Politics & Government

Wrap-Up: Who Won Tuesday Night's Mayoral Debate?

Five candidates enter...five candidates leave, actually.

Tuesday night was the last mayoral debate of the Democratic primary. With Public Advocate Bill de Blasio leading in the polls, all five participating candidates had an agenda: attack the guy.

We've got our thoughts on their individual performances, read them and vote in our poll!

Bill de Blasio: de Blasio, was, naturally, the target for almost every attack from the other four candidates. His job was to refute or deflect every nasty thing that was said about him during the debate, and he did that fairly effectively, if not totally effectively. Thompson and Quinn were certainly able to score some points throwing his "Worst Landlord's" list back in his face. However, voters probably weren't scared away from him tonight, which is a kind of victory for him at this point.

Bill Thompson: For Thompson, building momentum has been an issue since day one. He's been stalled around second or third the entire campaign, and in this debate we understood why. Basically canned answers, uninspiring rhetoric and not a ton of fire. He seems like the kind of guy we'd vote for as Comptroller but not Mayor, which is exactly what New York City has already done. He is, truly, the Al Gore of this election, and he looked like it Tuesday night. 

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Christine Quinn: Quinn, her campaign flagging, needed to pull out all the stops Tuesday night and she just didn't do it. We got the sense she was watching things slip through her fingers. Maybe that's not how she felt, but that's how it looked. Much of the debate was spent tweaking de Blasio or openly trading shots with him, and she didn't land as many punches as she needed to. 

Anthony Weiner: The one time front-runner looked like a man who had resigned himself to his fate. The guy is not going to be mayor. His screen time was pretty limited, he was willing to throw the other candidates a bone now and then, Quinn even smiled at him — hugely — during one of his responses. His trademark humor was on display and that was about it.  

Find out what's happening in Prospect Heights-Crown Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

John Liu: Liu was flinging mud from the word go, but almost none of it was at the other candidates. He went after the Campaign Finance Board, the investigation into his finances, the press, you name it. His presence on the stage itself felt like kind of a protest, and he leaned into that. Given the chance, he attacked de Blasio and Thompson but it was on a line we'd heard numerous times. Overall, kind of a throwaway performance for him. 

Which candidate earned your vote Tuesday night? Or did any of them? Let us know in the comments. 


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