Record-Breaking Early Voting Looks Good for Mamdani

Early voting in the mayoral election began on Saturday, and the figures so far show it has smashed numbers from the last race and even the June Democratic primary when high voter turnout elevated Zohran Mamdani to victory.

According to preliminary numbers released by the city board of elections on Tuesday night, 297,718 New Yorkers have already cast their ballot, a staggering figure for the first four days of the early voting. Brooklyn is currently leading the other four boroughs with 92,035, followed by Manhattan with 89,474 votes cast, then Queens with 68,873. Staten Island has the lowest number of early voters at 22,417; the Bronx is just above that at 24,919. By comparison, the June primary logged 131,882 early voters by the end of the fourth day. And this year’s general-election early vote has already far surpassed the total early vote in 2021 (169,486), though the comparison to Mayor Eric Adams’s victory is an imperfect one, as that general election was not competitive and came during the pandemic. A total of 384,338 New Yorkers voted early in this year’s primary election.

The significant level of turnout suggests a high level of enthusiasm among voters, which powered Mamdani to a double-digit victory over Andrew Cuomo thanks to an immense showing from young and first-time voters who went uncaptured in preelection polls.

A caveat, though: A data analysis of the first two days of early voting from Gothamist shows Gen-X and baby-boomer voters combined made up 50 percent of early votes cast, two demographic groups that Cuomo has consistently led with in polls. Sixteen percent of those early voters are voters between 25 to 34. It’s unclear if these findings are indicative of a Cuomo boost or if it’s a sign of motivation among Republican voters as well following an uncompetitive primary in June when nominee Curtis Sliwa ran unopposed.

Regarding day four’s numbers, analyst Adam Carlson adds in an X thread:

The gap between Brooklyn/Manhattan/Queens and the Bronx/Staten Island — as a percentage of total early votes, compared to 2021/2024 — continued to grow. That is not good for Cuomo. He needs big Election Day turnout from both boroughs (especially the Bronx). … Age breakdowns from Days 1-2 looked pretty good for Cuomo, but the story on geographic breaks was more nuanced than many takesmiths made it out to be.

The Mamdani campaign made a big push for early voting over the weekend, which began with a long-awaited endorsement from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and ended with a stadium rally in Queens with Mamdani alongside Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The rally also featured appearances from Comptroller Brad Lander as well as Governor Kathy Hochul, who was heckled by the audience with calls to “Tax the rich!” a key plank of Mamdani’s platform that Hochul has expressed reservations with.

Early voting continues through Sunday, November 2. New York City residents can find their early vote polling sites here.

This post has been updated to include the latest totals.