New York City mayoral candidates share closing arguments about taking on Trump

“We are especially mindful that we are in the middle of a war right now,” former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the front-runner in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary — told a crowd at a Juneteenth lunch event in the Bronx on Thursday.

Some people in the crowd started muttering — the war in the Middle East?

“We’re in the middle of a war — you don’t see it? Day in and day out, when you turn on the TV news and you see a president named Mr. Trump. Have you seen President Trump on TV?”

As some in the crowd booed, Cuomo added, “President Trump has declared war on Democratic states, Democratic cities. He’s declared war on working families, he’s declared war on immigrants, he’s declared war on minorities, and he’s declared war on New York City and New York State.” He later told reporters, “Good news is — we beat [the administration] once before, and we’re going to beat them again.”

In the final days of campaigning for Tuesday’s New York City ranked choice Democratic mayoral primary, which has 11 candidates on the ballot, Cuomo and others fanned out across the city to make their closing arguments, with one shared focus being how they’re framing themselves as the best choice to stand up to the White House.

Curtis Sliwa, who lost to Mayor Eric Adams in 2021, is the only Republican running for mayor.

Voters, meanwhile, told ABC News they’re looking at both national and local issues — particularly affordability — as they decide who to cast votes for.

And scorching high temperatures in New York City could impact turnout on Election Day, as voters brave the heat to trudge to their polling places on Tuesday, with the city’s election board preparing for dehydration, and even potential heat-related power outages.

The New York City Board of Elections said last week in a news release that it is making sure polling sites that don’t have air conditioning will have fans, a “steady supply of water.” The board said it is working with emergency management and utility providers to make sure polling places don’t lose power, too.

A spokesperson for the board told City & State NY that potential heat-induced blackouts might impact vote counting, since then ballots would need to be counted similarly to absentee or affidavit ballots that get scanned later.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, signed legislation over the weekend allowing voters to receive refreshments while in line to vote.

In an email sent to supporters on Tuesday to supporters, Cuomo asked voters to “vote as early as you can to avoid the hottest parts of the day.”

For Cuomo, the election could mark his political comeback. His governorship was derailed after several women accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct. He resigned as governor in 2021 but has consistently denied the allegations. One voter in downtown Manhattan told ABC News that she is voting for Cuomo despite misgivings over the allegations, mentioning that he had issued an apology in 2021.

Carmen S., a medical assistant who lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, told ABC News in an interview that immigration policy is one of the important issues in the race, becoming emotional speaking about the White House’s immigration policies. She declined to provide her full last name.

“I’m a child of immigrants,” she said. “Not every immigrant is a criminal.”

While she didn’t share who she ranked on her ballot, she praised Cuomo for his record and how he handled his job as governor.

Cuomo’s main opponent in the primary is state assembly member Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist whose progressive economic plans have galvanized many voters.

Mamdani, in an interview with ABC News on Thursday in Astoria, Queens, just hours after he voted early at a polling site in the Museum of the Moving Image, said his closing argument is that he is the one who can take on the “twin crises” facing the city: “Authoritarianism from the outside and an affordability crisis from the inside.”

“And what we need is a mayor who’s able to stand up to both of those and deliver a city that every New Yorker can afford and that every New Yorker understands that they belong to,” Mamdani told ABC News.

And as to why should people around the country care about this race, he said, “This is a referendum on where our party goes; it is a referendum on whether billionaires and corporations can buy yet another election, or if we opt for a new generation of leadership, one that isn’t funded by Trump donors, one that is actually able to stand up and fight for working class New Yorkers.”

That outlook has impressed some voters. Angela Pham, a 38-year-old content designer who lives in Greenwich Village, told ABC News in an interview after voting early that Mamdani “needs to win.”

“We’re supposed to be the most progressive city in America,” she said. “I feel like he’s the only candidate that makes sense for the things that we need to happen.”

Asked how she felt about Cuomo, Pham said, “He needs to get out of politics and retire to a farm.”

Mamdani has faced some pushback over his criticism of Israel, given New York’s large Jewish population. In response, he has emphasized policies to combat antisemitism and said that he wants to focus on city issues.

Cuomo has criticized Mamdani’s comments about Israel and made combatting antisemitism a key campaign focus. One voter in Greenwich Village told ABC News that concerns about antisemitism were a main driver for his decision to vote for Cuomo.

Fellow candidate New York City comptroller Brad Lander, who has “cross-endorsed” Mamdani, has received less momentum in polling but has gotten heightened attention since he was briefly detained last week by federal agents while escorting a defendant out of immigration court.

Lander, speaking with ABC News on Thursday on the Upper East Side near an early voting site at a school, said that the mayoral election in the city has national implications, because the administration has said it hopes to ““liberate” Democratic cities from their elected officials. That’s [a] code word for a federal government takeover, an erosion of democracy, a denial of due process,” Lander said.

“Democracy is on the line right now,” he added.

Officials from the White House and administration have said their actions towards cities such as Los Angeles are meant to restore order amidst protests and unrest.

Juan Peralta, a 31-year-old from Harlem who works in events, told ABC News that the only two candidates on the ballot he’s excited about are Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, pointing to Mamdani’s proposal for free child care.

“Growing up in New York, I did feel like this was a place for families,” Peralta told ABC News. “Now I feel like it’s a place for families of a certain income.”