New York City just watched the last mayoral debate before the general election. But will it make any difference on Election Day?

After the last debate, it seemed that Andrew Cuomo woke up a little and dug in. He tried appealing to Republican voters to support him over Curtis Sliwa, who has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning, and could potentially be the spoiler in the race. Why won’t Sliwa leave? Hedge fund manager and CEO Bill Ackman thinks he knows the answer: Sliwa took matching funds from the New York City election matching program (which Eric Adams was denied access to), and if he drops out of the race, he would have to return about $5 million.

Sliwa refusing to drop out leaves Cuomo in an aggravating spot. The polls are showing that Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo would be within margin of error of each other… IF Sliwa was not a factor.

BREAKING: A new poll shows what it would look like if Cuomo drops out vs. Sliwa dropping out.

Sliwa vs. Mamdani (31.5% to 46.8%)
Cuomo vs. Mamdani (40.7% to 44.6%)

Cuomo currently has the best chance of saving NYC from communism. pic.twitter.com/q7p5GkNYx9

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 22, 2025

But on Wednesday evening, the three candidates went head-to-head in their final debate. And there were fireworks.

Mamdani was his usual smarmy self, and he and Cuomo exchanged verbal blows – and both of them landed hits.

The final debate was Cuomo’s last chance to put Mamdani on defense on stage and position himself as the safest option to lead New York. Cuomo repeatedly chided Mamdani for what he said was his inexperience and pie-in-the-sky ideas. Cuomo also sought to back Mamdani into a corner over criticism he has received over his views on Israel.

“I did things. You’ve never had a job. You’ve never accomplished anything. There’s no reason to believe you merit or qualification for eight and a half million lives,” Cuomo said. “You never showed up for work and you missed eighty percent of the votes. Shame on you.”

Mamdani came prepared for Cuomo, referring to him as “a desperate man” who is losing power and will “amplify rightwing talking points.” The progressive assemblyman also referred to the former governor as “Donald Trump’s puppet.”

Mamdani was also responsible for one of the most dramatic moments of the night, when he announced that he brought former Cuomo aide Charlotte Bennett as his guest. Bennett was one of the women who accused Cuomo of sexual harassment during his time as governor.

“One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening,” Mamdani said, confronting Cuomo. “You sought to access her private gynecological records. She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak. What do you say to the 13 you sexually harassed?”

Cuomo responded by arguing that the cases were dropped.

Obviously, Cuomo’s baggage is large and heavy, and Mamdani smacked him hard with it. However, Cuomo clocked Mamdani over his “globalize the intifada” problem. A letter from hundreds of rabbis, which was released right before the debate, was used by Cuomo to highlight just how many problems the antisemitic Mamdani has.

Andrew Cuomo interjected during Wednesday night’s final mayoral debate when anti-Israel front-runner Zohran Mamdani tried to reassure Jewish New Yorkers that he would also represent them, if elected.

Mamdani’s response came after after hundreds of rabbis came out warning that the Democratic nominee winning the Nov. 4 race would put Jews in the city in danger.

“Not everything is a TikTok video. You are the savior of Jewish people,” Cuomo told Mamdani sarcastically as the two faced-off with Republican Curtis Sliwa in the debate hosted by Spectrum NY1.

“You won’t denounce ‘globalizing the intifada,’ which means kill Jews. It was not several rabbis around, but it was 650 rabbis.”

The letter included 121 rabbis in the Empire State, including more than 60 in New York City.

“We are writing in our personal capacities to declare that we cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation,” the rabbis said.

Both Cuomo and Sliwa delivered a one-two punch to Mamdani, who refused to commit to any answers regarding certain issues, making himself sound very small and weaselly.

“Don’t be a politician,” Sliwa taunted when Mamdani tried to dodge giving his opinion about important ballot proposals, mousily saying he was “appreciative that those measures will be on the ballot.”

“Oh, what a shocker,” Cuomo sniped, before mocking the front-runner with a talking hands gesture.

A visibly sweaty Mamdani also steered clear of straightforward answers when pressed on:

-Education reform. Mamdani doubled down on his opposition to mayoral control and his support of the state’s class size mandate — but was unable to point to any substantive issues with the dysfunction in the schools system, instead serving up word salad about the importance of education and “the crisis in front of us” without delving into any details of how he would tackle the issue.

-Public safety. Asked for specifics about his Department of Community Safety that would send social workers to mental health calls and domestic violence disputes with the NYPD, he only said such approaches worked elsewhere in the US and “I trust the dispatchers who would be receiving these calls to make the determination as to whether there was any indication of violence.”

-Housing: Mamdani had no answer for how to speed up the process to quickly build new units and help ease the housing crisis, only mustering up that “we need to do this by streamline the processes of private sector construction across the city.”

-Ballot measures. Moving local elections to presidential election years, repeatedly saying “I have not reviewed the proposals” about any of the issues coming up on the very ballot he’ll be on.

The problem is, of course, that this is all likely happening far too late to stop New York City from buying the Mamdani snake oil.

Sliwa won on points, was substantive. Cuomo was better than last time, but I'm grading on a curve. Mamdani was bad, just as he was in the last one, and I'm not saying this because I loathe him, though I do. He was canned, evasive, and dislikable. But I don't think it matters.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) October 23, 2025

There are far too many “what ifs” – if Sliwa would just drop out, if Cuomo had been a more aggressive campaigner, if Adams had dropped out sooner – that could have changed the race, but these are all missed opportunities now. It seems all but certain that Mamdani will win the mayoral race walking away, but perhaps New York City may yet shock us all in a good way. If they don’t, and they follow the Mamdani socialist pied piper right over the voting cliff, then the voters will get exactly what they deserve, in spades – an empty suit with a smug grin as mayor.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click