As far as I’m concerned, Curtis Sliwa won last night’s mayoral debate.

He had the kind of great ideas of lower taxes, school choice, more cops, backing Jewish people and the state of Israel, attracting new businesses into the city instead of losing them, deregulating to build affordable housing, and the kind of high energy we want in a New York City chief executive.

The former governor, Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, is a junior President Biden, with no energy, though he did pound Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani on Hamas, Israel, and antisemitism.

Mr. Mamdani was his usual left-wing socialist smug self.

He thinks because he went to an expensive left-wing college and comes from Uganda, that he’s somehow superior to the people of the city of New York. He is not.

Here’s Mr. Sliwa’s common sense answer to business and taxes: “Well, Zohran, boy your fantasies.. Never going to come about in terms of funding everything you want. It’s going to be free. Free. Free. It’s a fantasy. Let’s deal with the reality.” 

He added: “You got to cut taxes for people to stay here. Corporations are not going to stay here. They’re being lured to the South.”

Of course, Mr. Mamdani wants to jack up taxes on successful earners and businesses. It’s pure insanity.

Here’s a quiz for Mr. Mamdani: What’s the combined state and local tax rate at New York City? Answer: 14.8 percent.

Now, what’s the combined tax rate at Miami, Florida, with its new stock exchange? Answer: zero.

Now, what’s the combined tax rate at Dallas, Texas, with its new stock exchange? Answer: zero.

Even the Democratic Socialists of America should know the difference between 14.8 percent and zero. Not Mr. Mamdani, though, because he’s not very smart and he’s a committed left-wing ideologue.

Mr. Mamdani would not join Messrs. Cuomo or Sliwa in putting more cops on the street — which is the key to public safety and law and order.

And only Mr. Sliwa clearly explained why these domestic violence calls from around the city must bring the cops in first for safety reasons, and then perhaps later on some kind of social counseling.

Yet Mr. Mamdani’s nutty idea of social workers first is going to be rejected by anybody watching that debate.

On Jewish policy, no matter what Mr. Mamdani says, his history of antisemitism, favoring Hamas, from the river to the sea, all of that speaks to his dislike of Jewish people and the Israeli state.

He can deny it up and down for the next 20 years. He can say that and other nutty things he tweeted out a few years ago don’t represent his campaign today, but he is lying through his phony toothy smile.

The election is November 4. I’m not smart enough to know the winner. What I do know is that Mr. Sliwa did himself a lot of good last night.

Mr. Cuomo likely didn’t help himself. And socialist Mr. Mamdani, who has never held a real job before on top of his extremist far out socialist policies, showed anybody who watched that he is not the man to run New York City at a time when we need a new prosperous golden age.

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.