In the first debate for this year’s city Comptroller Democratic primary, Brooklyn City Council Member Justin Brannan sought to close the polling gap between himself and front-runner Mark Levine by launching broadsides against the Manhattan borough president over his stance on Mayor Eric Adams, but the two candidates appeared aligned on most issues.
Throughout the hour-long program, the two candidates, the only ones in the four-way race who qualified for the debate stage, traded barbs over their respective approaches to the scandal-scarred Mayor Adams and how they would take on President Trump. However, there was very little daylight between them on most other topics, ranging from using the city’s pension funds to build affordable housing and auditing the NYPD’s overtime use.
