In Suffolk University’s Political Research Center last survey, New York City voters point to a tight race for mayor between Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo.
In a poll conducted Sept. 16-18, Democratic and Working Family candidate Mamdani held a 20 point lead over trailing Independent candidate Cuomo. In the Political Research Center’s survey conducted Oct. 23-26, Cuomo cut that lead in half to 10 points with respondents.
Mamdani sat at a leading 44%, followed by Cuomo’s 34%. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa trails behind with 11% of votes, with the remaining candidates listed on the ballot taking 2%. Seven percent of voters reported they were still undecided and 2% refused to answer.
The biggest impact in this race, according to David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, are the votes Sliwa is pulling primarily from Cuomo.
“There is one person in New York City whose voters could have an outsized impact on the outcome,” said Paleologos in the news release. “That person isn’t Mayor Eric Adams, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Senator Chuck Schumer, or any New York billionaire. It’s Republican Curtis Sliwa, whose voters hold the 11% blocking Cuomo from winning the race. And when asked for their second choice, those voters preferred Cuomo over Mamdani 36%-2%.”
Cuomo’s lead over Sliwa may be from his dramatic increase in support from Hispanic voters, a voting bloc he now leads by one point according to the poll. As of September, Mamdani was winning Hispanic voters by 30 points. Cuomo has also fought for a 10 point lead in registered independent voters, where Mamdani held their majority with an 18 point lead in the previous survey.
The poll, which was conducted over the phone and through live interviews with voters, surveyed 500 NYC residents who are likely to vote in the Nov. 4 General Election for mayor. Representatives from all five city counties were surveyed and quota and demographic information including region, race and age were determined from American Community Survey and past election data.
Poll responses were nearly split in half between renters and homeowners, with a 54% majority calling life in New York city as “somewhat or very unaffordable.”
Left on the ballot are Conservative Party nominee Irene Estrada, and independents Joseph Hernandez and Jim Walden. Current Mayor Eric Adams, originally running for re-election but has since suspended his campaign, recently gave Cuomo his endorsement.
“[This] is the first public poll taken over the last three months that shows the race this close, including more than 15 polls posted on the realclearpolitics.com website,” said Paleologos in the report.
The Political Research Center also reported the margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is +/- 4.4 percentage points and the full cross-tabulation data can be found on the Suffolk University Political Research Center website.
