Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, with his predecessor David Paterson at a recent event, has taken his mayoral campaign to some unusual places, including to the podcast of the influencer Logan Paul.

Andrew M. Cuomo, tieless but never casual, was making a familiar point in an unfamiliar place.

“You know, government is supposed to function,” Mr. Cuomo, the 67-year-old mayoral candidate, told Logan Paul, the 30-year-old influencer-wrestler-bro, seated recently in a luxury hotel room between at least six bottles of Paul-branded energy drinks and two Paul-branded snack packs. “It’s not a debating society.”

The host had something to add.

“EYOOOOOOOOOO.”

Suddenly Mr. Paul was shouting, transition-less, at his great many podcast listeners, smash-cutting to a prerecorded ad break about professional wrestling merch.

Thirty-two seconds later, Mr. Cuomo had the floor again.

“There was a great senator, Ted Kennedy, God rest his soul …”

There was a governor, Andrew Cuomo, God rest his decade ruling Albany, who would have sooner traveled the state by Winnebago with Bill de Blasio, his sworn nemesis, than submit to the sundry humiliations of the modern underdog campaign.

Now, straining to catch Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, in the closing stages of this mayoral race, Mr. Cuomo has shown far more hustle than he did in his languid primary bid — sitting with seniors and shock-jocks, semi-smiling for cellphone selfies, play-grabbing the shoulders of me