By Joseph Ax and Maria Tsvetkova
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The New York City mayoral debate was less than two minutes old before the first mention of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Asked to imagine an ideal headline a year into his hypothetical term running the largest city in the country, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani suggested: “Mamdani continues to take on Trump, delivers an affordability agenda for New Yorkers.”
His answer encapsulated how Trump’s threats against New York have loomed over the campaign, even as Mamdani has built a double-digit lead in public polls over his chief rival, former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, by relentlessly focusing on the cost of living in the U.S. financial capital.
Trump, who hails from New York, has vowed to cut federal funding to the city if Mamdani, whom he has dismissed as a “communist,” wins the race. Earlier this week, the president suggested he might deploy the National Guard to New York if Mamdani becomes mayor, as he has sought to do in other Democratic-run cities such as Chicago and Portland.
During the campaign, Mamdani, a 33-year-old state legislator, dismissed Trump’s threats and promised to stand up to him on behalf of New Yorkers.
But he also notably offered Trump an olive branch of sorts during a Fox News interview on Wednesday, turning to the camera and directly telling the president he would be willing to work with Trump on issues of affordability.
“He’s thinking about governing, right?” said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist who is working for a pro-Mamdani PAC. “When you govern, you have to think a little bit differently than how you campaign.”
CUOMO COURTS POTENTIAL CROSSOVER VOTERS
Cuomo has sought to take a pragmatic approach, arguing that his decades-long acquaintance with Trump has prepared him to negotiate with the mercurial president.
The calculus for Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, is more complicated, according to Democratic strategists and political analysts.
In order to win, Cuomo likely has to peel off a significant portion of Republican voters from the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa. Attacking Trump at every turn could alienate those voters, even though they represent a small minority in the overwhelmingly Democratic city.
“I think Andrew has positioned himself as less of a foil and more of a liaison” with regard to Trump, said Basil Smikle, a professor at Columbia University who served as executive director of the state Democratic Party under Cuomo. That positioning, Smikle said, fits a strategy of trying to convince conservative and moderate voters to back his candidacy.
But Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York, said some voters might not trust Cuomo – who has known Trump for decades – to fight the president tooth and nail.
“There’s a difference between working with Trump and acquiescing to him,” she said.
During Thursday’s debate, Cuomo warned New Yorkers that electing Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, would paint a bullseye on their backs.
“If the assemblyman is elected mayor, Donald Trump will take over New York City, and it will be Mayor Trump,” Cuomo said.
DEMOCRATIC VOTER MOOD FAVORS CONFRONTATION
Mamdani has portrayed Cuomo as far too cozy with Trump, citing a New York Times report that Cuomo spoke with Trump about the mayoral contest this summer – a story Cuomo has denied.
“What New Yorkers need is a mayor who can stand up to Donald Trump,” Mamdani said during the debate. “And that’s who I am, because I’m not funded by the same donors that gave us Donald Trump’s second term, which isn’t something that Andrew Cuomo can say.”
Alyssa Cass, a Democratic strategist who worked on former Comptroller Scott Stringer’s mayoral campaign this year, said Mamdani’s more aggressive rhetoric on Trump was more in line with the mood among Democratic voters.
“I think when you look at the New York City electorate, it wants someone who is fighting Trump, not managing him,” she said. “New York City has a target on its back regardless of who is mayor. This is a president whose essential part of his project is targeting blue cities.”
More than half of New Yorkers said they wanted to see the next mayor do more to stand up to Trump, while only 37% said the next mayor should do more to work with him, according to a September poll from Quinnipiac University.
But the school’s October 9 poll found Mamdani and Cuomo virtually tied on the specific question of which candidate would best represent the city’s interests with Trump in the White House. The same poll showed Mamdani with a 13-point lead over Cuomo among likely voters, with Sliwa a distant third.
While opposition to Trump has shaped the campaign, the increasing cost of living in New York has also been a driving force, with soaring rents and childcare costs making it difficult for even middle-class households to afford the city.
Mamdani has offered an ambitious agenda that includes freezing rent for millions of New Yorkers and making city bus service free, fueled by increases in taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
Cuomo has dismissed Mamdani’s plans as fanciful, noting that Governor Kathy Hochul has ruled out tax increases, and touted his own experience addressing housing concerns as a former U.S. housing secretary.
Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa are vying to replace unpopular Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who abandoned his own foundering re-election bid last month.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Frank McGurty and Deepa Babington)
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