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In the initial counting of first-choice votes in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is leading, surpassing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Despite this advantage, no candidate is on track to achieve an outright majority in the opening round of the ranked choice voting system.
Currently, Mamdani holds approximately 44% of the first-choice votes, with Cuomo following closely at around 36%. Mamdani’s swift rise in popularity has positioned him as the progressive alternative to the more well-known Cuomo.
Although New York City faces a wait of at least a week or possibly more to determine the final winner of the Democratic nomination through ranked choice counting, Cuomo conveyed to his supporters that he is running out of time for a political resurgence.
“Tonight was not our night. Tonight was Assemblyman Mamdani’s night and he put together a great campaign and he touched young people and inspired them and moved them and got them to come out and vote and he really ran a highly impactful campaign. I called him and congratulated him,” Cuomo said, asking supporters to give Mamdani a round of applause.
“Tonight is his night. He deserved it, he won.”
Under ranked choice voting in the city, voters rank up to five preferences on their ballot. Support for the lowest-finishing candidates is then reallocated to those voters’ next choices, and the process continues until there are two candidates left.
The city Board of Elections plans to release the results of those initial allocations next Tuesday. But depending on how many mail-in and provisional ballots still need to be counted, it could take longer to determine a winner.
The wait had been expected considering the 11-candidate field splitting Democratic votes. And the ranked choice system can encourage low-polling candidates to stay in because they know their supporters’ choices can still be taken into account if they fall short.
Mamdani’s rise
Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor if elected, has gained steam in the closing weeks of the race as he’s pitched a progressive vision for the city. He has run an energetic campaign focused on tackling higher costs, promising to freeze rents and offer free buses, universal childcare and other progressive policies that would be paid for in part by raising taxes on the rich.
He’s become the focal point for an anti-Cuomo movement that’s rallied behind the banner of “Don’t rank Cuomo,” arguing the former governor doesn’t deserve a successful political comeback after resigning from office in 2021 over sexual harassment allegations. Mamdani has secured cross-endorsement deals with fellow candidates including city Comptroller Brad Lander and former DNC vice chair Michael Blake.
They directed their supporters to also rank the other candidate on their ballot, an attempt to team up to use ranked choice voting to have a candidate pull away from Cuomo after several rounds of accumulated support from non-Cuomo voters.
Lander, who was arrested earlier this month serving as an advocate for defendants in federal immigration court, is the only other candidate sniffing double-digits. His decision to cross-endorse Mamdani, and to stand by him when other prominent New York Jews lambasted Mamdani’s unwillingness to denounce the slogan “globalize the intifada,” could prove integral if Lander’s supporters break largely for Mamdani and help him clinch the nomination.
“Together, we are sending Andrew Cuomo back to the suburbs! With our help, Zohran Mamdani will be the Democratic nominee for the mayor of the city of New York and we are on a path to win a city that all New Yorkers can afford and where everyone belongs,” Lander said Tuesday night at his campaign’s election night event.
Mamdani also received prominent endorsements from Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Working Families Party, and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who, like Mamdani, identifies as a democratic socialist. Other prominent New Yorkers, like state Attorney General Letitia James, have asked supporters to include Mamdani on their ranked choice ballots (and for them to leave Cuomo off) even while saying they’d prefer another candidate.
Cuomo’s comeback attempt
Cuomo was long seen as the frontrunner in the race, with his unique profile as a former statewide official and national Democratic Party heavyweight lending him broad name identification from the start of his campaign, which none of his rivals could match at the beginning. He leaned heavily on that experience to argue he is the only candidate who’d be able to adequately fight back against President Donald Trump.
He marshalled heavy political support from prominent Democrats like former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr., state and multiple members of Congress. And he received a big boost from a deep-pocketed super PAC (which received $8.5 million from Bloomberg) that blanketed the airwaves with ads singing his strengths and criticizing Mandami.
But the comeback bid, which Cuomo himself threw some cold water on Tuesday night after seeing the initial results, comes four years after he resigned under pressure after investigations by the state attorney general found that his administration undercounted Covid deaths in nursing homes and that he sexually harassed multiple women. (Cuomo admitted at the time that he “made mistakes” but has also said he was a victim of “cancel culture”).
His current supporters include many who previously called on him to resign from his post as governor, as they argue Cuomo’s experience is what the city needs right now. And he received a big boost from a well-funded super PAC (which received $8.5 million from Bloomberg) that blanketed the airwaves with ads praising his strengths and criticizing Mandami.
The two top candidates, and their allies, have been unsparing in their criticism of each other. The pro-Cuomo super PAC has run a deluge of ads framing Mamdani as “a risk we can’t afford,” criticizing him as too radical for the city.
“Experience matters, and I think inexperience is dangerous in this case. Mr. Mamdani has had a staff of five people, you’re now going to run a staff of 300,000 employees?” Cuomo said during a debate hosted by Spectrum News NY1 earlier this month.
He added: “He’s never dealt with the City Council. He’s never dealt with the Congress. He’s never dealt with the state Legislature. He’s never negotiated with a union. He’s never built anything. He’s never dealt with a natural emergency. He’s never dealt with a hurricane, with a flood, et cetera. He’s never done any of the essentials. And now you have Donald Trump on top of all of that.”
But while Cuomo has leaned on that experience as a strength, his opponents have tried to turn the tables by reminding voters of the reason he’s in the race in the first place — his fall from grace four years ago after sexual harassment allegations.
“To Mr. Cuomo: I have never had to resign in disgrace, I have never cut Medicaid,” Mamdani replied to Cuomo at the Spectrum News/NY1 debate.
“I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accuse me of sexual harassment, I have never sued for their gynecological records, and I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo,” he added, ending by forcefully correcting Cuomo for saying his last name incorrectly.
The two have also sparred over Israel and its war with Hamas in Gaza. Cuomo attacked after Mamdani appeared to defend the slogan “globalize the intifada” during a podcast interview released a week before the election, and Cuomo and his allies boosted criticism from those like the head of the Anti-Defamation League and the U.S. Holocaust Museum. Mamdani responded during an emotional conversation with reporters in which he said he believes “there is no room for antisemitism in this city” and shared that he’s received threats on his life based on his religion.
