BURSTZohran Mamdani leads in the New York City mayoral race by almost 20 points in a five-person field as opposition to the state lawmaker's bid continues to be split among multiple candidates, a new poll shows.
The Siena College poll released Tuesday shows Mamdani leading by 19 points over his next-closest opponent, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, 44 percent to 25 percent. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa was considerably behind them with 12 percent, followed by incumbent Mayor Eric Adams with 7 percent.
Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary to Mamdani, and Adams, who passed on the primary entirely, both are still registered Democrats but are pursuing independent bids for mayor.
The poll was taken among registered New York City voters.
Pollsters found Mamdani with a solid lead among New York City Democrats, with 55 percent supporting him to Cuomo’s 32 percent. Sliwa had the backing of more than two-thirds of Republicans in the poll.
Mamdani’s lead among independents was more narrow, with 30 percent supporting him and Adams in second with 20 percent, according to the survey.
The State Assembly member, a democratic socialist, was the only candidate who has a net positive favorability rating among Big Apple voters — above water by 14 points with 46 percent viewing him favorably and 32 percent viewing him unfavorably. Meanwhile, Cuomo was in the net negative by 17 points, Adams was by 28 points and Sliwa was by 12 points, the poll found.
Mamdani is the favorite to win the November general election in the heavily Democratic-leaning city. His critics are hoping that one of his opponents can manage to pull off an upset, but the poll’s results show the difficulty facing them.
Cuomo has called for the candidates to coalesce behind whichever of them appears to be the strongest in a head-to-head match-up with Mamdani based on polling next month, which surveys suggest would likely be the former governor. But Adams and Sliwa have been consistent that they will not drop out of the race.
The Democratic front-runner has yet to reach 50 percent support in polling of the general election with a four-person field — or a five-person field including independent Jim Walden — but his support appears to be ticking up a bit from earlier polls. Still, not much independent polling has been conducted of the race.
The Siena poll was conducted Aug. 4-7 among 317 registered voters. The margin of error was 6.7 points.
The higher than typical margin of error is a result of the sample being taken as part of a larger sample of New York State voters and not being weighed as part of a likely voter sample.