Democratic mayoral nominee and Assembly member Zohran Mamdani.
Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
Democratic mayoral nominee and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani remains comfortably ahead in the five-way general election race for mayor — and across several scenarios in which one or more of his rivals drop out, a Gotham Polling and AARP survey released Tuesday revealed.
The poll of 1,376 likely New York City voters, taken on Aug. 11, shows Mamdani leading the five-way race with nearly 42% of the vote. He is followed by independent former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (23.4%), Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa (16.5%), independent incumbent Mayor Eric Adams (8.8%), and independent attorney Jim Walden (1.4%). The other 7.9% remain undecided.
Mamdani — a democratic socialist Queens Assembly member — also maintains his lead in a series of scenarios the poll tests, where different sets of candidates drop out. The rest of the field has been jockeying to be Mamdani’s main competitor, with Cuomo seizing on the idea that anyone who is not leading in September drops out and supports the Queens lawmaker’s runner-up.
Adams and Sliwa have rejected the idea, saying they have no plans of leaving the contest.
For instance, the poll shows that if Adams left the field, Mamdani would still lead Cuomo by 14 points (42.6% to 28.6%).
In a head-to-head matchup with Cuomo, in which all of the other candidates drop out, Mamdani is still ahead by 11 points (42% to 31.0%). In that scenario, 27% of voters, who are mostly older and split fairly evenly between parties, are still undecided, the poll found.
“Mamdani sits on a hard floor around 40% but likely to have a firm ceiling below a majority; in a split field, that’s enough to stay ahead. Cuomo has the best path of the challengers, but even in a hypothetical one-on-one in an election that often favors lower-turnout, older electorates, he still trails by double digits,” said Gotham Polling and Analytics President Stephen Graves.
“The opening for a comeback is the sizable uncommitted bloc in the consolidation tests – roughly 11% to 35% depending on who drops – which means a disciplined persuasion campaign could still make this a race,” he added.
Cuomo’s campaign spokesperson declined to comment. A Mamdani spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, Adams’ campaign spokesperson Todd Shapiro casted doubt on the survey’s accuracy.
“We’ve seen this before — polls once showed Andrew Cuomo beating Zohran Mamdani by more than 30 points, and yet Mamdani went on to win by double digits,” Shapiro said. “Mayor Adams launched his re-election campaign just a month ago, and in that short time he has already raised millions of dollars, enlisted thousands of volunteers, and earned the backing of local businesses. The energy is on his side, and he’s winning where it counts — on the ground, with real New Yorkers.”
The survey shows that Mamdani is also leading across all racial and ethnic demographic groups. He has strong support among Black (48%), Hispanic (45%), and Asian (48%) voters.
The poll found Cuomo does best among Jewish voters, 38% of whom support him compared to 22% who prefer Mamdani.
About the same number of surveyed voters (47%) view Mamdani favorably as unfavorably, with 5.2% remaining neutral. More voters (51.5%) view Cuomo unfavorably than favorably (38.8%), while 10.2% do not lean one way or the other.
The survey results continue a trend of Mamdani holding a commanding lead in public polls following the June Democratic primary. It also shows that the Democratic nominee would win by a strong plurality, but not a majority, due to his fractured field of competitors.