One of the last polls ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary has socialist Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani besting moderate former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a ranked-choice voting simulation.
The Emerson poll is the first major, nonpartisan poll to show Mamdani winning the race against Cuomo, a moderate Democrat who resigned as governor in 2021 over allegations of sexual harassment. The poll is jointly run by PIX11 and The Hill.
The poll found that Cuomo earned 36% of first-choice votes, with Mamdani got 33%. However, in simulating the ranked-choice voting count, the 33-year-old Queens Assembly member gradually catches up with Cuomo as candidates get eliminated from the race and their lower-ranked votes are reallocated.
Comptroller Brad Lander, who sits in third place in most polls, cross-endorsed Mamdani on June 13, giving new momentum and hope to the assemblymember’s campaign — and based on the simulation, it would appear his votes would help put Mamdani over the top in the end.
The poll indicated that Mamdani pulls ahead of Cuomo by 3.6%, the exact margin of error, when counting the lower-ranked votes from Lander. The poll potentially signals a giant upset for Mamdani, whohas trailed for the majority of the race but gained ground on in recent weeks with a massive volunteer field operation.
The Cuomo campaign, however, suggested that the Emerson poll was an outlier in a statement released Monday: “This is an outlier: Every credible poll in this election—including two released last week—has shown Governor Cuomo with a double-digit lead, which is exactly where this election will end tomorrow. Between now and then, we will continue to fight for every vote like he will fight for every New Yorker as mayor.”
Prior to Monday, the only major poll that showed Mamdani winning the primary was conducted by Data for Progress and taken on behalf of a Super PAC supporting Mamdani.
The assemblymember has defined himself in the mayoral race as an alternative to the status quo, focusing most of his campaign on attacking Cuomo’s track record with women and controversial policy while in Albany. Mamdani has vowed to “freeze the rent,” wants to make buses free, and seeks to open city-owned and operated grocery stores.
Cuomo and other critics have decried Mamdani’s policies as unrealistic and “socialist.” In the final stretch of the former governor’s campaign, he has battered Mamdani on experience, arguing that Mamdani’s four years in State Assembly do not come close to preparing him for City Hall. Cuomo has doubled down on his experience dealing with President Donald Trump during Trump’s first term and has argued that he is the best candidate to take on the president, who Cuomo said has “declared war” on New York City.
The Emerson poll shows Mamdani gaining steadily on Cuomo since February, when Mamdani was polling at just 1% and Cuomo at 33%. Cuomo, who gained in popularity slightly toward the beginning of the race, according to Emerson, has stagnated in the college’s polling, now polling at 35% and Mamdani at 32%. Lander is polling third with 13% and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens) is polling fourth with 8%, according to the poll.
When ranked-choice voting is accounted for, Emerson shows Mamdani beating Cuomo in the eighth round after collecting nearly 8 points from Lander’s votes, who is projected to get eliminated last before the top two vote-getters. RCV eliminates the lowest vote-getting candidates in each round of tabulation until one candidate has allocated over 50% of the overall vote. The model allows for an otherwise rare opportunity for coalition-building among competing candidates, many of whom in this race are strictly against a Cuomo return to political power.
Emerson shows voters under 50 breaking for Mamdani by a wide margin while those over 50 prefer the former governor. Hispanic voters support Cuomo 60% to 40%, and Black voters prefer him 62% to 38%. Mamdani leads with white voters 61% to 39% and Asian voters 79% to 21%. Cuomo leads Mamdani with voters who do not have a four-year college degree, while voters with a college education prefer Mamdani. Men favor Mamdani 56% to 44% while women prefer Cuomo 52% to 48%.
The poll was conducted from June 18 to June 20 among 833 likely voters and comes as the city braces for a brutal heatwave on Election Day. High humidity and temperature, which is expected to surpass 100 degrees, is likely to impact turnout as voting sites prepare to keep voters hydrated and shaded in long Election Day lines. Early voting, conducted June 14 through 22, saw massive turnout with 384,338 check-ins, according to the Board of Elections.
