early primary voting gets underway Saturday, featured the seven leading Democratic candidates in the race and covered a range of topics, including everything from immigration and housing to public safety, sanitation and fighting back against President Trump’s agenda.
One of the most heated moments of the night came as the moderators quizzed Cuomo and Mamdani — who have consistently polled as the front-runner candidates — on whether it’s important to have extensive government experience.
At 67, Cuomo would become the oldest mayor to take office in the modern era, and the ex-governor sought to characterize that as a positive, citing his decades of experience working as governor, state attorney general and federal housing secretary.
By contrast, Mamdani, a democratic socialist Queens Assembly member, would at 33 become one of the youngest mayors in the modern era, and Cuomo said it’d be “dangerous” and “reckless” to put him in charge at a time of myriad challenges, including Trump’s efforts to strip significant federal funding from the city.
“He’s accomplished nothing,” Cuomo said of Mamdani, whose sole elected job has been serving in the Assembly since 2021, calling his resume “laughable.”
But Mamdani used that as an opening to lace into the more scandalous aspects of Cuomo’s record, including his 2021 resignation as governor in the face of accusations that he sexually harassed nearly a dozen women and mismanaged nursing home policies during the COVID pandemic.
“I have never had to resign in disgrace,” said Mamdani, prompting roars from the crowd in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
The other candidates piled on, with Brad Lander saying Cuomo has the wrong type of experience, arguing the city needs steady leadership not a record of “sexual harassment, corruption and disgrace.”
“Those are bald faced lies,” Cuomo protested, turning directly to Lander, who has generally polled as the No. 3 candidate in the race. Cuomo has denied ever sexually harassing anyone, but has apologized to anyone he said he made feel uncomfortable.
Also on stage for the final debate were Adrienne Adams, Zellnor Myrie, Scott Stringer and Whitney Tilson.
Besides age, Cuomo and Tilson, who offered a surprise cross endorsement of the ex-gov during the debate, went after Mamdani on policing, noting he had called for defunding the NYPD during the COVID pandemic.
“I will not defund the police,” Mamdani replied, adding that police officers should focus on major crimes, not jobs more fit for social workers. “I will work with the police because I believe the police have a critical role to play.”
Speaker Adams, whose campaign has gained some momentum lately, accused Cuomo of mischaracterizing the COVID-era defund the police movement, arguing it was about reallocating resources in a smarter way, not slashing funding. “I don’t know how long we’ve been out of it, Mr. Cuomo … Slogans and scare tactics aren’t going to make anybody in New York safer,” she said.
The Israel-Hamas conflict also emerged as a focus, with Mamdani accused by Cuomo and Tilson of amplifying antisemitic causes due to his pro-Palestinian views. Tilson, who focused a significant chunk of his comments on attacking Mamdani, argued that Mamdani’s use of the word “genocide” in describing Israel’s war in Gaza means he is in part responsible for a recent uptick in antisemitic incidents in New York.
“I am being smeared,” Mamdani replied, arguing Israeli historians and former prime ministers have used similar language to describe the war.
The issues of age and experience have emerged as key focuses in the home stretch of the race, especially for Cuomo, whose campaign and super PAC has recently aired multiple ads painting Mamdani as too young and too inexperienced.
Mamdani, who has consistently polled as the runner-up to Cuomo and recently even overtook the ex-gov in one survey, is campaigning on a platform focused on affordability that includes promises to freeze rent for stabilized tenants, drastically expand subsidized child care and make public buses free, while paying for all of it by raising taxes on millionaires and corporations. That agenda would require complex legislative and regulatory reforms, actions some critics say Mamdani would be ill-equipped to carry out.
Seeking to address concerns about his inexperience, Mamdani said he’d hire the “best and the brightest” in his mayoral administration and also noted his management of over 36,000 volunteers working for his campaign.
Cuomo and Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund manager running on a moderate Democratic platform, weren’t convinced and continued to paint Mamdani’s promises as unrealistic.
“Mamdani math is fantasy,” Tilson said.
Cuomo further questioned Mamdani’s experience by suggesting he doesn’t understand how rent stabilization laws work in New York City.
“You should read,” Cuomo fumed after Mamdani questioned why he wouldn’t commit to as mayor freeze rent for stabilized tenants. Technically, a mayor can’t freeze the rent, as the Rent Guidelines Board sets those rates, but the mayor appoints all members to that panel.
The tradition of mayoral debates is that candidates show up for a “spin room” question-and-answer gaggle with reporters afterward.
Cuomo, who has employed a noticeably press shy strategy, was the only candidate who did not show up for the post-debate Q&A.
“He won’t even come answer your questions,” Lander told reporters. “He is unfit to be mayor.”
Originally Published:
