Zohran Mamdani leads race for NY mayor; Adams falls to fourth place, according to poll

New York. — Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani leads with 35% in the race for New York City mayor, according to a poll published this Tuesday by the firm Slingshot Strategies. He is followed by former governor Andrew Cuomo with 25% and Republican Curtis Sliwa with 14%, while current mayor Eric Adams appears in a distant fourth position with just 11%.

The poll was conducted between July 2nd and 6th and reflects a significant shift in the city’s political landscape. Although Mamdani still doesn’t reach an absolute majority, the results show that neither Cuomo nor Adams —both running as independents after leaving the Democratic Party— manage to establish themselves as viable contenders against the young Queens legislator. Mamdani, 33 years old and of Muslim origin, had already widely surpassed Cuomo in the Democratic primaries on June 24, with a lead of 56% against 44%. Adams, immersed in a series of scandals that affect both his management and his environment, chose not to participate in that process. One of the most striking data points from the study is that the greatest support for Adams comes from the Republican electorate, where he reaches 26%. However, according to Evan Roth Smith, founder of Slingshot, “there is not enough Republican base in New York to sustain a Democratic candidacy in crisis.” The city has a ratio of two Democratic voters for every registered Republican. The former president Donald Trump has intensified his attacks against Mamdani, whom he has called an “illegal alien” and a “communist”, even threatening to withdraw federal funds if he is elected. However, those statements do not seem to have weakened support for the young assemblyman in the progressive sectors of the city. For his part, Republican Curtis Sliwa, who was already a candidate for mayor in 2021, assured that Cuomo and Adams are so delegitimized that instead of attracting moderate votes, they end up pushing more citizens towards Mamdani. “Voters don’t want more of the same,” he affirmed to the New York Post. According to the study, Mamdani faces resistance among men, people between 45 and 64 years old, and citizens without a university education, segments where Cuomo and Sliwa show better performance. In addition, among older white voters and homeowners in peripheral districts, strong skepticism towards his candidacy persists.

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But the person who has suffered the greatest deterioration is Eric Adams. Support among his former key voters has decreased noticeably: only 16% of African American respondents, a bloc that massively supported him in 2021, said they would vote for him again. From his campaign command, spokesman Todd Shapiro downplayed the results: “A few weeks ago, Cuomo was leading in several polls and lost by a wide margin. This new measurement is nothing more than another proof of how disconnected many polls are from the current political reality.” The election for the New York City mayor is scheduled for November 4th, and with the ballot already set, the margins for maneuver are increasingly reduced for the lagging candidates.