On Thursday night, Democratic mayoral hopefuls Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, and Scott Stringer shared a stage at the "New Mayor, New Media" candidate forum, hosted by Hell Gate and NY Focus at the Public Theater. And while all three candidates teamed up to hammer home why Andrew Cuomo should not be the city's next mayor, they stopped short of cross-endorsing one another.
Holding a framed portrait of the former governor up to the candidates, Hell Gate moderator Christopher Robbins asked them straight-up: "This man, Andrew Cuomo, currently holds a commanding lead in the Democratic primary. Nearly 20 percent of voters are still undecided, but so far, no one in this race has made any explicit cross-endorsements. So right here, right now, is anyone on stage willing to make any cross-endorsements tonight?"
None of them were, despite being just over a month out from the primary. But they said they had faith voters would do the right thing come election day, and Mamdani said he would cross-endorse another candidate before election day.
"While I do believe that we have the best chance of defeating Andrew Cuomo, we have to run our campaigns in a manner that lifts all boats to defeat the right, because that's where Andrew Cuomo is running from," the state assemblymember said.
"What I've been telling each [of my voters] is that we have to fill those ballots with all five choices. None of them can be Andrew," Mamdani added.
Stringer noted that he had been to dozens of forums so far, and said he hadn't seen the mayoral front-runner at any of them. "This is the closest I've gotten to Andrew Cuomo in this campaign," Stringer said, gesturing to the portrait. "Hello Andrew, and nice to have you here. The voters are going to begin to figure this out."