Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has cut front-runner Zohran Mamdani’s lead by half in the race to be the next mayor of New York City, according to a new poll.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who defeated Cuomo for the Democratic nomination in a stunning June upset, leads the former governor, running as an independent, 44% to 34%, according to the poll released Monday by the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston. In the university’s previous poll of the mayoral race, released Sept. 23, Mamdani led Cuomo 45% to 25%. That survey was conducted nearly two weeks before incumbent Mayor Eric Adams dropped his reelection bid, although he remains on the ballot.
Eleven percent of the latest survey respondents told pollsters they would cast their ballot for Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
Cuomo, who resigned from governorship in 2021 following sexual harassment allegations, now leads Mamdani among Hispanic voters by one percentage point, after trailing by 30 points in September, according to a Suffolk University news release regarding Monday’s results.
Between Thursday and Sunday, telephone pollsters surveyed 500 New Yorkers across the five boroughs who reported being likely to vote for mayor on Nov. 4.
Mamdani has been “holding” in polls at about 45%, “but he doesn’t seem to be gaining above that,” David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told Newsday. Cuomo is likely gaining support, Paleologos added, from “these other third party voters, undecided voters … as they finally make their decision.”
“He could win with 45 or 46 [percent], depending on how the votes break,” Paleologos added of Mamdani.
The Mamdani and Sliwa campaigns did not immediately reply to Newsday’s emailed requests for comment Monday afternoon.
Results from the poll represent “exactly what we’re seeing on the ground,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo’s campaign, said in a news release. He added: “This is a two-man race, momentum is on our side, and the more New Yorkers learn about how dangerously inexperienced Zohran Mamdani is — and about his extremist agenda — the less they like what they see.”
A collective 2% of respondents indicated they would vote for the other four remaining candidates on the ballot — Adams, Conservative Party nominee Irene Estrada, as well as independents Joseph Hernandez and Jim Walden, according to the university’s news release.
Seven percent of New Yorkers surveyed reported remaining undecided and 2% refused to respond to pollsters. The survey period began the same day Adams endorsed Cuomo to fill his seat.
With only eight days until Election Day, Sliwa “is one person in New York City whose voters could have an outsized impact on the outcome,” Paleologos said in statement regarding the poll that Sliwa’s voters “hold the 11% blocking Cuomo from winning the race. And when asked for their second choice, those voters preferred Cuomo over Mamdani 36%-2%.”
The margin of error for Suffolk University’s most recent poll results is +/- 4.4 percentage points.
The university survey also asked New Yorkers why they are supporting their preferred candidate. When Mamdani supporters were asked: “Is your vote more about voting FOR Mamdani or AGAINST Cuomo?,” 79% of respondents said they were voting positively for Mamdani, while 7% said their vote was against Cuomo, according to the survey.
When asked a similar question, 40% percent of Cuomo voters said they were voting for him, while another 40% said their vote for the former governor was a vote against Mamdani.
“That tells me that Cuomo’s accumulating support not necessarily because of him, but because voters are coming to Cuomo as the alternative to Mamdani,” Paleologos told Newsday.
Nicholas Grasso covers breaking news for Newsday. A Long Island native, he previously worked at several community newspapers and lifestyle magazines based on the East End.