LONDON (AP) — He’s the left-leaning Muslim mayor of the country’s biggest city, and U.S. President Donald Trump is one of his biggest critics.
London’s Sadiq Khan has a lot in common with New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — but also many differences.
Khan, who has been mayor of Britain’s capital since 2016, welcomed Mamdani’s victory, saying New Yorkers had “chosen hope over fear, unity over division.”
Khan’s experience holds positive and negative lessons for Mamdani, the 34-year-old Democrat who beat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s election.
Khan has won three consecutive elections but routinely receives abuse for his faith and race, as well as criticism from conservative and far-right commentators who depict London as a crime-plagued dystopia.
Trump has been among his harshest critics for years, calling Khan a “stone cold loser,” a “nasty person” and a “terrible mayor,” and claiming the mayor wants to bring Sharia, or Islamic law, to London.
Khan, a keen amateur boxer, has hit back, saying in September that Trump is “racist, he is sexist, he is misogynistic and he is Islamophobic.”
Khan told The Associated Press during a global mayors’ summit in Brazil on Wednesday that it’s “heartbreaking” but not surprising to see Mamdani receiving the same sort of abuse he gets.
“London is liberal, progressive, multicultural, but also successful — as indeed is New York,” he said. “If you’re a nativist, populist politician, we are the antithesis of all you stand for. ”
Attacked for their religion
Mamdani and Khan regularly receive abuse and threats because of their Muslim faith, and London’s mayor has significantly tighter security protection than his predecessors.
Both have tried to build bridges with the Jewish community after being criticized by opponents for their pro-Palestinian stances during the Israel-Hamas war.
Both say their political opponents have leaned into Islamophobia. In 2016, Khan’s Conservative opponent, Zac Goldsmith, was accused of anti-Muslim prejudice for suggesting that Khan had links to Islamic extremists.
Cuomo laughed along with a radio host who suggested Mamdani would “be cheering” another 9/11 attack. Mamdani’s Republican critics frequently, falsely call him a “jihadist” and a Hamas supporter.
Mamdani vowed during the campaign that he would “not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I’m proud to call my own.”
Khan has said he feels a responsibility to dispel myths about Muslims, and answers questions about his faith with weary good grace. He calls himself “a proud Brit, a proud Englishman, a proud Londoner and a proud Muslim.”
Very different politicians
Mamdani is an outsider on the left of his party, a democratic socialist whose buzzy, digital-savvy campaign energized young New Yorkers and drove the city’s biggest election turnout in a mayoral election in decades.
Khan, 55, is a more of an establishment politician who sits in the broad middle of the center-left Labour Party.
The son of a bus driver and a seamstress from Pakistan, Khan grew up with seven siblings in a three-bedroom public housing apartment in south London.
He studied law, became a human rights attorney and spent a decade as a Labour Party lawmaker in the House of Commons, representing the area where he grew up, before being elected in 2016 as the first Muslim leader of a major Western capital city.
Mamdani comes from a more privileged background as the son of an India-born Ugandan anthropologist, Mahmood Mamdani, and award-winning Indian filmmaker Mira Nair. Born in Uganda and raised from the age of 7 in New York, he worked as an adviser for tenants facing eviction before being elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020.
Similar big-city problems
Khan and Mamdani govern huge cities with vastly diverse populations of more than 8 million. Voters in both places have similar worries about crime and the high cost of living – big issues that many mayors struggle to address.
Khan was won three straight elections, but he’s not an overwhelmingly popular mayor. As Mamdani may also find, the mayor gets blamed for a lot of problems, from high rents to violent crime, regardless of whether they are in his control, though Mamdani made freezing rents a pillar of his campaign.
Mamdani campaigned on ambitious promises, including free child care, free buses, new affordable housing and city-run grocery stores.
“Winning an election is one thing, delivering on promises is another,” said Darren Reid, an expert on U.S. politics at Coventry University. “The mayor of New York definitely does not have unlimited power, and he is going to have a very powerful enemy in the current president.”
The mayor of London controls public transit and the police, but doesn’t have the authority of New York’s leader because power is shared with the city’s 32 boroughs, which are responsible for schools, social services and public housing in their areas.
Khan can point to relatively modest achievements, including free school meals for all primary school pupils and a freeze on transit fares. But he has failed to meet other goals, such as ambitious house-building targets.
Tony Travers, a professor at the London School of Economics who specializes in local government, said one lesson Mamdani might take from Khan is to pick “a limited number of fights that you can win.”
Khan, who is asthmatic, has made it one of his main missions to clean up London’s air — once so filthy the city was nicknamed the Big Smoke. He expanded London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, which charges the drivers of older, more polluting vehicles a daily fee to drive in the city.
The measure became a lightning rod for criticism of Khan, spurring noisy protests and vandalism of enforcement cameras. Khan staunchly defended the zone, which research suggests has made London’s air cleaner. His big victory in last year’s mayoral election appeared to vindicate Khan’s stance on the issue.
Travers said that beyond their shared religion and being the targets of racism, both mayors face the conundrum of leading dynamic, diverse metropolises that are “surprisingly peaceful and almost embarrassingly successful” — and resented by the rest of their countries for their wealth and the attention they receive.
He said London is “locked in this strange alternative universe where it is simultaneously described by a number of commentators as sort of a hellhole … and yet on the other hand it’s so embarrassingly rich that British governments spend their lives trying to level up the rest of the country to it. You can’t win.”
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Associated Press writer Eléonore Hughes in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this story.
NEW YORK (AP) — For many years, New York voters have found candidates listed twice, three times or even more on their ballots when they go to the polling booth.
It isn’t an error — it’s a practice known as fusion voting that allows candidates to appear under multiple political parties.
But such intentional duplications on the New York City ballot this year, along with other layout choices, have some outside observers around the country wondering whether they are seeing evidence of rigged voting in Tuesday’s widely-watched mayoral race.
Billionaire X owner Elon Musk, who briefly served as a top advisor to President Donald Trump, was among those criticizing the ballots.
“The New York City ballot form is a scam!” he wrote in an X post. “No ID is required. Other mayoral candidates appear twice. Cuomo’s name is last in bottom right.”
But there is nothing amiss about the ballots, which are in keeping with New York’s voting laws.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: New York City ballots are proof of election fraud because some candidates appear twice and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is listed low in the order.
THE FACTS: This is false. Candidates may appear more than once on ballots in New York if they are nominated by multiple political parties — a practice called fusion voting. Cuomo is in the eighth spot because he filed to run as an independent later in the process.
New York, along with Connecticut, is one of few states where fusion voting is legal and commonly used. The practice has existed in New York since at least the mid-20th century. It is also legal in Oregon, Vermont and Mississippi.
“This occurs pretty frequently and it enables the Democratic candidate to get the votes of people who don’t normally vote for Democrats and Republicans to get the vote of people who don’t vote Republican etc.,” said Richard Briffault, an expert on election administration and a professor at Columbia Law School, said of fusion voting in New York.
Two mayoral candidates appear twice this year on New York City ballots. Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani is also the nominee of the Working Families Party, while Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa is also the candidate for the independent “Protect Animals” party.
Fusion voting does not allow candidates to receive more than one vote from the same voter, as voters may only vote for a candidate under one party.
Cuomo is a Democrat, but is running as an independent under a new party he created called “Fight and Deliver” after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June.
Under state law, there are currently four official parties on the ballot in New York — Democratic, Republican, Conservative and Working Families Party — based on the number of votes their candidate received in the most recent gubernatorial and presidential elections. That vote count also determines the order they appear on the next ballot, from highest to lowest.
Candidates must file a petition to run as an independent. Boards of elections determine the ballot order of independent parties, which must appear below the official parties.
“In the case of the New York City Board of Elections, this is determined by the date and time stamp when the independent nominating petition was filed with that board,” said Kathleen McGrath, a spokesperson for the New York State Board of Elections.
According to McGrath, Cuomo’s “Fight and Deliver” party was the fourth out of five independent parties to submit a nominating petition, meaning that Cuomo is listed eighth on the ballot.
Mamdani is listed first under the Democratic Party and fourth under the Working Families Party. Sliwa appears second under the Republican Party and fifth under the “Protect Animals” party. Two other candidates running as independents — incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and attorney Jim Walden — dropped out of the race too late to be taken off the ballot.
“In short, Cuomo is only listed once because he was only nominated once, and he is low in the order because no recognized political party nominated him,” said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting. “Surely Elon Musk has people who could have looked this up for him.”
New York City does not require voters to show ID to vote unless they did not provide identification with their registration. The nation’s multilayered election processes provide many safeguards that keep voter fraud generally detectable and rare, the AP has reported.
Representatives for Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Zohran Mamdani will be New York City’s 111th mayor, CBS News projects, capping a closely watched campaign in which the little-known state assemblyman energized voters with his focus on making America’s largest city more affordable.
Mamdani’s message centered around the cost of living, energizing a coalition of young and progressive voters, even as critics questioned his lack of experience and raised concerns about his stance on Israel. He pledged to freeze rents on rent-stabilized apartments and raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for a host of new services, like free buses and city-run grocery stores.
When he assumes office, Mamdani will make history as the city’s first Muslim mayor. At 34, he’ll also be one of the city’s youngest mayors, but not the youngest ever: That distinction belongs to Hugh J. Grant, who was 31 when he was elected to his first term in 1889.
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani celebrates during an election night event at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater on Nov. 4, 2025.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Click here for complete New York City election results.
He said his win was one for the working people of New York and reiterated his campaign promises on affordability.
“Let the words we’ve spoken together, the dreams we’ve dreamt together become the agenda we deliver together,” Mamdani said. “New York, this power, it’s yours. This city belongs to you. Thank you.”
Mamdani’s background
Mamdani was born in Uganda and moved to New York City when he was 7. He attended the elite Bronx High School of Science before heading off to Bowdoin College.
In 2018, he became an American citizen.
His parents are political science professor Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair. Mamdani is married to artist Rama Duawaji. They live in Queens, where Mamdani has served as state assemblyman since 2021, representing Astoria, Astoria Heights and Ditmars-Steinway in Queens.
Mamdani’s policies
Mamdani focused his campaign around reducing the cost of living. He promised to freeze the rent for the city’s rent-stabilized units. He has also pledged to provide free bus service and to open city-owned grocery stores in each borough. Mamdani also says he wants to build 200,000 affordable housing units.
To pay for his proposals, Mamdani has said he would raise taxes on corporations and on top earners by 2%, but he’ll need the help of Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature to do it.
“I would not recognize any state’s right to exist with a system of hierarchy on the basis of race or religion,” he said in the candidates’ second and final debate.
He also said critics have wrongly accused him of more extreme statements.
“I have never, not once, spoken in support of global jihad. That is not something that I have said. And that continues to be ascribed to me. And frankly, I think much of it has to do with that I am the first Muslim candidate to be on the precipice of winning this election,” Mamdani said during the last debate.
Mamdani and the NYPD
Mamdani came under withering criticism for his past remarks regarding the NYPD. He previously called for disbanding the Strategic Response Group, which was the same unit that responded to the Midtown office shooting in July. He has since walked that back, saying he was opposed to using that unit to respond to protests.
“I am not defunding the police,” Mamdani said this summer. “I am not running to defund the police.”
In an October interview with Fox News, Mamdani again apologized for remarks he made about the NYPD in 2020, when he called the department “racist” and a “threat to public safety” amid nationwide protests after the killing of George Floydin Minneapolis.
“We used to ask officers to focus on serious crimes. Now we’re asking them to focus also on the mental health crisis, to focus also on homelessness,” Mamdani said last month. “Absolutely I’ll apologize to police officers right here. Because this is the apology that I’ve been sharing with many rank and file officers. And I apologize because of the fact that I’m looking to work with these officers, and I know that these officers, these men and women who serve in the NYPD, they put their lives on the line every single day.”
Mamdani also recently said he would ask Jessica Tisch to stay on as police commissioner.
Zohran Mamdani will be New York City’s 111th mayor, CBS News projects, capping a closely watched campaign in which the little-known state assemblyman energized voters with his focus on making America’s largest city more affordable.
The 34-year-old democratic socialist defeated Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing a Democratic primary that he had initially entered as the clear front-runner. The mayoral race drew the attention of President Trump, who endorsed Cuomo the night before the election and threatened to withhold federal funds to New York City under a Mayor Mamdani.
Mamdani’s message centered around the cost of living, energizing a coalition of young and progressive voters, even as critics questioned his lack of experience and raised concerns about his stance on Israel. He pledged to freeze rents on rent-stabilized apartments and raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for a host of new services, like free buses and city-run grocery stores.
When he assumes office, Mamdani will make history as the city’s first Muslim mayor. At 34, he’ll also be one of the city’s youngest mayors, but not the youngest ever: That distinction belongs to Hugh J. Grant, who was 31 when he was elected to his first term in 1889.
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani celebrates during an election night event at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater on Nov. 4, 2025.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Click here for complete New York City election results.
Mamdani’s background
Mamdani was born in Uganda and moved to New York City when he was 7. He attended the elite Bronx High School of Science before heading off to Bowdoin College.
In 2018, he became an American citizen.
His parents are political science professor Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair. Mamdani is married to artist Rama Duawaji. They live in Queens, where Mamdani has served as state assemblyman since 2021, representing Astoria, Astoria Heights and Ditmars-Steinway in Queens.
Mamdani’s policies
Mamdani focused his campaign around reducing the cost of living. He promised to freeze the rent for the city’s rent-stabilized units. He has also pledged to provide free bus service and to open city-owned grocery stores in each borough. Mamdani also says he wants to build 200,000 affordable housing units.
To pay for his proposals, Mamdani has said he would raise taxes on corporations and on top earners by 2%, but he’ll need the help of Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature to do it.
“I would not recognize any state’s right to exist with a system of hierarchy on the basis of race or religion,” he said in the candidates’ second and final debate.
He also said critics have wrongly accused him of more extreme statements.
“I have never, not once, spoken in support of global jihad. That is not something that I have said. And that continues to be ascribed to me. And frankly, I think much of it has to do with that I am the first Muslim candidate to be on the precipice of winning this election,” Mamdani said during the last debate.
Mamdani and the NYPD
Mamdani came under withering criticism for his past remarks regarding the NYPD. He previously called for disbanding the Strategic Response Group, which was the same unit that responded to the Midtown office shooting in July. He has since walked that back, saying he was opposed to using that unit to respond to protests.
“I am not defunding the police,” Mamdani said this summer. “I am not running to defund the police.”
In an October interview with Fox News, Mamdani again apologized for remarks he made about the NYPD in 2020, when he called the department “racist” and a “threat to public safety” amid nationwide protests after the killing of George Floydin Minneapolis.
“We used to ask officers to focus on serious crimes. Now we’re asking them to focus also on the mental health crisis, to focus also on homelessness,” Mamdani said last month. “Absolutely I’ll apologize to police officers right here. Because this is the apology that I’ve been sharing with many rank and file officers. And I apologize because of the fact that I’m looking to work with these officers, and I know that these officers, these men and women who serve in the NYPD, they put their lives on the line every single day.”
Mamdani also recently said he would ask Jessica Tisch to stay on as police commissioner.
(CNN) — Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose focus on working-class issues and personal magnetism attracted a diverse coalition of volunteers and supporters to propel a once-underdog campaign, will win New York City’s general election race for mayor, CNN’s Decision Desk projects.
Mamdani beat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for a second time, shattering the political scion’s hopes of a comeback after his loss to Mamdani in the June Democratic primary. Also running in the general election was Republican Curtis Sliwa, who refused to end his campaign despite pressure from Cuomo and his supporters.
Mamdani’s win marks a victory for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party at a time when national Democrats are divided over how to counter President Donald Trump. The president is himself a native New Yorker who has falsely derided Mamdani as a “communist” and suggested he’d “take over” the city if he is elected.
The results are likely to echo far beyond New York City, elevating both Mamdani’s profile and platform, including his proposals to freeze the rent for New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized apartments, make public buses free to ride and provide universal childcare by taxing the wealthy.
Mamdani’s win completes a meteoric rise a year after the state assemblyman launched his bid for mayor, promising to make the most expensive city in the country affordable for its working class.
Who is Zohran Mamdani?
Mamdani is a three-term state assemblyman who entered the mayor’s race as one of several apparent also-rans to what appeared to be Cuomo’s race to lose.
Born in Uganda and first raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Mamdani moved to New York City when he was 7. He attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College. He is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, and Mira Nair, an Indian filmmaker whose credits include “Mississippi Masala” and “Monsoon Wedding.”
Before becoming an assemblyman, Mamdani was a housing counselor and self-described C-list rapper who went by the name “Mr. Cardamom.” His short-lived music career was sometimes front and center in his opponent’s attack ads.
The music video for “Nani,” a rap song where Mamdani pays homage to his grandma and New York City’s South Asian culture, also shows him shirtless, donning only an apron, looking directly at the camera while he rocks side to side. The image was plastered across anti-Mamdani campaign ads to poke fun at his past music career and his lack of governmental experience.
Andrew Epstein, a campaign aide, noted that Mamdani’s rapping career helped him indirectly in his campaign.
“An incredible asset for anybody seeking to run for office is bravery in the face of embarrassment and being able to push through the natural inclination many of us have not to kind of introduce themselves to strangers or do things in a kind of silly way in front of them,” Epstein told CNN.
But Mamdani made a steady climb in the mayor’s race by producing a constant stream of social media videos, including interviews with voters who had supported Trump in 2024 due to the high cost of living. He ran a groundbreaking digital campaign in which he spoke in multiple languages and connected with supporters with a message anchored to affordability. During the campaign, Mamdani, who natively speaks Urdu, released campaign videos in Bangla, Spanish, and Arabic.
One of his most memorable viral videos tackled what the candidate referred to as “halal-flation.” He set out to interview street meat vendors about the high cost of running a street food business in New York City. With a mouthful of rice and halal meat, Mamdani detailed how an arcane permit system in the city is in part to blame for the prices of what should be cheap street food.
“This was one of the coldest nights of the year, bitterly cold,” Epstein recalled recently. “We were downtown by Zuccotti Park near Wall Street and Zohran just asking people on the street, ‘Would you rather pay $10 or $8 for halal?’ People were pushing through trying to get home, you know, it was rejection over and over and over and over again, but it never fazed him.”
Mamdani was cutting into Cuomo’s lead in public polling by the June primary. The city’s traditional power brokers, including the real estate and business sectors concerned with Mamdani’s democratic socialist identity, banded together in support of Cuomo and donated millions of dollars to anti-Mamdani super PACs. Business leaders argued Mamdani would drive wealthy New Yorkers out and discourage businesses from operating in the nation’s financial capital.
Their push ultimately helped Mamdani cast his campaign as a fight between working-class people and billionaires.
Still, his primary victory shocked much of the political world.
“I don’t think the line is so much between progressives and moderates. It’s between fighters and fakers,” said city comptroller Brad Lander, who ran against Mamdani but allied with him under the primary’s ranked-choice voting system. “What Zohran is showing is that it’s worth putting up big bold ideas for change, standing up and fighting for them, and that’s pretty hopeful. Yes, he’s a democratic socialist, but he had a bold vision for the future of the city and that excited people.”
The general election campaign
After taking a vacation in Uganda to celebrate his wedding, Mamdani returned to a city mourning the deaths of New York police officer Didarul Islam and three others in a Midtown Manhattan shooting. He was confronted with his years of tweets criticizing the police, including references to law enforcement as racist and wicked and calling for them to be defunded.
“I am not defunding the police. I am not running to defund the police,” he would tell reporters after meeting with Islam’s family, part of an overall shift away from anti-police rhetoric that culminated in recent weeks with his commitment to retain the current police commissioner, Jessica Tisch.
He also reached out to New York’s Jewish community, roiled by his criticisms of Israel’s government and questions about democratic socialism. Mamdani is an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights, a supporter of the movement to boycott and divest from Israel and a fierce critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I hate my choices,” said Cydney Schwartz, a 33-year-old liberal Democrat who has lived in Israel and was in line to cast an early vote. She declined to say who she chose.
The last days of the campaign
In the closing days of the campaign, Mamdani referred to the race as a choice between “oligarchy and democracy.” His omnipresence on the campaign trail was on display during the last days of the race and in the lead-up to the last weekend of early voting in the city.
As more than half a million New Yorkers turned out to cast their votes early, Mamdani was everywhere: He was in church in the morning, calling into radio shows midday, stopping into ethnic supermarkets in the outer boroughs, popping up on influencer live streams, joining a Union Square freestyle rap battle and capping off his Saturday with a whirlwind tour of the city’s nightclub scene.
Paying homage to the city that never sleeps, Mamdani appeared to hardly do so either, stopping at six nightclubs in Brooklyn just to do it all over again on the last Sunday of early voting. He attended a church service with his parents, met campaign volunteers before stopping on the sidelines of the New York City Marathon, went to Queens for a meet-up with Gov. Kathy Hochul to cheer on the Buffalo Bills, and popped up in the nosebleeds of Madison Square Garden for a New York Knicks game.
Cuomo also campaigned across the city. Notably, he tried to cut into Mamdani’s core support of South Asian and Muslim voters by highlighting Mamdani’s opposition to criminal penalties for prostitution. He also laughed when a radio host suggested Mamdani would cheer another 9/11 attack, drawing allegations from Mamdani and others that he was playing to Islamophobia. Cuomo denied he was doing so.
Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams ended his independent bid and endorsed Cuomo. But Cuomo was unable to push Sliwa, the Republican nominee, out of the race, denying anti-Mamdani voters the chance to consolidate behind one opponent. Sliwa repeatedly and colorfully vowed he would die before making way for Cuomo, arguing he owed it to his supporters to keep running.
For Cuomo, Tuesday’s results are likely a coda to a long and eventful political career. He was governor of New York for nearly 11 years before resigning in 2021 after he was accused of sexual harassment, allegations he has denied, and amid criticism of how his administration handled Covid-19 cases in nursing homes. Running for mayor, Cuomo leaned into his executive experience, often pointing out Mamdani’s short career in politics and relative lack of work history.
He relaunched his mayoral bid as an independent after losing to Mamdani in June. He remained focused on public safety, promising to hire additional police officers and build more housing. Cuomo, who has a longstanding relationship with Trump, also sought to portray himself as the better candidate to fend off the president’s attacks on New York City.
A history-making mayor
Mamdani will be inaugurated on January 1, 2026. He inherits a deeply complex city home to 8.5 million people, a large bureaucracy, a municipal workforce of roughly 300,000 and a city budget of $115 billion.
Mamdani will make history as New York City’s first Muslim mayor, the first South Asian to hold the office and one of the youngest mayors elected in modern times. He recently married Rama Duwaji, an artist of Syrian descent who was born in Texas and moved to New York City to complete a master’s degree in illustration. Duwaji skipped traditional campaigning alongside her husband on the trail and while it remains unclear whether she will have any role in his administration, at 28, she will be the first member of Gen Z to serve as New York City’s first lady.
While Mamdani’s identity as both an immigrant and a South Asian New Yorker was central to his campaign, his connection to that community began to take shape long before he launched his run for City Hall. He first made national headlines in 2021 when he joined New York City cab drivers on a 15-day hunger strike seeking relief from excessive debt.
Mamdani has a strong connection to the cab driver community in New York City, which is largely made up of immigrants, including thousands of South Asians who were among his fiercest supporters. In the last days of the campaign, Mamdani made a stop at LaGuardia Airport’s taxi stand at midnight, catching cabbies at shift change.
“Without the night shift, there is no morning,” Mamdani told them.
New Yorkers voting on Election Day at a polling site in the East Village on Nov. 4, 2025.
Photo by Adam Daly
The 2025 NYC Mayor’s Race is destined for history, regardless of who wins the election.
More than 1.7 million New Yorkers have already voted in the contest between Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, independent candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. The final vote total is expected to be the highest in more than 30 years and could wind up being a number not seen at the polls in a mayor’s race in more than 50 years.
The NYC Board of Elections reported as of 6 p.m. Tuesday that 1,748,698 people had cast ballots in the race — a figure that included the more than 730,000 people who took part in early voting. Through 6 p.m. on Nov. 4, 1,015,832 voters had checked in to their polling sites citywide on Election Day — a figure exceeding the early voting turnout of 732,866.
Decades of voter apathy appear to have been shattered by the energy of the three-way campaign, largely defined by Mamdani’s presence in the race, and his social media and voter engagement tactics.
On its own, the 6 p.m. total would represent the most votes cast in a NYC mayoral election since the 1993 mayoral election between Rudy Giuliani and David Dinkins, which was also a highly contentious one.
In the 1993 contest, in which the Republican former federal prosecutor Giuliani toppled the one-term incumbent Mayor Dinkins, more than 50% of registered voters in New York City cast a ballot. Turnouts in the seven mayoral elections since that fateful race have never come so close to that number.
When all is said and done, the final vote total will likely surpass 2 million votes, a number not seen since the three-way, 1969 mayoral election in which incumbent Mayor John Lindsay won re-election to a second term on a third-party line.
The 1,748,698 total voter check-ins as of 6 p.m. on Nov. 4 represented 35.3% of the 4,954,908 active registered voters in New York City, based on data from the New York State Board of Elections. That would be one of the highest percentage turnouts in a New York City mayoral election in the 21st century.
The city is on pace to see total turnout in the 2025 election flirt with or exceed 40% of all registered voters. The last time more than 40% of registered voters, and more than 1.5 million voters cast ballots, in a mayoral election was in 2001, when Republican businessman Mike Bloomberg defeated Democratic Public Advocate Mark Green just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Bloomberg would go on to serve three terms as mayor.
Just four years ago, the 2021 mayoral election, which saw Eric Adams prevail, had a 23% turnout, with roughly 1.14 million votes cast. It was the fourth consecutive mayoral election in which voter turnout was under 30%.
Without question, the 2025 mayoral election will take its place in history as one of the most exciting in recent memory, and the start of a new era in city politics where more voters become part of their democracy.
For months, Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa have crossed the five boroughs to make their case to the voters on why they should be next to lead City Hall. More than 735,000 New Yorkers cast ballots during the early voting period that ended Sunday, and each campaign seems to see that record-setting turnout as a boon to its chances. Since the primary, political researcher and strategist Michael Lange has become one of the most prominent voices analyzing the race, known for his district-by-district breakdown of the city’s electorate and his prescient forecast that Mamdani would ultimately be victorious in June. With Lange set to release his Election Day prediction Monday morning, I spoke with him about his views on the early-voting turnout, whether polling has improved in the race since the primary, and who has the momentum heading into Tuesday.
Record numbers of New Yorkers cast their ballots in early voting across the city. What are your impressions of the data so far? I think Cuomo got a not-insignificant bump in the first couple days from older, wealthier voters in Manhattan, many of whom I guess you would describe as very Zionist and who do not like Mamdani’s position on Israel. There were many people I respect who normally never sound the alarm but were genuinely a little spooked by some of that. But Cuomo was never getting the numbers in other parts of the city that he would need to really make this super-close or to have Mamdani on upset alert.
But some of the electorate being a little older, that’s of course a consequence of the general election, too. Sliwa’s voters, however many there are, they’re almost all over 55. The Republican off-year electorate in New York City is super-old. So that also contributed to it. But I never saw a reason for Mamdani to be concerned, really. I thought the only thing that might have been in jeopardy was him hitting 50 percent. I see that as kind of the biggest question of the next couple days, rather than just a win-loss thing.
There’s always the most early voting kind of towards the end. Amongst that bump, it was very young. The Halloween stickers on Friday certainly paid off. It was the youngest day. Getting over 700,000 early votes puts us well in that 1.8, 1.9 million range for the total come Election Day. I think it further contextualizes that there was that little Cuomo flurry at the very beginning, in terms of a lot of his older supporters coming out. But then as time progressed, it got younger and younger and younger and the curve kind of leveled out and resembled more of the primary. And I think I’ve seen more and more evidence that Mamdani should be confident going into Tuesday, not only about winning, but about the margin of victory.
How does this early-voting electorate compare with early voters in the primary? Are new groups being motivated? We saw very, very high turnout in the first few days of early voting from the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of Manhattan, that Sutton Place, Midtown East area. All of which were some of Cuomo’s few bright spots in Manhattan during the primary. Then if you compare that with the Democratic primary during early voting, the vote was almost exclusively coming from areas Mamdani would win besides the Upper East Side, Upper West Side. Early voting just in general is kind of skewed toward each coalition’s white voters, right? They’re more likely to have a car in the outer-boroughs to go to the polling site, or they’re a higher percentage of the demographics in some of these denser neighborhoods where people can walk to vote. So the distribution of the vote was a little more spread out than what we’re seeing in the general election so far. This general-election electorate, it’s very young compared with other general elections. It’s just not quite as young as in the primary.
What do we know, if anything, about these older early voters? All we really know is which districts and neighborhoods they’re coming from. Right now, the biggest concentrations of support are, again, in those Central Park–adjacent neighborhoods in Manhattan, which I expect right now lean Cuomo. Then you have those neighborhoods adjacent to Prospect Park in Brooklyn; where Central Park leans Cuomo, the crew around Prospect Park is overwhelmingly Mamdani. And then you have Staten Island. The southern parts have had some pretty solid turnout that leans toward Sliwa and, to a lesser extent, Cuomo. Staten Island’s the most Italian county in the country.
The thing about Cuomo, though, is that he has this support from very affluent voters but he’s been hemorrhaging support from all the working-class parts of his coalition. I think he can win the Upper East Side again or narrowly win the Upper West Side perhaps. But he’s going to lose almost everywhere else.The people who vote on Election Day in New York City are generally more working class and more diverse, and a few more of them are Republicans in the general election. In the primary, there was a worry in the Mamdani campaign, like, Oh yeah, we win early voting, but are we just going to be blitzed on Election Day when all these places in “Cuomo Country” can really start voting? But they weren’t. They won Election Day, just by a smaller margin than the early voting. I think now he’s poised to do even better with the people who vote next Tuesday. So I just don’t really see where Cuomo is gonna make up any of this deficit.
Are there any signs, so far, that Cuomo has been able to cultivate the support he’ll need? No because we’re not seeing any type of upticks in some of the other areas that he did well in the primary.
I should give a special shout out to Brigid Bergin from Gothamist and WNYC. She’s been doing a lot of anecdotal but also instructive talking to voters at different sites. And she chose two very good places to do it. She went to the southern shore of Staten Island and encountered some Republicans who are holding their nose and voting for Cuomo because he’s viable. I’ve encountered the same. But there are still plenty of Republicans, which is what Cuomo would really need to move the needle significantly, who are still sticking with Sliwa, even though he doesn’t really have a chance. And I saw that she was also out Sunday in East Flatbush — which is the area that Cuomo won convincingly in the primary that he would need to hold to make the general competitive — and it’s basically switched to Mamdani.
So, the way I’m thinking about the outcome, the margin, things like that, it really comes down to Cuomo versus Sliwa among Republican and more moderate conservative independents. If Sliwa holds on to any decent level of support, then Cuomo’s ceiling is cut down further. And then also just Cuomo versus Mamdani in the Black community and to what extent that’s competitive. Maybe it won’t be. Maybe Zohran will win super convincingly. But I think the other parts of all three candidates’ coalitions are relatively baked in.
It’s a matter of turnout and enthusiasm and these other things. Those two that I mentioned, it’s very persuasion-based. Turnout is great because you can just kind of create votes from thin air. Persuasion is good because you gain a vote and it takes it away from an opponent. So, that’s kind of how I see it going into Election Day. I think all the other parts of the Mamdani coalition, they’re not really under threat of being captured by Cuomo or captured by Sliwa. I think they kind of exist as standalone Mamdani-friendly demographics, coalition groups, things like that.
Mamdani and Cuomo were like a tale of two campaigns during the primary in terms of voter outreach and candidate accessibility. From what you’ve seen, how have both candidates adapted to the general-election season? With Cuomo, I would say they gave a very incomplete and convenient autopsy of why they lost. They’re like, Oh, we were too safe. We didn’t do enough social media. That’s kind of it. I don’t think they’ve reckoned with the bigger questions of their campaign where he didn’t really have any type of affirmative message. The suburban-esque scolding was just not going over well. But they kind of ignored that. They didn’t really adapt. It was very much like a surface-level pivot. And then, of course, Cuomo just reverts back to who he is. They scrapped much of the stuff they started doing right after. And now it’s replaced by this AI-slop nonsense, which is somehow even more hollow than, you know, the videos of Cuomo with his muscle cars.
It just seemed like they could never quite get a handle on what New York City voters want, like they very much struggled to adapt. They were kind of running a 2020 Albany playbook. It’s different when you run for reelection as governor: You’re the most powerful person in the state; you have all the money in the world, all the labor unions, you’re on television all the time. They just tried to run the safe front-runner playbook and bludgeon their opponents, but they ran into someone genuinely talented who brought new people into the process. Frankly, they’re completely outmatched. They were outmatched even before the primary, but now Mamdani has a bigger team, more resources, more institutional support, and they’re just kind of getting crushed.
Throughout the race, there has been a big question about whether Mamdani’s campaign can make inroads in the city’s Black communities against Cuomo and, until recently, Eric Adams. Have there been signs of these voters coalescing behind Mamdani now that he’s the Democratic nominee? Yeah, I would describe — very broadly, of course — the Black political community in New York as built heavily on relationships and certain political institutions, right? Since he has become the Democratic nominee, Mamdani has had opportunities to continue to build those relationships. To visit the churches on Sunday, to not only be double-booked but to get into the churches that have the biggest audiences and things like that. Now he has many more validators in those neighborhoods. In the most recent Emerson poll, he was at 70 percent among Black voters, right? I think if he even got anywhere close to that, it would be a big earthquake. It would portend well for him getting 50 percent of the vote. He has steadily increased his support there. And I think to the extent Cuomo support still remains, even more so than in the primary, it’s heavily indexed to age.
After the primary, you wrote about Mamdani’s “coalition of the in-between,” saying he won overwhelmingly in districts that are majority renter and middle income as opposed to communities with more homeowners. Does that calculation change at all with an electorate that likely skews more moderate and Republican compared with the primary? I don’t think so. If anything, his coalition will get a lot stronger, ironically, with rent-stabilized tenants. He did best in the primary with market-rate renters. Especially in parts of the Bronx and Upper Manhattan where there’s a lot of dense rent stabilization, I think he’ll do a lot better. I still anticipate Cuomo will have some resonance with the folks at the relative bottom of the economic spectrum. It’ll be very interesting to see how the candidates perform in the city’s public-housing developments. But I think the Cuomo and Sliwa coalitions are very much built around a kind of outer-borough, white ethnic homeowner and then Cuomo is also very much leveraged with certain degrees of the financial elite. There are tons of people in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens who live in brownstones worth many millions of dollars who love Mamdani, love Brad Lander, and hate Cuomo. It’s not even a different type of wealth in terms of raw money than your Upper East Side penthouse-condo owner, but it’s more like an orientation to it, like old money vs. new money. So I think there will still be stiff resistance to Mamdani at the very top of the economic spectrum. I can’t imagine there will be too many Upper East Side penthouses for Mamdani, but we’ll see.
Sliwa has been a hot topic in recent weeks as Cuomo and his supporters have described him as a spoiler, suggesting he’s standing in the way of a potential Cuomo victory. What do you make of Sliwa’s campaign this time around compared with his prior mayoral run? He has certainly gotten a lot more attention. Sliwa’s opening statement in the debate was almost indistinguishable from Dan Osborn or Bernie Sanders. It’s fascinating to see both the Democratic and Republican nominees for mayor be so openly hostile to the billionaire class. And then you have the independent Cuomo, tail between the legs, supported heavily by that billionaire class. I think Sliwa is the classic outer-borough populist. He has certainly built a following for himself, made a name for himself. I’m sure he’ll bleed some Republican support being kind of tarnished as a spoiler. But I’ve met plenty of Republicans who are sticking by him and dislike Cuomo considerably. Sliwa will get a negligible share of the vote in Manhattan besides his own, but he’ll do well in some of the white ethnic enclaves: Italian neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the Russian Jews in southern Brooklyn. Cuomo will win more of the Sephardic and the Orthodox. In Queens, Breezy Point, Whitestone; in the Bronx, Country Club, parts of Throggs Neck. And then, of course, there’s the southern shore of Staten Island, the most Republican-leaning legislative district in the whole Northeast. It’s very, very Republican, and I don’t expect Cuomo to go in there and usurp that. I haven’t made up my mind, but I don’t think Sliwa will dip below the double digits.
People have floated this idea of Sliwa actually passing Cuomo, but that is probably unlikely. The Emerson poll had them closer, but I don’t think it’s likely. It seems Sliwa is bleeding a degree of Republican support to Cuomo, which would just make it very hard because he’s not someone who has a ton of juice with independent voters, voters of color. It’ll be actually interesting. Sliwa did very well in Chinese neighborhoods four years ago, which was kind of the first warning sign of Uh oh, like, Democrats are on the verge of losing support in these communities. I’m curious if Sliwa can, to any degree, replicate some of that past performance or if it was just a flash in the pan. His coalition is pretty old. His numbers got a little bit of a flurry, I would say, from the debates because he put in a pretty solid performance and landed some blows. But as the voting gets close and you have a lot of prominent Republicans saying, “You can’t support this guy. You got to support Cuomo,” I think it’ll slowly trickle down.
In the primary, we saw a significant polling miss, to say the least, as Mamdani won overwhelmingly despite months of polls showing him significantly behind Cuomo. Does it seem the polling has been corrected since then? Some have adjusted more than others. The younger part of the electorate, the under 45, under 50, is being underpolled. In the presidential election in New York City last year, 51 percent of voters were under 50, which is a lot. In a lot of these surveys, their ratio of that under-50 group is a lot less, and that is with Mamdani now on the ballot. I think they’re still making mistakes and Mamdani is in a pretty solid position to outperform the polling once again. His coalition is very hard to poll. It’s not even just because he brings in younger voters in droves that pollsters don’t know quite how to screen for. It’s also because he has tons of support in certain immigrant enclaves that pollsters just routinely ignore or don’t do as good a job reaching into. So it’s a unique thing. Given more time, the pollsters will start to adjust, but I haven’t seen a ton of evidence that they have to a significant extent. So I think we could again be on track for an overperformance to a lesser extent, but an overperformance nonetheless.
A poll released over the weekend from AtlasIntel caused a stir as it showed Mamdani ahead of Cuomo by only six points, the smallest margin to date. Is this poll likely an outlier? It certainly seems that way. All due respect to AtlasIntel — it seems like some of their national polls have been relatively on the nose — but I’ve not seen them poll a race in New York City super accurately. Like Emerson has a track record, Data for Progress has a track record. But I try not to read into the polls most of the time, especially again where the electorate is going to look so different from 2021 and the turnout is going to be so greater that I try and be measured with that. But they had Mamdani at 40 percent. I mean, I would mortgage all my assets and say that he will finish above 40 percent. I would retire if he finished below 40 percent. It would just not compute with everything I know about politics in the city.
You predicted Mamdani would win the Democratic primary. As you gather your thoughts for Tuesday, what stands out? I think the race has been, for four months, very static. There’s not a lot of persuasion, I would say, that each candidate has a solid idea of where their voters are and it’s just a matter of turnout and enthusiasm. Mamdani gets his people out with an affirmative message: hope, inspiration. There’s a huge community of people who volunteer for him and are inspired by him that has really taken off among younger folks in particular, but not just younger folks. Cuomo is trying to motivate his folks with, I would say, more fear, right? The polls say a significant percentage of Cuomo voters are going with him because he’s not Mamdani. But for as much as people might talk about how Mamdani has a ceiling, Cuomo has a ceiling too. We saw that in the primary. Cuomo was in many respects an ideal general-election opponent for Mamdani because he’s not very well liked by independents or Republicans. I think Mamdani, of the two, has the higher ceiling and more of that emotional momentum, more of that enthusiasm, the I’ll walk over broken glass to vote for you. There are certainly “swing neighborhoods.” Many in Queens and southern Brooklyn could split between the three candidates in an interesting way. But for the most part, it’ll just be another game of turnout and enthusiasm, and I think that favors Mamdani.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Voters in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and California have already hit the polls for early voting before election day on Nov. 4. CBS News producer Jared Ochacher is following the New York City mayoral race.
Former PresidentBarack Obama told Zohran Mamdani that he was invested in the New York mayoral candidate’s success during a phone call Saturday, according to a report from The New York Times.
Obama called Mamdani and they spoke for about 30 minutes, two people who were either on the call or were briefed about it told the outlet.
Mamdani is leading in the polls over his rivals, former New York governor and independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
During the call, Obama praised Mamdani’s campaign and offered to be a “sounding board” for the Democratic candidate. The pair also discussed Mamdani’s affordability agenda as well as hiring a new administration, according to the report.
Newsweek has reached out to Mamdani’s press team and the Obama Foundation on behalf of the former president for comment via email on Saturday.
A Quinnipiac University poll released on October 29 found Mamdani leading among likely voters 43 percent, followed by Cuomo with 33 percent and 14 percent for Sliwa, with 6 percent saying they’re undecided. In comparison to the October 8 poll, Cuomo’s support held at the same figure, while Mamdani received 46 percent and Sliwa had 15 percent.
The voters surveyed also signaled that they’ve made up their minds on who to support and are unlikely to change. For Mamdani voters, 92 percent said it was either not so likely (15 percent) or not likely at all (77 percent) that they would switch candidates. Cuomo backers were similar, as 90 percent said it was either not so likely (15 percent) or not likely at all (75 percent) that they would change their minds on the former governor.
As for Sliwa supporters, 81 percent responded that it is either not so likely (15 percent) or not likely at all (66 percent) that they would move from their candidate. The poll surveyed 911 New York City likely voters from October 23 to October 27.
With less than a week until Election Day, Zohran Mamdani holds a double-digit, 10-point lead in the race for the nation’s most populous city, but former Gov. Andrew Cuomo keeps narrowing the gap, according to the latest public polling.
Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist state lawmaker from the New York City borough of Queens, who shocked the political world in June with his convincing win over Cuomo and nine other candidates to capture the Democratic Party’s mayoral nomination, stands at 43% support among likely voters, according to a survey released Wednesday from Quinnipiac University.
Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid multiple scandals and who is running as an Independent candidate in the general election after losing the primary, had 33% support in the survey.
The survey was conducted Thursday to Monday, after incumbent Mayor Eric Adams endorsed Cuomo in a bid to defeat Mamdani. The embattled Democratic mayor had been running for re-election as an Independent but dropped out of the race late last month, although his name remains on the ballot.
New York City mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo shake hands on the debate stage in New York City. (Angelina Katsanis)
Guardian Angels co-founder Curtis Sliwa, who for a second straight election is the Republican mayoral nominee in the Democratic-dominated city, stood at 14% in the poll. According to Quinnipiac University, 6% of likely voters are undecided and 3% refused to respond.
“Make no mistake: The race is tightening, and Andrew Cuomo is closing in fast,” Cuomo campaign spokesman Rich Azzopardi said in a statement.
Mamdani’s 10-point advantage over Cuomo is down from his 13-point lead in Quinnipiac’s previous poll, which was conducted at the beginning of October. And this latest poll matches the Suffolk University poll released Monday that similarly found Mamdani losing ground with a now 10-point lead.
“This is the second poll in a week showing Zohran Mamdani stuck below 45 percent of the vote — despite a lack of scrutiny and glowing press coverage — and Andrew Cuomo gaining,” Azzopardi said, while adding that Mamdani is “stuck in the mud.”
“The momentum is with Andrew Cuomo — and it’s only growing everyday,” Cuomo’s campaign said.
Independent candidate, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, speaks during a mayoral debate on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, in New York City.(AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, Pool)
Cuomo has turned up the volume on his criticisms of Mamdani during the closing stretch of the campaign, with dire warnings that “mayhem” would follow a Mamdani victory in the mayoral election.
When asked by Fox News’s Alexis McAdams if Mamdani thinks he “has it in the bag,” Mamdani said on Monday that he isn’t taking anything for granted.
“If you want to take something for granted, that’s what Andrew Cuomo did in the primary. We don’t want to end up like Andrew Cuomo,” Mamdani said.
Meanwhile, Sliwa, a longtime fixture in New York City politics, has been the target of a pressure campaign to drop out of the race to set up a one-on-one matchup between Cuomo and Mamdani, in a frantic effort to avert a Mamdani victory.
Among those urging Sliwa to end his bid is billionaire businessman and conservative radio host John Catsimatidis, a top New York City Republican and ally of President Donald Trump.
The Ugandan-born Mamdani, if elected, would become the first Muslim and first Millennial mayor in New York City’s history.
New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani accepts an endorsement from the United Bodegas of America in the Bronx, New York City, on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Fox News Digital/Deirdre Heavey)
Mamdani surged to the Democratic primary victory thanks to an energetic campaign that put a major focus on affordability and New York City’s high cost of living. It was fueled by a grassroots army of supporters and backing from top national progressive champions, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The 34-year-old made smart use of social media platforms, including TikTok, as he engaged low-propensity voters. He proposed eliminating fares to ride New York City’s vast bus system, making CUNY (City University of New York) “tuition-free,” freezing rents on municipal housing, offering free childcare for children up to age 5 and setting up government-run grocery stores.
Mamdani has been heavily criticized by his rivals not only for his far-left proposals, but also for his criticism of Israel, his past negative comments regarding the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and his proposal to shift certain responsibilities away from the NYPD and focus on social services and community-based programs.
The Mamdani campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s comment request.
Deirdre Heavey is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
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.
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.
A person cast their vote duing the first day of early voting in the general election in Brooklyn on Oct. 25, 2025.
Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
More than a quarter-million New Yorkers have already cast ballots in the 2025 NYC mayoral general election — and most of them appear to be Democrats and/or older, according to an amNewYork analysis of unofficial early voting data.
That would seem to provide good news for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a 67-year-old registered Democrat now running an independent campaign, who has consistently led among older voters in recent polls. The frontrunner in the race — Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old Democratic party nominee — has had younger voters firmly in his corner in those same surveys.
Of the roughly 223,268 New Yorkers who have voted early between Oct. 25-27, 74% were registered Democrats, according to preliminary data from the New York City Board of Elections (BOE). Nearly 13% are registered Republicans, and 11% did not list a party affiliation.
Both Cuomo and Mamdani, as Democrats, are targeting Democratic voters; Cuomo has also attempted to appeal to Republicans and independents.
Voters over 55 made up the plurality of those who have voted early so far, with a combined 41% of those who cast ballots either qualifying as a Baby Boomer or a member of the “Greatest Generation” and “Silent Generation” — as defined by the Pew Research Center. “Generation X” — those aged 39 to 54 — made up 24% of early voters.
Younger voters, including “Millennials” and “Generation Z” — those aged 18-38, accounted for the remaining 34% of voters.
amNewYork’s findings would seem to confirm data analysis in a Gothamist report on Monday, which found that most of the early voters during the weekend were skewing older.
On Tuesday, Cuomo said he was encouraged by the early turnout of older voters. “I think as long as the voters are smart, I’m in very good shape,” he said during an event where he received the endorsement of former Gov. David Paterson.
Turnout will be the ultimate factor in the mayor’s race. Mamdani has consistently led in the polls, but the race has tightened as Election Day, Nov. 4, draws nearer.
The Mamdani campaign has boasted of having more than 85,000 volunteers, and indicated it is using the entire operation to get out the vote through Election Day. The candidate said he remains “confident in our campaign.”
Across the five boroughs, Brooklyn leads in the number of early votes cast so far with 67,608. Manhattan comes second with 67,075, then Queens with 52,062, the Bronx with 19,094, and Staten Island with 17,059.
Early voting continues through Sunday, Nov. 2, at select sites across the five boroughs. Regular polling sites are open on Election Day, Nov. 4, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. To find your early voting site or regular polling place, visit vote.nyc.
The BOE reported on Sunday evening 164,190 voter check-ins across the five boroughs through the first two days of early voting that wrapped up at 5 p.m. on Oct. 26. Brooklyn and Manhattan dominated the turnout numbers, with Brooklyn having 49,432 check-ins and Manhattan slightly behind with 49,191.
Queens came in third with 38,791 check-ins, followed by the Bronx at 14,225 and Staten Island with 12,551.
The strong numbers continue a record turnout for early voting in a mayoral election. First-day participation in 2025 was more than quadruple that of 2021 (31,176 through the first two days), the last time New Yorkers elected a mayor.
With nine days to go until Election Day in New York City, voters continued to turn out in force Sunday on day two of early voting.
According to data from the NYC Board of Elections, the start of early voting marked a record turnout, with first-day participation more than quadrupling compared to early voting in 2021 — the last time New Yorkers voted for mayor. Manhattan saw about five times as many voters on Saturday as the borough saw on day one in 2021.
People wait to cast their vote in the general election in Brooklyn on Oct. 25, 2025.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
Many voters who spoke to amNewYork on Sunday in Morningside Heights and Harlem expressed support for frontrunner and Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani while others expressed strong support for independent candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Support for Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa seemed thin on the ground.
In the Democratic primary, both Morningside Heights and Harlem swung for Mamdani, and the two neighborhoods have traditionally favored Democrats in general elections.
Sliwa, though not expected to find much support in Democratic areas like upper Manhattan, has ratcheted up support compared to the last time he ran in 2021 and is seeing support elsewhere in the city, polling consistently between 10% and 20% — Mamdani leads the field in most polls by double digits while Cuomo is coming in second.
One voter whom amNewYork spoke to on Saturday in the Lower East Side, also a Democratic stronghold, said they opted for Sliwa in the race after a lifetime of voting for Democrats.
At P.S. 175 in Harlem, Sara Serpa and Andre Matos cast their ballots for Mamdani.
“I think he has a vision, there’s hope in him, and he’s fighting for the right causes,” Serpa said. “First time we have a candidate that speaks well, elaborates thoughts, and again, has a vision for the city, which the other candidates don’t have.”
Andre Matos and Sara Serpa cast their ballots for Mamdani.
Serpa was particularly excited by Mamdani’s plans for “affordable housing, justice and social rights, and making the city affordable for everyone who lives here.”
Carla Drummond and Ken Wilson cast their ballots for Cuomo, citing his political experience compared to the other candidates.
“I just believe that he’s going to be able to give Trump the most pushback,” Wilson said. Drummond echoed the sentiment.
In the primary, Cuomo made opposition to President Donald Trump a cornerstone of his campaign, arguing that his experience working with the president during his days as governor — when Trump was serving his first term in office — make him the right choice for a city being increasingly targeted by the federal government.
Throughout the general election, Cuomo has compared his relationship to Trump to that of a “dysfunctional marriage.” Though Trump has not endorsed a candidate, he strongly opposes Mamdani.
Cori Harris voted for Democrats down the ballot — save for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Though Harris cast her ballot for Mamdani, she said she was intrigued by Sliwa’s candidacy and would have considered voting for him if he were not a Republican.
Early voting remains open daily in New York City’s five boroughs until Nov. 2, two days before the general election on Nov. 4. In addition to casting their ballots for mayor, voters are considering various candidates for other elected offices and a menu of ballot propositions. Find your early voting site on the NYC Board of Elections website, findmypollsite.vote.nyc.
According to unofficial, preliminary numbers from the Board of Elections, nearly 80,000 voters checked in across all five boroughs.
More than 24,000 people cast their votes in Manhattan, followed by Brooklyn with just over 22,000, Queens with just over 19,000, the Bronx with nearly 8,000 and Staten Island with just under 6,500.
NYC mayoral election is make or break for some voters
Voters who spoke to CBS News New York said issues of concern are affordability, immigration, schools, homelessness, crime and policing.
For some early voters, this election is make or break. They say if the candidate they voted for doesn’t win, they may have no choice but to move out of the city.
“I have like five friends that already left New York because they couldn’t afford it,” Bronx resident Lansana Keita said. “Depending on who won, I’m gonna stick it out for another year.”
Ballots also contain six questions about topics including affordable housing and moving local elections to presidential years to boost voter turnout.
For now, voters agree this election holds weight in the future of the city.
“‘Cause I don’t want the machines to be down on Election Day, so I get out here early,” Bronx voter Terri H. said.
“More people voting, more people participating, that’s what it’s all about. We get better results, I think,” Harlem voter Ian Green said.
Candidates on the campaign trail as early voting begins
Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa voted early, remaining defiant that he’s staying in the race.
“Today, I cast my vote for myself and the Republican line, straight down the line,” he said. “Today, it should be the last time we hear that Curtis Sliwa should drop out.”
Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo announced an endorsement from the United Clergy Coalition.
“You want to build affordable housing? Partner with the faith-based community. You want to do mental health services, community-based mental health services? Do it with a faith-based community. Economic development with the faith-based community,” he said.
Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani met with business leaders in Brooklyn.
“I’m going to be voting on Election Day. And my message to early voters, of which I’ve already met a number, is that this is our opportunity, it continues to be one, to make the most expensive city in America affordable.”
Democratic mayoral nominee and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani delivered an address on Islamophobia in the Bronx. Firday, Oct. 24, 2025.
Photo by Ethan Stark-Miller
The 2025 NYC Mayor’s race rivalry between Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo grew even more personal on Friday.
Following a spate of recent controversial actions by Mamdani’s mayoral election rivals that he and others have condemned as Islamophobic, the Muslim Democratic nominee delivered an emotional, 10-minute address on Friday in which he described his own experience with anti-Muslim discrimination and vowed to address the issue head-on going forward.
During Mamdani’s address outside of the Muslim Cultural Center of the Bronx, he called out his chief rival Cuomo, Republican opponent Curtis Sliwa, and current Mayor Eric Adams for what he described as making Islamophobic remarks part of the closing messages of their campaigns and time in office.
Cuomo responded in his own fiery Friday news conference with Muslim leaders in Jackson Heights, Queens, where he charged that Mamdani is “an actor playing the victim,” but in reality, “he’s the offender.”
Sliwa’s camp also took exception to Mamdani’s statements, alleging that he was “weaponizing accusations of Islamophobia for political gain.”
A spokesperson for Adams has yet to respond to requests for comment.
Mamdani: ‘No amount of redirection is ever enough’
Mamdani, a democratic socialist Queens lawmaker, said his adversaries’ comments were emblematic of the persistent Islamophobia he has experienced throughout his year-long mayoral campaign.
“Every day, super PAC ads imply that I am a terrorist, or mock the way I eat,” Mamdani said. “Push polls that ask New Yorkers questions like whether they support invented proposals to make halal food mandatory, or political cartoons that represent my candidacy as an airplane hurtling towards the World Trade Center.”
Mamdani said that hate has persisted despite his attempt not to be seen as the “Muslim candidate,” but rather as the one who would represent all New Yorkers.
“I thought that if I could build a campaign of universality, I could define myself as the leader I aspire to be, one representing every New Yorker,” he said. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.”
But, he continued, “I do not want to use this moment to speak to them any further. I want to use this moment to speak to the Muslims of New York City.”
Mamdani spoke to the discrimination he personally faced growing up in the aftermath of 9/11,” such as being called by the name “Mohammed” or ending up in an airport interrogation room for questioning about whether he planned on attacking the city. He also spoke to the experiences of other Muslims he knew who suffered even more extreme forms of hate.
“I was never pressured to be an informant like a classmate of mine, I’ve never had the word ‘terrorist’ spray-painted on my garage as one of my staff had to endure, my Mosque has never been set on fire,” he said. “To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity. But indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.”
Cuomo says he ‘didn’t take’ terror remark ‘seriously’
Mamdani also chided Adams for seeming to paint him as an Islamic extremist who seeks to “burn churches” and Sliwa for claiming that he supports “global jihad.”
The former governor defended his response to Rosenberg during his Friday event by saying he “didn’t take it seriously.”
“I can see where, if you took it seriously, it was offensive,” he said. “I didn’t take it seriously at the time, period.”
Cuomo also rejected the concept of Mamdani’s speech, contending that the Queens lawmaker is the one dividing people, not himself. He suggested that Mamdani is calling all New Yorkers Islamophobic.
“What he is doing is the oldest, dirtiest political trick in the book: Divide people,” Cuomo said. “It’s the cheapest trick … divide New Yorkers as a political tactic. It won’t work. New Yorkers won’t let you divide them.”
When asked by amNewYork whether he believed his past statements on Palestine had contributed to the campaign attacks he condemned Friday, the Mamdani campaign referred us back to his statement today about being subjected to discrimination as a Muslim New Yorker.
As for Sliwa, campaign spokesperson Daniel Kurzyna charged that Mamdani was attempting to smear his rivals as bigots merely to gain a political edge.
“Curtis Sliwa has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Muslim New Yorkers for 50 years, working to protect their communities from violence and hate, and he will continue to do so as mayor,” Kurzyna said. “To weaponize accusations of Islamophobia for political gain is wrong and desperate, and New Yorkers deserve a campaign based on facts and solutions, not smears.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams will endorse former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the race to replace him, sources in both camps tell CBS News New York’s Marcia Kramer. It comes just two days before early voting starts.
Sources say Adams and Cuomo are working out a joint appearance that is expected to happen later Thursday.
After participating in the second New York City mayoral debate, independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, right, sits with Eric Adams at the Knicks game at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 22, 2025.
“Why would I drop out of the race? You think Republicans are going to vote for Andrew Cuomo?” Sliwa said during the debate.
Sliwa punched hard during an interview on CNBC on Thursday morning in an effort to prove he deserves to stay on the ballot, and blamed Adams for the state of the race.
“He belongs in jail. He’s the reason there’s a Zohran Mamdani, because if he had done a halfway decent job he would’ve won. He’s an incumbent mayor. It would’ve been round two because I ran against him in 2021,” Sliwa said.
Key takeaways from the NYC mayoral debate
The candidates made their case to voters and covered a lot of ground during Wednesday night’s debate.
In addition, the candidates offered up their ideas for mass transit and what should be done about the deadline to close Rikers Island.
Mamdani also refused to take positions on crucial ballot measures that would address the very housing issues he’s centered his platform around.
“What a shocker. Once he takes a position, he’ll change it anyway,” Cuomo said.
Mamdani responded with a zinger of his own.
“We heard from Donald Trump’s puppet, himself, Andrew Cuomo. He spent more money on a singing water fountain at LaGuardia Airport than he did on the average cost of an affordable housing unit,” Mamdani said.
“Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my reelection campaign. The constant media speculation about my future and the Campaign Finance Board’s decision to withhold millions of dollars have undermined my ability to raise the funds needed for a serious campaign,” Adams said in a video announcement when he dropped out.
The moderators and the other candidates all treated him like the frontrunner, and at times Mamdani looked more uncomfortable than he has in debates past.
One notable example of Mamdani getting cornered was when he was pressed on his position on this year’s ballot initiatives regarding housing policy. Both Cuomo and Sliwa loudly and simultaneously hounded him about not having a position, and when asked by a moderator how he planned to vote, Mamdani responded, with what seemed like a knowing half-smile, “I have not yet taken a position on those ballot questions.”
“Oh, what a shocker!” Cuomo quickly responded. Sliwa howled, as did some in the audience.
Later Mamdani again declined to take a position on a different ballot question, prompting a similar response from Cuomo and Sliwa.
Noted Bernadette Hogan at NY1, “This is also a little taste of what reporters on the campaign trail experience when asking Mamdani questions. He goes out of his way to not answer certain questions that could lead to controversy.”
Though he struggled a bit, Mamdani didn’t lose the debate, either. He still effectively centered his campaign messages about affordability and optimism, and he took multiple opportunities to go after Cuomo (and Mayor Adams).
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he believes New York City could soon elect a “communist” mayor and signaled he’d prefer a Democrat to take the reins at City Hall over a far-left candidate.
Asked during a White House press gaggle whether he’d urge Republican Curtis Sliwa to drop out of the race, Trump didn’t endorse anyone, but made clear his concern about current polling with just two weeks to go until Election Day.
“Well, I looked at the polls and looks like we’re going to have a communist as the mayor of New York,” Trump said. “It’ll be very interesting. But here’s the good news. He’s got to go through the White House, everything goes through the White House. At least this White House, it does.”
Trump appeared to suggest that if Sliwa exited the race, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo might close the gap with Democratic socialist nominee Zohran Mamdani, but wasn’t confident it would change the outcome.
Independent NYC mayoral candidate, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, speaks during a debate with Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, center, and Democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani, Oct. 16, in New York City.(AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, Pool)
“If he [Sliwa] dropped out, he’s not going to win. And not looking too good for Cuomo either,” Trump said. “Maybe if he dropped out, Cuomo would have a little bit of a chance. But not much. Because it looks like the lead is—it’s not a great lead, but it’s big enough that he should be able to win.”
Pressed on whether he’d be willing to meet with Mamdani if elected, Trump said he would.
“Yeah, I’ll speak to him,” the president said. “I think I have an obligation to speak to him.”
New York City mayoral candidates Andrew Cuomo, left, Curtis Sliwa and Zohran Mamdani participate in a debate, Oct. 16, in New York City.(AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, Pool)
Still, Trump lamented what he sees as the city’s decline under progressive leadership.
“I love New York. I’ve always loved New York. I just can’t believe a thing like this is happening,” he said. “I left New York, and we had a mayor, [Bill] de Blasio, who was a disaster… New York was a hot city. And now it’s — it’s sad to see what’s happening, frankly.”
“With the communist in charge… look, you just go back a thousand years. I mean, it’s been done many times, a thousand years. It’s never worked once. So it’s not going to work now.”
Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa speaks during the NYC mayoral debate, Oct. 16.(AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, Pool)
Mamdani, a state assemblyman and longtime Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) member, has embraced calls to legalize prostitution and tax the wealthy.
His campaign has drawn endorsements from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other national progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
