{"id":328588,"date":"2025-10-24T07:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/328588\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T07:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:46:11","slug":"mamdanis-nyc-mayoral-debate-brought-us-back-down-to-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/328588\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani’s NYC mayoral debate brought us back down to earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m concerned about Zohran Mamdani’s lack of an answer to the ballot initiative question, but I’m more concerned about what would happen if Andrew Cuomo were elected mayor of New York City.<\/p>\n

\"play\"<\/p>\n

NYC mayoral candidates face off in heated mayoral debate<\/p>\n

Independent Andrew Cuomo, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, and Republican Curtis Sliwa clash in first NYC mayoral debate, trading sharp attacks.<\/p>\n

The final New York City mayoral debate<\/a> was Zohran Mamdani\u2019s to lose. The Democratic nominee had a great first debate<\/a>, is polling ahead<\/a> of independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and is widely considered to be the future mayor of New York City.<\/p>\n

Yet Mamdani, a state legislator, failed to answer some important questions in the Oct. 22 debate<\/a> on ballot measures and public schooling, underscoring concerns about his experience level. It wasn\u2019t that he performed poorly; he just wasn\u2019t as strong as I had hoped he\u2019d be. Despite this, I still believe he\u2019s the best candidate in the race.<\/p>\n

No, Mamdani is not as experienced as Cuomo. But we cannot ignore that the former governor\u2019s \u201cexperience\u201d as a politician includes him leaving office after being accused of sexual harassment<\/a> by 13 women and potentially undercounting nursing home deaths<\/a> during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mamdani also has more political experience than Sliwa, who has never held public office and was basically just onstage to deliver a good joke every now and then.<\/p>\n

Opinion: <\/strong>It’s time for Democrats to get behind Mamdani \u2013 or risk getting left behind<\/a><\/p>\n

Zohran Mamdani wants to follow the law<\/p>\n

I\u2019d go so far as to say Mamdani isn\u2019t going to change the city as much as fearmongering centrist Democrats and Republicans say he will. In fact, Cuomo compared Mamdani to former Mayor Bill de Blasio<\/a>, asserting that the state assemblyman has no new ideas \u2013 and that the ideas he does have are too bold.<\/p>\n

Despite this mixed messaging, it\u2019s clear that Mamdani is not the radical everyone wants to paint him as. For example, The New York Times recently reported that Mamdani would allow Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch<\/a> to continue serving in her role if he were to be elected, something he confirmed on the debate stage.<\/p>\n

Mamdani is also the only candidate who said he would follow the law and close Rikers Island<\/a> prison. He supports the state\u2019s Raise the Age law<\/a>, which changed the age that a child can be prosecuted as an adult to 18 in criminal cases, and wants to strengthen the city\u2019s law on carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

Overall, I\u2019m confused at how Mamdani\u2019s opponents can say both of these things at the same time. He\u2019s either got no new ideas or too many new ideas \u2013 but it can\u2019t be both.<\/p>\n

Opinion: <\/strong>Trump is using the DOJ to go after enemies, and we’re barely talking about it<\/a><\/p>\n

Mamdani is charming, but green<\/p>\n

The essence of the debate was captured about 30 minutes in, when Cuomo and Sliwa both turned to Mamdani and united in heckling the Democratic nominee over ballot measures regarding housing. Throughout the jeers, Mamdani kept a smile on his face \u2013 even as he said he didn\u2019t have a firm position on the measures.<\/p>\n

Considering how close we are to Election Day, Mamdani\u2019s decision not to weigh in either way on the ballot measures (which are opposed by the City Council<\/a> but supported by current Mayor Eric Adams) was just one instance where the candidate looked like a newcomer to the political scene.<\/p>\n

The other instance was when asked about his plan for New York City public schools. He does not have a full platform for how he wants to run the Department of Education, and says he is \u201copposed to mayoral control<\/a>\u201d of the school system.<\/p>\n

Opinion alerts:<\/b> Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don’t have the app? Download it for free from your app store<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m concerned about Mamdani\u2019s lack of an answer to the ballot initiative question, but I\u2019m more concerned about what would happen if Cuomo were elected mayor of New York City. The former goveror is a decidedly corrupt character; he\u2019s also the candidate who spent the least amount of time talking about making New York affordable for the working class. Even if he had a better debate night than anticipated, it does not change these facts.<\/p>\n

If anything, this debate made me less starry-eyed about the prospect of Mamdani\u2019s big plans and helped me stay grounded. It does seem unlikely that he will accomplish all his campaign promises as mayor, but the fact that he has even dared to be so bold is a hopeful sign for this progressive.<\/p>\n

Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Peque\u00f1o on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’m concerned about Zohran Mamdani’s lack of an answer to the ballot initiative question, but I’m more concerned…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":328589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,931,10887,5297,9642,10898,3953,11330,8541,11332,3189,5706,99498,10889,9124,90,454,11327,425,10894,5708,451,635,405,403,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,11336,8614,5622,450,457,10669,3234,24463,11326,11333,80,7047,1054,3190,290,10900,646,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,11331,11337,636,5709,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-328588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-andrew","11":"tag-andrew-cuomo","12":"tag-campaigns","13":"tag-campaigns-u0026-elections","14":"tag-center","15":"tag-collection","16":"tag-columnists","17":"tag-columnists-opinions","18":"tag-content","19":"tag-cuomo","20":"tag-debates","21":"tag-democratic","22":"tag-democratic-party","23":"tag-elections","24":"tag-government","25":"tag-left","26":"tag-local","27":"tag-local-elections","28":"tag-mamdani","29":"tag-negative","30":"tag-new","31":"tag-new-york","32":"tag-new-york-city","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-newyork","35":"tag-newyorkcity","36":"tag-ny","37":"tag-nyc","38":"tag-opinion","39":"tag-opinion-collection","40":"tag-opinion-content","41":"tag-opinions","42":"tag-overall","43":"tag-overall-negative","44":"tag-party","45":"tag-political","46":"tag-political-debates","47":"tag-politically","48":"tag-politically-center-left","49":"tag-politics","50":"tag-republican","51":"tag-republican-party","52":"tag-sharing","53":"tag-state","54":"tag-state-and-local-elections","55":"tag-u0026","56":"tag-united-states","57":"tag-united-states-of-america","58":"tag-unitedstates","59":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","60":"tag-us","61":"tag-usa","62":"tag-usat","63":"tag-usat-content-sharing-opinion","64":"tag-york","65":"tag-zohran","66":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}