By Joseph Ax and Maria Tsvetkova

NEW YORK (Reuters) -The New York City mayoral debate was less than two minutes old before the first mention of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Asked to imagine an ideal headline a year into his hypothetical term running the largest city in the country, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani suggested: “Mamdani continues to take on Trump, delivers an affordability agenda for New Yorkers.”

His answer encapsulated how Trump’s threats against New York have loomed over the campaign, even as Mamdani has built a double-digit lead in public polls over his chief rival, former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, by relentlessly focusing on the cost of living in the U.S. financial capital.

Trump, who hails from New York, has vowed to cut federal funding to the city if Mamda

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