Gov. Kathy Hochul largely played defense during Tuesday night’s first full Democratic gubernatorial debate, as city Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Rep. Tom Suozzi both took shots are her plan to build a new Buffalo Bills stadium and the financial windfall it might bring her husband.

The new governor was able to stave off most of the attacks, and seemed confident amid her more than 30-point lead in the polls and $18.5 million war chest.

“I understand people questioning this. I really do,” Hochul said about the stadium deal. Her husband, William Hochul Jr., is the general counsel of Delaware North, which runs the concessions at the current stadium. The new $1.4 billion stadium will be funded with $850 million in taxpayer money.

“There is no connection between this company that does concessions,” she said “They had nothing to do the negotiations.”

Hochul said her husband’s company just sells beers and hot dogs, to which Long Island’s Suozzi shot back: “Delaware North sells $11 beers to people.”

Suozzi also said New York is “the most corrupt state in the United States of America” and listed off a roster of state politicians who have been slapped with corruption charges, including former Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, who Hochul hand-picked.

Still, an assured Hochul defended her short-tenure, saying she’s done more for state gun control in her short tenure than her predecessors did in decades.

“I’ve only been governor for nine months,” she reminded the audience.

The debate, hosted by CBS 2 in Manhattan, marked the first time all three candidates were on stage together to discuss the issues of their campaigns.

Suozzi is a former county executive and Glen Cove mayor, who has campaigned as a moderate, so-called “common-sense,” Democrat ahead of the June 28 primary.

He has largely focused on his tough-on-crime platform that includes support for changing state bail laws to give judges more leeway to jail people pre-trial if they pose a threat to public safety.

On the opposite end, Williams is a longtime progressive firebrand who came within a few points of beating Hochul in 2018 primary for lieutenant governor, but has struggled to reclaim the same electoral magic.

His fundraising has lagged behind his two competitors and polling has showed him locked in a race for second place with Suozzi.

Williams came for Hochul right at the start of the debate and repeatedly tried to tie to her directly to her predecessor, disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo.

Hochul signed 10 bills into law on Monday meant to strengthen New York’s gun laws in the wake of two horrific mass shootings – one of which occurred in the governor’s hometown of Buffalo.

“It reminded me of the Cuomo press conferences during the pandemic – and I’ll tell you why. It was in the middle of the Bronx that has some of the highest shootings that we’ve seen,” Williams said, adding he thinks the efforts will do little to curb daily street violence.

The governor, he said, won’t stop gun violence by grandstanding in public, just like Cuomo didn’t stop the COVID-19 pandemic from raging across the state and killing New Yorkers.

The trio all agreed that New York should be a leader in safeguarding abortion rights amid speculation the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, but clashed on plenty of local hot-button issues.

On New York City issues, Williams was the only candidate to say the Big Apple should enact congestion pricing “now.”

“It’s important not only because of the climate, but because of the revenue we need to deal with so many issues,” he said.

Hochul dropped a bit of news when she said congestion pricing won’t be enacted this year — which Suozzi said was the right call.

“We’ve been in negotiations with the federal government that has the say on the next step and they have now put some other — let’s call them hurdles — in the way that we have to overcome,” Hochul said.

On those new requirements, she added: “This is not going to happen in the next year under any circumstances.”

After the debate, her spokesperson clarified she was referring to delays caused by federal edits to the statutorily required assessment of the tolling program’s potential environmental impacts, which the MTA had previous announced.

However, any delay would be very costly for the MTA, which is banking on the tolling program to finance the multi-billion dollar effort to replace the decades-old subway signaling system with a new computer-driven network setup.

Meanwhile, the candidates all seemed puzzled when asked by the moderators what they would do to “protect those adults and children who don’t want to be exposed to and forced to inhale marijuana smoke” amid statewide cannabis legalization.

Suozzi’s said “education” can teach people where it’s legal and illegal to smoke weed, adding that there should be open-container-like laws that apply to pot-smoking outdoors.

Hochul said she’s working with the health commissioner to put out a PSA on the subject which will discuss “how we have to respect each other’s space.”

The debate ended with a bizarre lightning round in which the politicians were asked if they believed in ghosts and what their go-to karaoke song was.

Williams performed a brief rendition of his favorite song, “Pretty Wings” by Maxwell, but Hochul and Suozzi declined to sing their respective go-to songs, “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond and “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin.

Hochul, Williams and Suozzi will meet next on June 16 at a debate sponsored by NBC New York, Telemundo 47 and the Albany Times Union.