Vote 2025: Race for New York City mayor, New Jersey governor and more | Live updates

The Jack Ciattarelli campaign announced Thursday that it plans to sue Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill personally, because of claims she made during a fiery exchange in the middle of Wednesday night's gubernatorial debate.

One of the most contentious moments came when Sherrill, a four-term congresswoman elected during Trump's first midterm to a longtime GOP-held seat, accused Ciattarelli, running for governor for the third time, of profiting off the opioid crisis, leading to deaths.

"You're trying to divert from the fact you killed tens of thousands of people by printing your misinformation, your propaganda," she said during the debate.

The candidates debate opioids, their backgrounds, and claims of legality.

A campaign strategist who works with the Ciattarelli campaign said the statement made by Sherrill was a "defamatory act" and "accusing a political opponent of mass murder in a televised debate crosses the line."

Ciattarelli's campaign said they expect the lawsuit to be formally filed early next week in court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A new Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday afternoon shows that Andrew Cuomo has made gains since Eric Adams dropped out of the race, but Zohran Mamdani is still up by double digits.

The poll found a three-way race shows 46% of likely voters support Mamdani, 33% support Cuomo, and 15% support Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

This compares to Quinnipiac University's New York City poll on September 10 when it was a 4-way race with Mamdani receiving 45% support, Cuomo receiving 23% support, Sliwa receiving 15% support, and Adams receiving 12% support.

Andrew Cuomo was awarded $2,329,463 in matching funds from the Campaign Finance board this morning

Sliwa is getting $1,158,547.

And Mamdani is getting $1,029,721, although he has already raised enough to reach the spending cap.

The campaign finance board once again denied matching funds to Mayor Adams, who has suspended his campaign, as it continues to investigate his fundraising in the 2021 mayor's race.

The board will award its final matching funds on Oct. 30, the last meeting before the election.

Zohran Mamdani rode a bus in Manhattan on Wednesday to push his plan for faster and free buses.

Mamdani says there's no excuse and that buses in New York City can and should move faster. Scrapping the fare, he says, would fix that.

"If you had free buses, you'd be able to board and disembark from any one of the doors on that bus," Mamdani said. "That speeds it up."

Mamdani rode the M57, the slowest bus in the city, with transit union leader John Samuelsen -- who told reporters that he supports free buses.

"There's a load of reasons to do it, perhaps the biggest reason for the Transport Workers Union is it would dramatically reduce the assaults on our members," Samuelsen said.