Tag: political participation

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.