When Zohran Mamdani entered the race for mayor of New York City almost a year ago, he was a little-known state assemblyman from Queens.

Now, as the Nov. 4 election nears, Mr. Mamdani is the Democratic nominee and the unquestioned front-runner in the race. Even as his rivals attack him as too far to the left, he has kept his lead in the polls and brought reluctant Democratic leaders into the fold.

Still, he has far less governing experience than former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams, two of his rivals — a potential weakness that they have tried to underscore in their campaign messaging.

The three leading candidates in the mayor’s race recently visited The New York Times for interviews. We plan to publish excerpts from those interviews, and this is the second in the series; the first, with Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, can be found here. The conversations have been edited for length and clarity. Mayor Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent and is fourth in the polls, declined to participate.

We asked Mr. Mamdani, 33, 10 questions on subjects ranging from thorny policy issues to his favorite subway seat, with room for an occasional follow-up.

We’ve written previously about how Mr. Mamdani won the primary and his plans for public safety and universal child care, among other topics. We also asked him 10 questions during the primary campaign.