EARLY VOTING: Turnout sets a non-presidential election year record as NYC Mayor’s Race energizes the city

A whopping 732,866 voters cast ballots over the nine days of early voting in the New York City mayor’s race this year, according to an amNewYork analysis of early voter data from the city Board of Elections.

The general election’s early voting turnout this year marked the highest number of votes cast before Election Day in a non-presidential election year since the city implemented early voting in 2019.

Boomers and Gen-X voters dominated the overall early voting turnout, with a combined 58% of voters being between 44 and older (24% were voters between 44 and 60; 34% were 60 years of age and older). Voters aged 18-44 made up nearly 42% of those who cast their ballots early.

The total number of early voters checked in between Oct. 25-Nov. 2, 2025, was more than the 726,361 votes that former Mayor Bill de Blasio received when he won reelection in 2017. It is also close to the 753,901 votes that outgoing Mayor Eric Adams secured a victory with in 2021, and the 752,604 that de Blasio won with in 2013.

While Boomers and Gen-Xers dominated the first several days of early voting, younger voters turned out in droves over the weekend of Nov. 1-2, when more than 250,000 voters in total showed up at early voting sites, amNewYork’s analysis found.

Cuomo has touted the massive early turnout, led by older New Yorkers for much of last week, as a sign that his campaign could pull off an upset win on Tuesday. Cuomo has tended to lead in the polls with older voters, while Mamdani holds an edge with younger voters.

He has further argued that the high turnout means Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s lead in the polls does not accurately reflect who is actually receiving more votes.

“When you have a turnout this high, none of the polls matter, because you have to project turnout, and this is a turnout that nobody has seen before,” Cuomo told reporters during a campaign stop in Lower Manhattan on Monday.

Cuomo has narrowed Mamdani’s polling edge in several polls released over the past week, but remains behind the Democratic nominee, with the gap between them ranging between as little as 6% and as much as 15%.

Republican Curtis Sliwa also polls well among older voters, and that age group could be breaking for him as well. Another positive for Sliwa is the high turnout on Staten Island, the lone Republican stronghold in New York City. Staten Island saw 53,721 early voters, according to Board of Elections data, which accounts for 16.8% of the borough’s active registered voters. By contrast, The Bronx saw 58,661 early voters, accounting for just 7.95% of the borough’s active registered voters.

During Mamdani’s own campaign event on Monday, he said the sizable number of early votes cast is good for democracy. He also repeated that he continues to feel “confident” but not “complacent.”

“I think the more New Yorkers vote, the better it will be for our city,” Mamdani told reporters during a Monday morning campaign event outside City Hall. ” The more New Yorkers can see their struggles in democracy, the more they participate in that democracy, the stronger it will be, and the stronger our movement will be.”

Younger voters turned out in the greatest numbers across several City Council Districts in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, amNewYork found. The highest was in Brooklyn’s Council District 35, covering neighborhoods including Fort Greene and Crown Heights, where 17,659 voters between the ages of 18 and 44 turned out.

The area with the highest number of votes from those 60 years and older was Council District 4, where 12,439 New Yorkers cast early ballots. The district covers Manhattan neighborhoods, including the Upper East Side and Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village.

The last day of early voting, Sunday, Nov. 2, saw the highest number of votes throughout the period, with over 150,000 voters casting ballots, according to the data analysis. The day when the polls were the emptiest was Thursday, when just 26,129 people braved record rainfall to exercise their right to vote.