Surging socialist Zohran Mamdani is making up ground in the Democratic mayoral primary — cutting frontrunner Andrew Cuomo’s lead in half from just a month ago, according to a poll released Wednesday.
In the ranked-choice voting contest, Cuomo prevails 55% to 45% against Mamdani in the 7th round, the new Marist College Institute for Public Opinion survey found.
That’s a big drop from a poll Marist conducted in May, when Cuomo led Mamdani 60% to 40% after all the other candidates were eliminated and second preference votes transferred to the two finalists.
The findings come with early voting in full swing — and less than a week before the June 24 primary day finale.
One of the big changes in the poll was Mamdani boosting his support among Latino voters, jumping to 41% from just 20% last month.
By comparison, Cuomo’s support with Latino voters dipped to 36%, from 41% in last month’s Marist poll.
“That was the surprise in the poll — absolutely,” Marist polling director Lee Miringoff said.
Fellow Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Mamdani since the last poll, possibly lifting the 33-year Queens assemblyman with younger Latino voters, Miringoff surmised.
The rank-choice results exclude the 11% of voters who are still undecided, down from 17% in May.
No other candidate broke 10% among likely Democratic voters in the first round in ranked choice voting: City Comptroller Brad Lander got 8%; Council Speaker Adrienne Adams 7%; former city Comptroller Scott Stringer 4%, and Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie and former Bronx Assemblyman Michael Blake 2% apiece.
The survey of 1,350 like Democratic voters was conducted from June 9-12, before last week’s second and final mayoral debate.
“It’s truly a two person race,” Miringoff said.
Cuomo started out with the support of 43% of Democrats in the first round, followed by Mamdani with 31%, the poll showed.
When undecideds were included, Cuomo got the backing of 38% of likely Democratic primary voters to 27% for Mamdani — up from 18% last month.
Cuomo’s frontrunner status was buffeted by the support of black and older voters.
Nearly half of black voters — 48% — support Cuomo compared to just 11% for Mamdani and 12% for Adrienne Adams, a black lawmaker from southeast Queens.
But 21% of African American voters were still undecided, by far the highest of any racial group.
Mamdani captured 52% of voters under the age of 45 compared to just 18% for Cuomo.
Conversely, Cuomo clobbered Mamdani among voters over 45 — 47% to 17%.
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In the later rounds, Mamdani’s support jumps to 62% from voters under 45, while Cuomo’s backing among older voters hits 63%.
Marist predicts that 70% of those who vote will be 45 or older, which benefits Cuomo.
But the calculus benefits Mamdani if he can drive a higher percentage of younger voters to come and vote for him than the polls project.
White voters were evenly split with 32% for Cuomo and 31% for Mamdani. But Cuomo could benefit from late-breaking support from blocs of voters in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
The first ranked-choice mayoral primary election was in 2021, and the results then indicate that the race between Cuomo and Mamdani could be closer than the polls indicate.
In 2021, the Marist College poll released just days before the primary as well had Mayor Eric Adams leading rival Katherine Garcia by a much smaller margin in the first round, 25% to 17%
.
But the final round was similar to the Cuomo-Mamdani findings, with Adams securing 56% in the 2021 poll compared to Garcia’s 44% after 12 rounds.
Adams went on to narrowly win the Democratic nomination by less than a percentage point over Garcia— representing just over 7,000 votes.
“Ranked choice voting adds an element of uncertainty to the race,” Miringoff said.
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