Zohran Mamdani pledged to fight “for every single dollar this city is owed” this morning in the face of threats from President Trump to withhold federal funding from New York.
The democratic socialist and frontrunner to be the city’s next mayor addressed reporters from a playground in Astoria, shortly after voting with his wife Rama Duwaji.
“It is a day we have been dreaming of for more than a year and as much as things have changed over the course of this campaign, in many ways it is the same campaign that we opened on October 23 [2024].”
Then he was a relative unknown. Now the little playground near his home in Astoria was packed with reporters and photographers perched on playground sets to get their shot.
When will the new mayor be sworn in?
The winner of the 2025 New York City mayoral race will be sworn on January 1, 2026, marking the official start of his term.
Eric Adams, the current mayor, was sworn in a minute after midnight on January 1, 2021 in Times Square. Although City Hall is where swearing-in ceremonies are traditionally held, the mayor ultimately has the decision to choose the location.
Long lines in deep blue district
The lines at my polling station in Brooklyn were long — one person had to leave after waiting 20 minutes (Josie Ensor writes). Poll workers who had volunteered at previous elections said they had not seen lines this long before at 8.30am.
A busy polling station in Brooklyn
MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES
My district is deep blue on the electoral map, so it was no surprise that of the ten people I surveyed, seven said they had voted for the Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, the other three for Andrew Cuomo, the independent candidate.
James Graham, a 30-year-old software engineer, voted for Cuomo in 2018 but believes the former Democrat has lost his magic. “He’s run a totally uninspiring campaign,” he said “All he talks about is the things he can’t do. That’s not the attitude we need.”
Maeve Newman, 26, a data analyst, voted for Mamdani. “So many people here are existing at the bottom and only one candidate is trying to address that,” she said. “Rent freezes, free childcare — people scoff but these things are all achievable.”
Andrew Cuomo visits a polling station at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan
REUTERS/KYLIE COOPER
Elon Musk endorsed Andrew Cuomo on Monday, telling his followers on X that a vote for Curtis Sliwa was a vote for “Mumdani … or whatever his name is”.
President Trump backed Cuomo during a CBS 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, saying he would choose a “bad democrat” over Mamdani, a self-described democrat socialist.
“I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or another, but if it’s gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you,” he said.
Could radical Democrat be last straw for Staten Island?
The light of an October afternoon is fading as Curtis Sliwa stands on a roadside deep in suburban Staten Island, greeting his people (Will Pavia writes).
He is perched on a rock on a narrow grassy verge and looks from a distance, in his suit and his beret, like a military statue on a pedestal. Occasionally a passing car honks and the statue raises a palm in acknowledgment.
Curtis Sliwa with supporters in Staten Island last week
JOHN TAGGART FOR THE TIMES
The half a million residents of this island are the only constituency of New York City’s five boroughs that is majority Republican. And Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor, believes that they may demand to secede from the city if the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani wins the race as expected.
“I think they will want to join New Jersey,” he says.
• Read in full: Will Staten Island secede if NYC elects Mamdani?
Trump is pragmatic, says Cuomo in plea for votes
Andrew Cuomo has urged Republicans to vote for him and not Curtis Sliwa, after being endorsed by President Trump.
“President Trump is pragmatic. He is telling them the reality of the situation, which is if you don’t get out and vote, Mamdani is going to win,” Cuomo said during an appearance on Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning.
Trump gave his last-minute endorsement on Truth Social, claiming: “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”
In response, Mamdani mocked Cuomo, writing on social media: “Congratulations Andrew Cuomo. I know how hard you worked for this.”
Comment: Mamdani’s hard-left economics have willing British audience
The ripples from today’s mayoral election in New York extend across the Atlantic (Melanie Phillips writes).
The upstart Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani is expected to win. His agenda, combining extreme left-wing policies with a pitch about “genocide” in Gaza, is prompting enthusiasm in Britain among hard-left politicians who think he’s mapping out the route to hitherto unattainable electoral success.
In New York over the past few days, I’ve found a city divided between horror and jubilation over the prospect of Mamdani in City Hall. With many postal votes already in, people are wearing “I voted for Zohran” stickers. But a poll suggests that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are preparing to bolt from the city if he wins.
• Read in full: New York radical will embolden UK Green fantasy
Illustrator who could be NYC’s first lady
Mamdani with his wife, Rama Duwaji, after he was announced as the Democratic nominee in June
MICHAEL M SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES
Fresh out of university and with her parents in Dubai, a Syrian-American artist named Rama Duwaji wondered what she would do with the rest of her life (Will Pavia writes).
“The ideal scenario is I’d be living in New York,” she told an interviewer. “I mean, it’s kind of a cliché.”
That was in 2020. The next year she moved to the US where she met a man called Zohran Mamdani on a dating app and started working as a ceramicist and illustrator. This year they got married. Now she is expected to become the first lady of New York City.
• Who is Zohran Mamdani’s wife? Artist fighting ‘American imperialism’
‘Best candidate in the race’
Among the New Yorkers to cast their votes early were Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji. The couple voted at a high school in Queens.
Asked by journalists who had gathered outside who he had voted for, the Democratic Party candidate laughed and replied: “Best candidate in the race.”
Cuomo began race as frontrunner
Andrew Cuomo campaign in the Washington Heights neighbourhood of Manhattan on Monday
TIMOTHY A CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Cuomo launched his campaign in March, saying he wished to “do the right thing” and rescue his home town from crime, homelessness and disorder on the subway (Will Pavia writes).
There seemed to be little standing in his way. An unpopular, scandal-plagued incumbent, Eric Adams, and a handful of politicians with modest profiles were the only other candidates running in the Democratic primary.
Every poll showed Cuomo comfortably ahead of a crowded field, with at least 30 per cent support. The path to Gracie Mansion appeared all but assured in a city where Democrats make up two thirds of the electorate.
Primary voters, however, had a different plan. In June, Zohran Mamdani — self-described Democratic socialist — defeated Cuomo by 13 points. In an “age-quake”, Mamdani brought record numbers of young voters to the polls, and for the first time in a city primary, voters under 50 outnumbered those over 50.
• Read in full: Who is Andrew Cuomo? Former governor and NYC mayoral election candidate
‘Toxic energy’: how campaign got personal
The insults have got increasingly personal during the mayoral campaign.
Cuomo has called Mamdani, 34, a “kid” who would get knocked “on his tuchus” by President Trump. He also accused Mamdani of bringing a “toxic energy” to New York.
A group supporting Cuomo recently ran an advert depicting Mamdani in front of the Twin Towers on 9/11.
Mamdani, in response, said he faced “racist, baseless” attacks. He has called Cuomo a “desperate man” and “Trump’s puppet”, as well as highlighting allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo — which Cuomo has denied.
Mamdani leading in latest poll
The last opinion poll before the election in New York put Mamdani at 43.9 per cent, Cuomo at 39.4 per cent and Sliwa at 15.5 per cent.
More than 2,400 “likely voters” were asked for their voting intentions by AtlasPoll, between October 31 and November 2.
• NYC election polls: latest predictions for mayoral race
Redrawing the electoral map in California
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who is frequently mentioned as a 2028 presidential hopeful, is leading a charge to redraw congressional maps to give Democrats as many as five more House seats in upcoming elections.
Gavin Newsom
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
The push is the centrepiece of a Democratic effort to counter new Republican maps in Texas and elsewhere that were drawn to boost the GOP’s chances in next year’s fight to control Congress.
In order for the new maps to count in 2026, however, voters will first have to approve a yes-or-no ballot question known as Proposition 50.
New Jersey vote on a knife-edge
In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, a fomer helicopter pilot for the US navy, is standing for the Democrats.
Sherrill was only marginally ahead in the polls and Tuesday’s vote is expected to be on a knife-edge.
Standing against Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia is Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA agent who spent years working undercover overseas.
Spanberger was leading by seven points in opinion polls heading in to the vote. Virginia is home to more than 300,000 federal workers, many of whom may have been affected by Trump’s DOGE cutbacks as well as the ongoing government shutdown.
Both Sherrill and Spanberger have downplayed their support for progressive policies, including LGBT rights during the campaign.
Governor elections are test for Trump
Other elections taking place today include the vote for a state governor in Virginia and New Jersey. They are the the only states electing governors this year, and their results could be seen as mini-referendums on Trump’s second term.
Both states voted Democrat in last year’s presidential election, but voters in each have a history of electing Republicans for state office.
The Republican candidates have closely aligned themselves with the president, even though he did not appear in either state to campaign.
• What the New Jersey and Virginia elections say about the Democrats — and Trump
Trump has endorsed Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey, but held only two town halls by telephone on his behalf.
The president also did a telephone town hall for Virginia on the eve of the election but gave the candidate Winsome Earle-Sears only a half-hearted endorsement and did not use her name.
What do the three candidates stand for?
Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa and Zohran Mamdani took part in a debate on October 16
ANGELINA KATSANIS/AP
Mamdani has campaigned on a ticket of trying to make New York more affordable for its residents.
He has vowed to increase publicly subsidised housing, raise corporate taxes and taxes on the city’s wealthiest.
Cuomo, who is standing as an independent after losing the Democratic race to Mamdani, has made a pitch to reduce crime and hire more police officers and compared Mamdani to socialist leaders in Latin America, including Venezuela and Cuba.
Sliwa is running as the Republican Party candidate. The founder of the Guardian Angels, a voluntary crime prevention organisation, has emphasised public safety and quality of life for New Yorkers, especially in the city’s outer boroughs.
When will the result be announced?
Polls in New York opened at 6am ET (11am GMT) and will close at 9pm ET (2am GMT).
A result is expected to be announced soon after polls close. In 2021 a winner was announced about ten minutes after voting ended. However, polls have narrowed in the final days before voting, which may mean a result will be announced later this time.
• NYC mayoral election 2025: candidates, key issues and when polls open
Last month one poll gave Mamdani a 26-point lead.
However, the latest AtlasIntel poll, published on the eve of voting, showed Mamdani’s lead over Cuomo down to under five points.
Trump: I’ll deport Mamdani if he wins
Trump has also threatened to take over the city if Mamdani wins, as well as arrest and deport him.
Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to parents of Indian descent. He lived in Uganda until he was five then his family moved to South Africa. The family settled in New York when he was aged seven. Mamdani is a US citizen.
His middle name is Kwame, named after the Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah, who was prime minister of the country when it gained independence from Britain in 1957.
• Read in full: Who is Zohran Mamdani? Democratic candidate in line to be NYC mayor
Trump threatens to withhold funds
On the eve of the election, President Trump threatened to withhold federal funds from New York if Mamdani wins.
In a Truth Social post, the US president said: “If communist candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, It is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home.”
Trump told people to vote for Andrew Cuomo, an independent candidate
MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/AP
New York received about $7.4 billion (£5.6 billion) in federal funding this year.
In an interview with CBS News’s 60 Minutes programme, Trump said: “It’s going to be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York. Because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.”
Mamdani has denied he is a communist and called himself a democratic socialist. In one interview he described himself as “kind of like a Scandinavian politician”.
Trump urged New Yorkers to vote for Andrew Cuomo, even if they do not like the former governor.
World watches as New Yorkers head to polls
New York City’s voters are choosing who they want as the next mayor of America’s largest city — and the outcome is being keenly watched at home and abroad.
Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary this year, faces the former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and the perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.
Zohran Mamdani at a campaign event in Queens on Saturday
STEPHANIE KEITH/GETTY IMAGES
A victory for Mamdani, 34, who led the polls coming into the vote, would give New York its first Muslim mayor and youngest leader in generations.
If Cuomo wins, he will have staged a remarkable political comeback four years after resigning as New York governor over a barrage of sexual harassment allegations.
Andrew Cuomo on the campaign trail on Monday
SETH WENIG/AP