Kayla Epstein
Reporting from New York

The three leading candidates for New York City mayor took the stage at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan to make a case to lead America's biggest city.

The outcome of the race will have political implications beyond the Empire State as President Donald Trump looms large, and whoever wins will likely face pressure from Washington in some form.

The Democratic Party is also likely watching to see if America's biggest Democratic stronghold will choose establishment centrist Andrew Cuomo, or progressive Democrat Zohran Mamdani.

The winner could signal to national party leaders what kind of candidate and platform might give them a path out of the wilderness following a staggering 2024 election loss to Trump.

Republicans will also be watching to see if candidate Curtis Sliwa can make inroads for their party on a public safety platform.

We're now ending our live debate coverage, but you can read five key takeaways here.

Sakshi Venkatraman
Reporting from New York

It was a fiery two hour debate between the three candidates up for New York City mayor.

Leading the polls is Democrat Zohran Mamdani, and he was the focus for much of the debate - be it questions from moderators or attacks from his rivals. Independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa also faced some tough questions.

Let's look at some of the major moments:

A tense atmosphere

It was a night full of personal jabs and charged exchanges between the candidates.

"He has literally never had a job," Cuomo said of Mamdani, who has been a state assemblyman since 2020. He also accused him of not being a true Democrat.

Mamdani criticised Cuomo's record as governor and brought up his sexual harassment allegations. He also corrected Sliwa several times on pronouncing his name.

Trump was the elephant in the room

Trump has had some choice words about this mayoral race, threatening to pull funding from New York City and send federal troops in. He frequently criticises Mamdani.

All candidates said they would defend New York from Trump's actions.

Gaza and Israel

Moderators honed in on Mamdani, whose strong support of Palestinians and criticisms of Israel goes further than most of the Democratic establishment.

"Of course I believe they [Hamas] should lay down their arms...a ceasefire means ceasing fire," he said tonight.

Sliwa and Cuomo praised Trump for ending the war and said Mamdani won't help Jewish people in New York.

Cost of living

The three candidates have very different ideas on how the city's affordability crisis should be addressed.

Mamdani repeated his campaign promise to raise taxes on the wealthy 1% to provide more free services to New Yorkers.

Cuomo says tax hikes will cause people to "flee" to Florida, Sliwa agreed.

Natalie Sherman
New York business reporter

When Mamdani won the Democratic primary last June, it sparked an outpouring of alarm among the city’s business class.

JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon dismissed him as spouting "ideological mush that means nothing in the real world".

Investor Bill Ackman, who has donated more than $1m to try to stop Mamdani’s candidacy, has said his policies would be "disastrous" for New York City.

"This will not end well," hedge fund boss Daniel Loeb warned recently on social media.

But as a Mamdani mayoralty starts to look more likely, what was often described by media over the summer as a Wall Street "freak-out", appears to have subsided a bit, as Mamdani looks to reassure business leaders he will remain open to their concerns and staff his administration with experienced, non-ideological managers.

"It's been a busy couple of months ... for him to build some relationships and I think he's done a very good job of it," Kathryn Wylde, chief executive of the business group Partnership for New York, told the BBC recently.

"When he was elected, nobody knew him. Everybody knew the negative rhetoric around the campaign and they were scared."

Have free bus schemes been ‘a disaster’?published at 02:42 BST 17 October

02:42 BST 17 October

Aisha Sembhi, BBC Verify

One of Zohran Mamdani’s key pledges is for free bus travel for all New Yorkers, if he becomes mayor.

During the debate, Andrew Cuomo said about his rival’s plan, "It's been done before in other cities. It's been a disaster, they stopped".

Free bus travel has been implemented in several US cities. After a 2020 trial period in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the city made the scheme permanent in 2023 - and reported a 20% increase, external in ridership in 2024.

Richmond, Virginia has also been operating a ‘Zero Fare’ model since 2020 - though the city has recently begun promoting community fundraisers to keep the system free.

The free bus model was trialled in Kansas City but the city council has announced that fares would be reintroduced in 2026.

Mamdani took part in a fare-free pilot scheme on five bus routes in New York.

A report into the pilot, external by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) found that the number of people using the service increased on all routes, however the average speed of the buses decreased.

Cuomo also claimed free bus models result in buses becoming "mobile homeless gathering places". There was no mention of homeless passengers in the MTA report.

Nada Tawfik
Reporting from New York

Image source, Reuters

After Andrew Cuomo lost to Mamdani in the Democratic primary, he announced in a video that he would run in the general election as an independent, promising a new and improved campaign after an uninspired primary run.

In comparison to Mamdani, who seemed to be on a mission to cover every inch of the city, Cuomo had little interaction with voters.

So, in the video he declared that he would be going out on the streets every day to hear from New Yorkers because it was his responsibility to earn their votes.

But it’s not been easy for the well-known former governor to change his public image. And the harder he’s tried, with varying approaches, the more it’s highlighted the glaring generational divide between the two campaigns.

After one ad where he helped a man jump-start his car, the right-leaning tabloid, the New York Post, noted the video "crashed and burned", and was blasted as "cringe and inauthentic".

Later, he was criticised for using AI, rather than NY artists, to create an ad portraying him doing various jobs around the city before the real Cuomo on camera says, "There are a lot of jobs I can’t do. But I’m ready to be your mayor on day one."

He’s hoping by highlighting Mamdani’s inexperience relative to his years in government, public safety and job creation, along with affordability, he’ll sway voters.

How bad is crime in Republican states?published at 02:23 BST 17 October

02:23 BST 17 October

By Joshua Cheetham

Earlier in the debate, the candidates were asked about whether they would accept any deployment of the National Guard to the streets of New York.

Zohran Mamdani said he wouldn’t and added: "If it was safety that Donald Trump was concerned about, he would send them to the eight out of 10 states that have the highest levels of crime in this country. But he won’t because they’re all run by Republicans."

We’ve taken "run by Republicans" to mean a state with a Republican governor and a Republican-majority legislature.

According to the latest figures from the Justice Center , externalthink tank, in 2024 Alaska - a Republican-run state - had the highest levels of violent crime in the country, with 724 violent incidents per 100,000 people.

Behind it came New Mexico, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, California, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas and South Carolina.

Five of these are Republican run, three are run by Democrats, and one, Kansas, is split between the two parties.

So a majority are Republican run but we don’t make it eight out of 10.

Grace Eliza Goodwin
Reporting from New York

Image source, Grace Eliza Goodwin / BBC

In a gaggle with reporters after the debate, Sliwa says he thinks he did "extraordinarily well" tonight.

"I obviously had to get my words in edgewise because you had two kids in the schoolyard who just wanted to continue their battles from the primary."

Sliwa dug into Cuomo for losing the primary and continuing to run as an independent, saying "he doesn't understand the meaning of ‘no’ in so many ways."

Sliwa again mispronounces Zohran Mamdani’s first name, after Mamdani corrected him several times during the debate.

Early voting in the NYC mayor’s race is set to begin next week, so let’s have a look at how each of the three major candidates are doing in the polls.

The most recent polling, conducted by Quinnipiac University, external between 3-7 October, suggests Zohran Mamdani has widened his lead to double digits over Andrew Cuomo with Curtis Sliwa trailing behind.

Here’s where they stand with likely voters according to the poll:

Mamdani - 46%Cuomo - 33%Sliwa - 15%

With that, the first New York City mayoral debate has finished. Stick with us for more top lines from this campaign and reactions and analysis from tonight's head-to-head.

For more stories from the US and around the world, follow BBC News US on WhatsApp.

Bodegas (corner stores with deli counters) are an institution in New York City.

The candidates are asked what their go-to breakfast sandwich order is:

Cuomo and Sliwa both said they order an egg and cheese on a roll - with no salt.

Mamdani spiced things up, saying he gets an egg and cheese on a roll with jalapeños.

Image source, Reuters

In New York City, the use of recreational marijuana is legal. The moderators ask the candidates if they've ever bought a product from one of these dispensaries.

Mamdani smiles and says yes, he has legally purchased recreational marijuana.

Cuomo says he has not.

Sliwa says "when he was shot five times" he did use medical marijuana.

The candidates are now being asked about calls to 911 - which routes responses to emergency first responders, including police - for people who appear to be dealing with mental health struggles.

Mamdani said he wants to take non-violent mental health calls out of the police department and instead send mental health experts to the scene.

Moderators push him on this, asking who will make the call on what situations are violent. He says he will trust 911 operators will make those determinations, along with the mental health professionals.

Sliwa differs, calling Mamdani's plan a "fantasy".

He said mentally ill people need to be "removed" and need mental healthcare and proper homeless shelters.

Cuomo says calls about mentally ill people can turn violent, and there should be social workers and police officers both on the scene.

Sliwa pushes back against Cuomo too, saying it's "not realistic" to deploy both police and mental health professionals.

Image source, Reuters

A bit of confusion here on the debate stage. The moderators ask Cuomo to look into the camera and answer a question within 30 seconds. And then next to him, not looking into the live camera, Sliwa starts to answer.

They tell him it's for Cuomo, who looks confused. He asks which camera to look at, and how long to speak.

He gets a few lines out but his time runs out.

The candidates are now focusing on a hyper-local topic: education policies in the city.

Sliwa says his two 4-year-old sons failed to get into New York's gifted and talented programme - which provides accelerated curriculum for advanced elementary school students - but that didn't hold them back in their education. He adds that there needs to be more slots in the program for New York's kids.

Cuomo says he would expand the gifted and talented programme, as well as double the number of specialised high schools.

Mamdani says that his past statements about phasing out the gifted and talented programme were specifically and only about the kindergarten level of the programme, not higher grades.

The candidates are asked who they view as the best modern day US president.

Here are their picks:

Cuomo: Bill Clinton (Cuomo notes he was Clinton's Housing and Urban Development secretary).

Mamdani: Franklin Roosevelt

Sliwa: Ronald Reagan (Sliwa intially misinterprets the question and answers George Pataki, a former governor of New York)

Image source, Reuters

Next, Cuomo addresses accusations of antisemitism around Mamdani. The former governor says many Jewish New Yorkers think Mamdani is antisemitic, but will not answer when asked if he himself thinks Mamdani is antisemitic.

Mamdani responds by saying he has denounced Hamas many times. He accuses Cuomo of making false statements about him, and of sending out anti-Mamdani mailers that artificially lengthened his beard.

Cuomo is now asked what lessons he learned from losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani.

His answer: use social media more in his campaign.

"I did not do enough on social media," he say, saying Mamdani did a better job on TikTok. "But my agenda is exactly the same" as it was during the primary.

Candidates discuss public service 311 hotlinepublished at 01:31 BST 17 October

01:31 BST 17 October

Kayla Epstein
US reporter

The candidates are asked how much they use a public service known as 311.

311 is a non-emergency number and website that New Yorkers can use to report issues like potholes, illegally dumped trash, excessive rats, traffic problems, noise, icy streets, and more. The service also allows callers to request assistance for homeless people.

All the candidates say they've called 311, but have mixed reviews of its responsiveness.

In my own experience, the 311 response rate has sometimes been spotty - but this summer they did respond to my request to fix an out-of-order traffic light within an hour.

The candidates are asked what they would do to combat noise complaints in the city that never sleeps.

Cuomo says the ethos in the city right now is "toxic" and "divisive." And to reset that ethos, he says, New York needs greater public safety.

Sliwa says his goal is improve quality of life, by tackling things like trash pile-ups and illegal parking, so that New Yorkers stay in the city and don't flee.

Mamdani says one of the biggest noise complaints in the city is over traffic congestion. If congestion pricing were implemented, he says, it would drop noise complaints in the congestion zone.

Image source, Reuters

The candidates are now talking about taxes.

Cuomo and Sliwa seem to be aligned on attacking Mamdani's tax increase plans.

"You would see New Yorkers on I-95 fleeing to Florida" if Mamdani's tax plan is implemented Cuomo says

Sliwa agrees, saying New Yorkers are being "lured south".

"You gotta cut taxes for people to stay here," he says.