New Yorkers will elect a new mayor on Tuesday after an unpredictable race that has drawn attention far beyond America’s largest city, where President Donald Trump called front-runner Zohran Mamdani a “communist.”
Rising Democratic Party candidate Mamdani, a naturalized Muslim American who represents Queens in the state legislature, leads former governor and accused sexual assaulter Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing his party’s primary to Mamdani.
The third-place GOP candidate in the polls is Curtis Sliwa, 71, who has a colorful past as the founder of the Guardian Angels watchdog group, a prolific broadcaster and cat lover.
The latest Quinnipiac University poll, conducted Oct. 23-27, gives Mamdani 43 percent of the vote, followed by Cuomo with 33 percent and Sliwa with 14 percent.
The race has focused on the cost of living, crime and how each candidate would handle Trump, who has threatened to withhold federal funds from the city.
“Mamdani is an unusual political figure and really captures the spirit of the moment. This is a moment when a strong anti-Trump voice in America’s largest city is going to make headlines,” said Lincoln Mitchell, a politics professor at Columbia University. AFP. “Frankly, a Muslim candidate for mayor of New York is a huge story.”
Mamdani, 34, has attacked his opponents for their Islamophobic rhetoric and slurs, calling out both Republicans and Democrats for “the anti-Muslim sentiment that has become so endemic in our city.”
Data from the New York City Board of Elections showed that 275,006 registered Democrats had cast ballots, as had 46,115 Republicans, along with 42,383 non-party-affiliated voters in the first five days of early voting, which ends Nov. 2.
Mamdani’s rise has highlighted the chasm between the left and center-right of the Democratic Party. Centrist New York State Governor Kathy Hochul appeared at a Mamdani rally on October 26, but was drowned out by chants of “taxing the rich,” a AFP The correspondent saw.
Hochul has criticized Mamdani’s proposals to impose a 2% income tax on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million.
The rise of Mamdani
Mamdani’s unlikely rise has been fueled by young New Yorkers who have applied, and his campaign claims 90,000 people have volunteered.
“It’s really about people talking to other New Yorkers about the city we all love,” Mamdani told ‘The Daily Show.’
Teenager Abid Mahdi, a Queens native who directs canvases for Mamdani, said AFP that “when I think of Zohran, I think of what Bernie Sanders was to many Americans in 2016 and 2020. He is my Bernie Sanders in many ways.”
Mamdani appeared with leftist standard-bearer Senator Bernie Sanders at a rally in Queens on October 26.
“Now I’m 15, I’ll be an adult and pay taxes at 18, right? Most of the laws will apply to me in about three years. So why should I start worrying then?” Mahdi added.
Underscoring the importance of older voters, who typically go to the polls in greater numbers than younger voters, Mamdani attended a “paint and pour” session at a nursing home in Brooklyn on Thursday.
Torrential rains at the end of the week slowed the election, and the three leading candidates toured television studios in a final effort to woo undecided voters.
Before the vote, Sliwa appeared in a surreal conservative rap video wearing a suit and his signature red beret.
Cuomo, 67, sought on Thursday to court black and Muslim voters, campaigning in Harlem with incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat accused of corruption who dropped out and eventually endorsed his former foe Cuomo.
There was uproar during the week when a British newspaper published what purported to be an interview with former mayor and Mamdani supporter Bill de Blasio in which he appeared to question the affordability of the Democratic Socialist’s spending plans. The article was deleted after the former mayor denied having spoken to the journalist.
A day earlier, former Democratic President Barack Obama called Mamdani and offered to be a sounding board if the front-runner wins the election. He also praised Mamdani’s campaign.
The call, first reported by The New York TimesMamdani’s spokesperson confirmed it.
“Zohran Mamdani appreciated President Obama’s words of support and his conversation about the importance of bringing a new type of politics to our city,” said Mamdani spokeswoman Dora Pekec.
Additional contributions from Reuters
