New York City’s mayoral election , normally a local contest focused on issues such as housing, policing and transport, has this year become a lightning rod in America’s national politics. What is usually a battle to manage the country’s largest city has turned into a referendum on the ideological direction of the United States itself, pitting progressivism against centrism, and both against a rising wave of conservative populism.

Three men are competing for control of City Hall: Zohran Mamdani , a 34-year-old Democratic socialist and state assemblyman from Queens; Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor running as an independent after years in the Democratic mainstream; and Curtis Sliwa, a Republican radio host best known for founding the Guardian Angels, a civilian anti-crime patr

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