What happened: At a campaign event in Queens on Wednesday, Cuomo kept his focus squarely on Mamdani, casting him as inexperienced and weak on crime. But as Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, made clear to reporters outside an Upper West Side subway station this week, this is not a Cuomo-Mamdani matchup: Sliwa is staying in, he said.
Why it matters: There are plenty of New Yorkers who don’t support Mamdani. The question is whether they will consolidate behind one candidate. Sliwa’s decision to stay in makes Cuomo’s path to victory all the more challenging, even with Adams’s exit.
— Jeff Mays and Ben Oreskes