The day after their heated debate at El Museo del Barrio, the candidates for mayor got up early to get back on the campaign trail.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Bayside, Queens bright and early Wednesday morning to greet commuters at the Long Island Rail Road station.

He told NY1 that he was pleased by his performance in Tuesday night's debate and that the event functions as a great way to raise a candidates profile and get the word out about voting.

“I think it was fine. My opponent had a chance to say what he wanted to say and I had a chance to say what I wanted to say,” Bloomberg said. “Whether you sway voters one way or another, that’s what you find out on November 3rd and you never know. It’s not one thing that makes voters decide one way or another. I think the most important thing is that it might get attention for the process and we need more people coming out to vote.”

Bloomberg also released a new advertisement Wednesday, slamming Thompson and using soundbites from Tuesday night's faceoff.

The mayor spent Wednesday afternoon at the Vanderbilt YMCA announcing a new volunteer initiative.

City Comptroller Bill Thompson, the Democratic candidate for mayor, was also up early greeting commuters on the Upper East Side.

“I thought I did well,” said Thompson. “There were some of Mike Bloomberg’s distortions that I wanted to dispel. I wanted to point out the fact that I think he betrayed the voters of New York City in eliminating term limits and I think I did that. I would have liked to be able to talk a bit more about unemployment and jobs.”

He later traveled to the restaurant Junior's in Downtown, Brooklyn, where he handed out pamphlets that said "endorsed by President Obama" -- referring to the somewhat tepid endorsement by the Obama administration last week. Obama's press secretary said the president was supporting the Democratic candidate for mayor, but never referred to Thompson by name.

The two most hotly-contested issues at the debate, which was cosponsored by NY1, were education and term limits.

Thompson charged that Bloomberg acted inappropriately when he pushed for the elimination of term limits, while Bloomberg alleged that Thompson left the school system in disarray when he served as the president of the Board of Education.