Cuomo and Mamdani Fight to the End
Final polls from the NYC primary suggest Cuomo holds the advantage heading into tomorrow’s vote
As we approach the final day before votes start rolling in, pollsters have been scrambling to release their last NYC mayoral polls.
The results are mixed, with a few outliers, so let’s take a look at where things stand ahead of tomorrow’s vote.
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The first poll came from HarrisX, conducted on behalf of a pro-Cuomo organization. To put it mildly, this poll is the biggest outlier of the bunch, showing a result we haven’t seen from any other firm in this race.
Cuomo holds a 19-point lead over Mamdani in the first round (38% to 19%), with other candidates trailing further behind, such as Ramos at 6% and Blake at 5%.
What makes this poll unique is that Cuomo beats Mamdani not in a final two-way round, but on the seventh ballot in a three-way race. HarrisX projects Cuomo winning with 52%, Mamdani far behind at 28%, the lowest showing for him from any pollster so far. Perhaps most eyebrow-raising is that Adams appears on the final ballot, pulling in 20%.
Moving on to a poll more in line with others, Emerson suggests a much closer race between Cuomo and Mamdani.
On the first ballot, they’re separated by just two points, with Cuomo slightly ahead at 36% to Mamdani’s 34%. Lander has overtaken Adams in this poll, sitting at 13% to Adams’ 8%.
Lander reaches the seventh round ahead of Adams with 20% of the vote. Meanwhile, Cuomo and Mamdani remain neck and neck at 41% to 39%. On the final ballot, Mamdani is projected to beat Cuomo 52% to 48%.
The Emerson poll is itself an outlier for being the only one so far to show Mamdani winning on the final ballot. It may point to a last-minute surge by Mamdani’s campaign as it works to secure electoral coalitions with other anti-Cuomo candidates.
Yale Youth released a poll conducted by YouGov that shows Cuomo comfortably ahead of Mamdani throughout much of the ranked-choice process.
Cuomo holds a 10-point lead on the first ballot (38% to 28%), with Adams in a distant third at 12%. On the final ballot, Cuomo reaches 57%, while Mamdani lags behind at 43%.
The poll also found Mamdani with a net favorability of +10%, while Cuomo edged slightly higher at +14%, reflecting Cuomo’s advantage heading into the vote.
There were rumblings of an AtlasIntel poll set to be released, but as of writing, it has yet to appear. If it does, we’ll add it at the bottom of this article.
Regardless, Mamdani remains the underdog. Any path to victory tomorrow will depend on the strength of his ground game and the coalitions his campaign has built in the final stretch. Cuomo remains the favorite (if the polls are to be believed) but the rest is now in the hands of New Yorkers.