Mamdani suffers awful showing in NYC mayoral debate — but Cuomo still can’t bury him https://t.co/mUOxY2IfZs pic.twitter.com/dkljaCqwkk
— NY Post Opinion (@NYPostOpinion) October 17, 2025
While Zohran Mamdani has vile views and worse politics, his campaign has been a logistical triumph and his Democratic debate performance in May was startlingly impressive. There was every reason to expect his debate showdown last night with Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa would be another feather in his cap.
It wasn’t. Mamdani flopped. His answers were defensive. He seemed angry at being questioned at all. It seemed offensive to him that he would have to offer an explanation for having called for defunding the police and refusing to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.
He claimed he never said things he said or that he shouldn’t be accountable for words he wrote only five years ago. He did not seem like a young and happy warrior, more like a petulant graduate student.