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Mayor Bill de Blasio and two of his general election opponents will face off in a televised debate Tuesday night that could produce a few sparks — but not if the mayor can help it.
Both challengers, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican candidate, and Bo Dietl, a former police detective running as an independent, said they planned to ignore each other and seek to make the debate a two-way contest between themselves and the mayor.
For both Ms. Malliotakis and Mr. Dietl, the 90-minute debate, which will be broadcast on NY1 and WNYC, and in Spanish on NY1 Noticias, is a chance to try to grab the attention of voters and offer a clear rationale for why they deserve to be elected.
For his part, the mayor, who is seeking to win a second term in the Nov. 7 election and holds a formidable lead in recent polls, is likely to try to stay above the fray and stress his accomplishments.
“She needs to try to make news in some way or get under the mayor’s skin,” Mollie Fullington, a Republican political consultant who is not working with any of the candidates, said of Ms. Malliotakis.
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Mr. de Blasio, she said, “needs to be the statesman. He needs to talk about the things he’s accomplished for the City of New York and rise above it.”
Mr. Dietl has staked out a position as a rock-throwing, boisterous and rules-breaking outsider, somewhat in the mold of President Trump during last year’s presidential campaign. “Bo Dietl will be Bo Dietl,” Ms. Fullington said. “He’ll say outrageous things and probably get more media attention than the other two.”
The three candidates were at the rain-soaked Columbus Day Parade on Monday. At one point, Mr. Dietl shouted to Mr. de Blasio from the sidewalk as the mayor passed by.
“Hey, mayor, I’ll see you tomorrow night, you ready?” Mr. Dietl said, as several people around him booed Mr. de Blasio. Sal Albanese, a Democrat who is running on the Reform Party line, stood on the periphery — much as he will do for the debate. Mr. Albanese, who was easily beaten by Mr. de Blasio in the Democratic primary, was not included in Tuesday’s debate because he did not qualify under criteria established by the Campaign Finance Board, which organizes the debates. A second debate is scheduled for Nov. 1.
In a Quinnipiac University Poll released last week, 61 percent of likely voters said that they would vote for Mr. de Blasio, while 17 percent said that they would cast a ballot for Ms. Malliotakis. Eight percent favored Mr. Albanese and 6 percent preferred Mr. Dietl. The poll surveyed 731 likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percent.
“The mayor is going to discuss his record lifting up New Yorkers by highlighting his achievements, such as record-low crime, a greater push on affordable housing, fighting for working people,” said Phil Walzak, a senior adviser to Mr. de Blasio’s campaign.
He said that Mr. de Blasio would also drive home the message “that New York City needs and deserves someone who’s going to stand up to Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda, and the other people on stage can’t be trusted to do that because they both voted for him.”
Asked about Mr. Dietl, Mr. Walzak said: “New Yorkers aren’t interested in a circus. They want a serious conversation about the issues.”
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