Andrew Cuomo continues to lead New York Democratic mayoral primary, poll finds
NEW YORK — New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo commands a double-digit lead among Democratic voters in the mayoral primary, but his advantage hasn’t been boosted by Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to run as an independent, a poll released Tuesday found.
The Siena College survey, conducted with AARP New York last week, showed Cuomo beating second-place challenger Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, by 18 points in the first round of ranked-choice voting.
Cuomo and Adams, moderates who openly criticize the left flank of the Democratic Party, share a base of blue-collar New Yorkers of color in vote-rich parts of Queens and Brooklyn. The ex-governor’s team thus expected his already-sizable polling lead would expand after the Democratic mayor decided to forgo the June 24 primary to focus on the November general election.
But Siena’s poll found a remarkably static field, despite the drama that’s enveloped the race to lead the nation’s largest city: Adams was indicted on federal corruption charges in September, only to have the case dismissed six months later with explicit help from the Trump administration.
The survey is one of only a few to simulate New York City’s relatively new ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to select up to five candidates in order of preference. The share of votes for the lower-ranked candidates gets redistributed as they get eliminated until two candidates remain.
The former governor received 34 percent in the first round of voting, the poll found. Mamdani placed second with 16 percent. The remaining candidates — New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, state Sens. Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, former Assemblymember Michael Blake and businessperson Whitney Tilson — came in single digits during the first round.
Cuomo was victorious by the eighth round, defeating second-place finisher Mamdani 54 percent to 27 percent. Lander at that point had 19 percent of the vote — support that was divvied up in a ninth round in the poll, which found his backers split evenly between Mamdani and Cuomo. That is notable given Lander’s support for an explicit strategy pushed by left-flank Democrats to ensure voters do not rank Cuomo at all.
By comparison, Adams won his ranked-choice election four years ago in the eighth round.
The poll has some good news for Lander, a left-flank Democrat: He finishes third with 19 percent before being eliminated in the eighth round. And Adrienne Adams finishes in fourth place, ahead of Stringer and Myrie, despite only entering the race last month.
The Siena poll of 556 registered Democrats is the first major survey to be released since Adams announced he would not seek the Democratic nomination.
In the nine-candidate field, Cuomo drew support from 42 percent of Black voters and 39 percent of Hispanic New Yorkers — constituencies he built support with during his tenure as governor.
A Quinnipiac University poll in March found Cuomo leading a field that included Adams and received 31 percent of the vote.
Cuomo resigned the governor’s office in 2021 amid sexual harassment and misconduct accusations that he has denied. Since entering the race last month, he has received backing from high-profile Democrats like Rep. Ritchie Torres, and on Monday scored two major union endorsements.
But he suffered a setback Tuesday after campaign finance regulators announced he did not qualify for $2.5 million in public matching funds. Cuomo’s team blamed a technical error.
