NYC Mayor’s Race: Historic turnout sees more than 2 MILLION VOTERS shatter years of apathy

The 2025 NYC Mayor’s Race was historic not only for Zohran Mamdani’s victory in becoming the first Muslim mayor in the city’s history, but also for the overwhelming voter turnout.

Just moments before the polls closed at 9 p.m. Tuesday night, the NYC Board of Elections reported that 2 million votes had been cast in the contest — the largest turnout in a mayor’s race since 1969.

Unofficial election results showed a total vote count across the five boroughs of 2,055,921. Manhattan alone saw 521,767 votes in the contest, the second-highest total of the five boroughs; Brooklyn had the most votes at 658,199.

The 2025 mayoral race saw the highest turnout of any mayoral election in the 21st century, and ended a streak of four consecutive election cycles with mayoral election turnout under 30%.

The 2,055,921 votes cast in the race represent about 41.5% of the 4,954,908 active registered voters in the city, based on data from the New York State Board of Elections. That 41.5% would be the highest percentage of voter turnout in a mayor’s race since the 2001 mayoral election that saw Republican billionaire business mogul 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.

Decades of voter apathy were shattered by the energy of the three-way campaign between Mamdani, independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani, in many ways, largely defined the contest through his use of social media and unique voter engagement tactics — from public scavenger hunts to a massive canvassing initiative.

Voting activity in the 2025 Mayor’s race had been strong since the early voting period began on Oct. 25. By the time it ended at 5 p.m. on Nov. 2, approximately 732,866 people had cast their ballots early — making it the most successful period in a non-presidential election cycle since New York introduced early voting in 2019.

In fact, the 732,866 people who voted exceeded the total number of votes Eric Adams received when he was elected mayor in 2021. Turnout in that election cycle was just 23.5%.

Then came the Election Day turnout, which was even more massive.

By 6 p.m. Tuesday night, the NYC Board of Elections reported that 1,015,832 voters had checked in to their polling sites citywide on Election Day. Combined with the early voting total, the 1,748,698 ballots cast in the race up to that point had already marked the largest voter turnout in a mayoral election since the contentious 1993 race, when Republican former prosecutor Rudy Giuliani toppled one-term incumbent Democratic Mayor David Dinkins.

The final unofficial vote total in the 2025 mayoral election turned out to be the most votes cast in such a race 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. Ironically, Lindsay won after losing the Republican primary, while in 2025, Cuomo lost as an independent candidate after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June.

Without question, the 2025 mayoral election will take its place in history as one of the most exciting in recent memory, and possibly the start of a new era in city politics where more voters become part of their democracy.