Image source, Angelina Katsanis/Pool via REUTERS

Mamdani is asked how he plans to lead New York City without any management experience.

Mamdani says he's seen what has gone wrong with leaders like Cuomo.

He says he has led efforts to make the first free bus lines in New York City, helping bolster public education and deliver relief to taxi drivers.

Mamdani describes himself as "someone who has actually paid rent in this city...someone who has waited for a bus that never came," he said.

Cuomo hits back.

"What the assemblyman said is he has no experience... he has literally never had a job," Cuomo said.

The moderators are asking Andrew Cuomo about the sexual harassment allegations that preceded his resignation as New York state governor in 2021.

Cuomo acknowledges that there is a report containing sexual harassment allegations, but, he says, "there was no basis to it."

"It was then sent to five district attorneys. They all reviewed it. They found nothing. It was then litigated for five years. I was dropped from the cases, so none of that came to anything."

The first question of the night takes the form of a writing prompt. Each candidate is asked to write a headline about their accomplishments as if it were January 2027, a year into their term as mayor.

All three took the first few seconds of their answers to greet the moderators and viewers, and then offered their mock headlines.

Here's what they said:

Cuomo: Rent down, crime down, education scores up

Sliwa: Curtis Sliwa exceeds all expectations and looks very mayoral tonight.

Mamdani: Mamdani continues to take on Trump, delivers on affordability agenda

Image source, Reuters

Zohran Mamdani, Curtis Sliwa, and Andrew Cuomo are already on stage as the debate broadcast begins. We did not see them shake hands or walk on stage.

The debate is about to begin.

Stick with us for coverage of the biggest moments of the night.

We just looked at the rising cost of living in New York, which is set to be a major discussion point for the mayoral candidates. Now let's look at two other key policy areas.

Education

One of the tenets of Mamdani's mayoral campaign has been his proposal for free childcare for all children between the ages of six weeks and five years living in the city. The state lawmaker also says he will train and hire new K-12 teachers and make City University of New York educations free for residents.

Cuomo says he would expand the city's schools' gifted and talented programmes to be more inclusive of black and Latino students, reduce class sizes and address chronic school absenteeism.

Sliwa's plan would cut down the city's Department of Education, hire more special education staff, deploy police officers to schools, expand gifted programs, promote school choice and address absenteeism.

Police

After facing scrutiny for past criticism of the New York Police Department, Mamdani says he now recognises the role of police in the city. His campaign also proposes creating a Department of Community Safety to "prevent violence before it happens".

Cuomo and Sliwa both suggest the city should hire thousands of new police officers, develop new technology and offer more mental health support to struggling New Yorkers. Sliwa also focuses on targeting repeat offenders and gangs and updating police conduct rules "to focus on meaningful professional development, not petty rule enforcement".

New Yorkers have a wide range of issues to weigh when deciding who to cast their votes for in the mayoral race this November. Here are some of the ones that keep coming up, again and again.

Housing

Housing costs in New York City are among the highest in the United States. According to a 2024 report from the office of the city's comptroller, median rent for apartments in NYC was $3,500 (£,2600) per month.

Both Mamdani and Cuomo's plans focus on building more housing supply, while Mamdani's also includes a provision for freezing costs on rent-stabilised units and Cuomo's calls for stronger tenant protections.

Sliwa says an increase housing supply alone cannot fix the city's affordability issues, and says he would instead prioritise rehabbing vacant homes and changing zoning laws.

Cost of living

Mamdani's plan to address rising prices in New York includes opening a network of city-run non-profit grocery stores and permanently making every bus ride in the city free.

Cuomo's and Sliwa's plans both call for capping certain property taxes. Cuomo also suggests eliminating city income taxes for low-income New Yorkers and ditching city taxes on tips. Sliwa also says he will repeal "anti-landlord laws that fuelled the housing crisis", such as certain tenant protections for squatters.

Next up, we will look at policing and education. Stay with us.

Sakshi Venkatraman
Reporting from New York

Image source, Reuters

This mayoral election isn’t Curtis Sliwa’s first rodeo.

The Republican mayoral candidate, 71, has been a fixture of New York City politics for nearly five decades, and ran for mayor four years ago, gaining 28% of the vote and being defeated by current Democratic Mayor Eric Adams.

Sliwa is best known for founding a program called the Guardian Angels, a group of volunteers who patrol city streets and subways as "visual deterrents" to crime.

They are known for wearing red berets and are trained in self-defence and first aid, according to the program’s website and also participate in community service such as feeding the homeless.

Sliwa wants to lower taxes, hire more cops, address the presence of homeless people on the subways, and reform education partly by cutting the Department of Education’s budget.

A non-Maga Republican, Sliwa leans more centrist than Trump's base, drawing criticism from the president.

Some of Andrew Cuomo's backers worry Sliwa will take away votes from the independent candidate, who is polling higher. But he insists he is not going anywhere.

"Curtis Sliwa never dropped out of anything in his life," Sliwa told the Wall Street Journal last week.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

I asked Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday how he planned to turn this race around given there was still a lot of momentum around Zohran Mamdani.

He fired back, "Then why isn’t he at 50 percent? Boom!"

After laughing about his comeback on the polling, he then said 50 percent of New Yorkers do not agree with the 33-year-old Democratic socialist and just haven’t learned about all of his positions yet.

The former governor is betting he has enough time to turn voters against Mamdani.

For Cuomo to win, he needs to get both Republicans and Democrats to defect to his independent bid, without turning off either group.

Madeline Halpert
US Reporter

Image source, Getty Images

In his bid to become the next New York mayor, Andrew Cuomo has pointed to his 10 years of experience leading the state as governor as a reason for voters to place their trust in him.

But his wealth of political experience has not been enough to shield him from his previous controversies, as his opponent Zohran Mamdani maintains a double-digit lead over him in the polls.

"He has a trail of scandals and allegations that have left a lot of voters really cold about the idea of electing him," said Patrick Egan, a politics and public policy professor at New York University.

Cuomo resigned in 2021 after an investigation from the state attorney general found he had sexually harassed 11 women. Cuomo denied the allegations but apologised for acting "in a way that made people feel uncomfortable".

The former New York governor faced a separate probe from the attorney general's office that found he understated the number of Covid-related deaths in state nursing homes, after he at first gained national recognition for his leadership of one of the hardest-hit US states during the pandemic.

Sakshi Venkatraman
Reporting from New York

Image source, Reuters

The former governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, 67, is perhaps this race’s most experienced traditional politician.

Cuomo's return to the spotlight comes four years after his three terms in the state capital ended with his resignation when a sexual harassment investigation found he had harassed 11 women, including state employees.

The state-led inquiry determined he had made sexual comments, inappropriately touched or groped the women and kissed them without consent.

Despite that, Cuomo is attempting to relaunch his political career and he started the race with by far the most name recognition making him the front runner in the Democratic mayoral primary before Mamdani surged ahead.

Cuomo is also the son of the late three time New York governor Mario Cuomo, who has been described in US media as “liberal beacon" who "commanded the attention of the country with a compelling public presence".

The Cuomo mayoral campaign centres on promises to increase the size of the New York City Police Department, crack down on crime in the subways, build more affordable housing and combat antisemitism.

After failing to secure the Democratic nomination, in July he decided to run as an independent candidate.

The Islamophobia and racism Mamdani has facedpublished at 23:45 BST 16 October

23:45 BST 16 October

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

The first time I met Zohran Mamdani on the campaign trail, it was the same day New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino called for the mayoral candidate - a US citizen - to be deported.

In a social media post, she labelled him a "radical leftist who actually hates everything about the country and is here specifically to undermine everything we’ve ever been about", ending the message with "Deport".

Since his Democratic primary win, the racism targeted toward Mamdani - who is Muslim and of South Asian descent - has intensified.

Recently, close Trump ally and Republican Representative Nancy Mace from South Carolina appeared to make a connection between the state assemblyman's faith and that of the 2001 World Trade Center attackers. She posted a photo of Mamdani and wrote, "After 9/11 we said "Never Forget.' I think we sadly have forgotten".

Donald Trump Jr. wrote on social media, "New York City has fallen," after quoting another post about when New Yorkers "endured 9/11 instead of voting for it".

Just last month, a Texas man was arrested on charges of making terroristic threats against the 33-year-old in June and July. Mamdani now has a NYPD security detail.

In one message, the man said "Muslims don’t belong here", and in another he said, "I’d love to see an IDF bullet go through your skull", referencing the Israeli military.

All four Muslim Democratic US House members have put out a statement in defence of Mamdani against assaults over his identity.

"The vile, anti-Muslim and racist smears from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle attacking Zohran Mamdani cannot be met with silence. These hateful, Islamophobic, and racist tropes have become so entrenched and normalised in our politics," write Representatives Andre Carson of Indiana, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Lateefah Simon of California.

Natalie Sherman
New York business reporter

Mamdani’s plan to expand housing supply and make it more affordable puts the government at the centre of the action, promising to use government funds to build 200,000 new units over 10 years.

It’s a turn away from the trends that have dominated affordable housing development in recent decades in the US, which focused on tax incentives for private companies.

Experts say a city like Paris offers a compelling example of a place where the approach has worked.

But Mamdani himself puts the price tag of his plan at $100bn (£74.3bn) - roughly what the city typically spends each year, not including longer-term projects. So where will that extra money come from?

He’s calling for issuing $70bn in new debt. But there are currently national rules that limit the use of such bonds and the city's comptroller, a Mamdani backer, has warned the city is already on a path to exhaust its capacity to borrow within the next decade.

Critics say these kinds of questions are a key weakness of Mamdani's campaign.

Sakshi Venkatraman
Reporting from New York

Image source, Reuters

The clear front-runner in the NYC mayoral race is 33-year-old state assemblyman and self-identified democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani.

Largely unknown before winning the the Democratic primary over the summer with a dynamic, social-media focused campaign, supporters hail him as representing a new wave of progressive politics, whereas others, like Trump, lambaste him as a "communist".

Born in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani moved to New York with his family aged seven. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and later earned a degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College, where he co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Mamdani would be the city's first Muslim and South Asian mayor, and has referenced his identity as a way to build support across the diverse city, posting campaign videos of himself speaking Urdu and Spanish.

He promises affordable housing, free public buses, rent freezes and universal childcare for kids under 5 years old.

"This is a city where one in four of its people are living in poverty, a city where 500,000 kids go to sleep hungry every night," he told the BBC at a recent event. "And ultimately, it's a city that is in danger of losing that which it makes it so special."

Madeline Halpert
US Reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Tonight's mayoral debate is the first that will take place since current Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race.

His re-election campaign floundered after he was indicted on federal charges of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions, among other allegations.

The justice department charges were later dropped after Trump took office, with Manhattan's top federal prosecutor accusing Adams of striking a deal with the administration to dismiss his case in exchange for immigration enforcement.

Adams opted out of the Democratic primary in June and ran as an independent, dropping out when he trailed heavily behind Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo.

Mamdani's critics had hoped Adams stepping down from the race would help coalesce support around Cuomo, but Mamdani has maintained a double-digit lead over his rival in the polls.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from New York

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo is the last candidate to arrive.

He walked down the sidewalk and greeted his supporters, who lined up inside metal barricades and eagerly shook hands with the governor.

Cuomo appeared confident, stopping to talk to TV news before going inside.

All three candidates are now here, and the debate is set to kick off in just over half an hour.

Before he arrived at 30 Rockefeller Plaza just a few minutes ago, mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani has been busy leading up to this debate, holding an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.

And as usual, he has been campaigning through social media, posting a video today joking that he was "making a change" for voters worried about his young age - he will turn 34 this weekend.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has also been busy on social media, attacking Mamdani in a series of videos today, including one featuring black voters who oppose Mamdani.

Republican Curtis Sliwa has been greeting supporters and speaking to reporters just outside Rockefeller Plaza before the debate.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

Image source, Getty Images

Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic primary win hit New York City like a political earthquake.

I've spoken with New York City politics analyst and CUNY political science professor John Mollenkopf to better understand the Mamdani coalition.

He explains a fair share of the Democratic primary vote that went to Mamdani were renters (two-thirds of the people in New York City are renters), and those with a college education or higher.

Mamdani also won the traditional progressive base that tends to be young, white, middle-class and educated - but not necessarily wealthy.

The median age of primary voters in New York is 56 years old, but the 33-year-old democratic socialist produced a surge of young voters.

He also brought in a lot of upwardly striving immigrant communities, particularly South Asian and Muslims from other parts of the world, such as West Africa.

"The parties in the past really haven't spoken very directly to them and he successfully reached out... And some of those were areas that have been trending a little bit towards Donald Trump.”

He explained that votes from Jewish New Yorkers were more divided, which didn't surprise the professor, who said the Jewish community in New York is quite politically divided over the war in Gaza.

He says the challenge now for Mamdani will be to make inroads with the traditional Democratic base that was wary of supporting him in the primary - that is, the middle class black voters who tend to be homeowners and blue collar workers.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from New York

Mamdani has arrived at Rockefeller Center to crowds of screaming and cheering fans.

We heard Mamdani coming long before we saw him. Backed by a New Orleans-style brass and percussion band, Mamdani came marching down 6th Avenue with dozens of supporters behind him.

He started across from Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, walking with a boisterous crowd over to 6th and proceeding to the main event.

Mamdani and his entourage marched past Radio City Music Hall before turning the corner down to Rockefeller Center, where dozens of supporters burst into cheers.

Beaming, Mamdani worked his way down the line, shaking hands and press trembled around him.

To call it chaotic would be an understatement. Photographers jostled each other while Mamdani’s team tried to keep his path clear for several blocks - no easy feat in Midtown Manhattan during rush hour.

A local race with national implicationspublished at 22:46 BST 16 October

22:46 BST 16 October

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Zohran Mamdani is the kind of politician many on the left say they want to see move up in the Democratic Party. He's young, charismatic, progressive and willing to mix it up with his political opponents.

That he is the party's nominee to be mayor of New York City gives him a unique platform – a local race that has national implications because it's in America's largest (and residents would say, most important) city.

Add the fact that one of Mamdani’s opponents, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, is a living, breathing embodiment of the political establishment – a party elder and son of a former governor – means this race serves as a compelling illustration of the divides within today's Democratic Party.

Mamdani currently has a comfortable lead over Cuomo and the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa. While New York politics doesn’t always translate to national success, a victory in November will instantly elevate Mamdani – with his unapologetic left-wing politics – into a national figure.

He's already been a lightning rod for Republican attacks, including from President Donald Trump. As the front-runner on the debate stage tonight he is sure to be the focus of attacks. But that's just a taste of the onslaught to come.