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New York City could elect its first socialist mayor Tuesday as a record two million voters are expected to cast ballots in a historic three-way race that remains too close to call.
A new AtlasIntel survey released Monday showed longtime Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani with 43.9% support, narrowly leading former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who drew 39.4%, The New York Post reported.
In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, the poll found Cuomo would defeat Mamdani 49.7% to 44.1%.
Mamdani maintained his overall lead because Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa captured 15.5% support, though his backing dropped from 24% in an earlier poll.
“Some of the Sliwa supporters are switching to Cuomo. They’re peeling off,” said Lee Miringhoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “These are voters who prefer Cuomo to Mamdani.”
Miringhoff said Cuomo-aligned super PACs have blitzed the airwaves in the final stretch, hitting Mamdani with negative ads.
“It’s still a lot of ground for Cuomo to make up,” he said.
Mamdani, Cuomo, and Sliwa crisscrossed the five boroughs Monday, holding events from the Brooklyn Bridge to Staten Island as they made their final appeals to voters.
The race took another dramatic turn when President Trump urged New Yorkers to back Cuomo in a Truth Social post.
“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice,” Trump wrote. “You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”
The president’s endorsement came after Mamdani cited Trump’s weekend “60 Minutes” interview, where he said he’d pick Cuomo over a “communist.” Mamdani used the remark to cast himself as Trump’s true opponent.
Cuomo distanced himself from the president, saying Trump would “make a meal” of Mamdani, while joking that he was “much better looking” than his rival.
More than 730,000 New Yorkers voted early over the nine-day period that ended Saturday.
Younger voters dominated the final days of early voting, a sign of enthusiasm for Mamdani, who relied on Gen Z and Millennial turnout to defeat Cuomo in the Democratic primary.
Stephen Graves, an analyst with Gotham Polling, said the higher projected turnout on Election Day could benefit Cuomo.
“As the turnout gets larger, it leans more moderate and brings in the independents,” Graves said. “That benefits Cuomo because he was getting more independent while the vast majority of Mamdani’s voters were Democrats.”
Other pollsters were less convinced the race was tightening.
Alyssa Cass of Slingshot Strategies said Mamdani’s disciplined campaign could still deliver him a majority.
“When you run an error-free general election campaign, it’s a safe bet that you are on a slide path to win — and to win by more than 50 percent,” she said.
Cuomo’s campaign touted the AtlasIntel poll as evidence of a late surge, though analysts warned against reading too much into it.
“I think the race is getting tighter, but I don’t think it’s as close as this poll says,” said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster for Trump and Empire State Republicans.
McLaughlin noted the poll’s 2,400-person sample included only 59% Democrats, lower than the city’s electorate.
Miringhoff said Marist’s surveys put Democrats closer to two-thirds of likely voters.
The AtlasIntel poll listed Democrats at 59%, Republicans at 19%, and independents at nearly 22%.
Early voting data showed Democrats making up 73% of ballots cast, Republicans 11%, and independents about 15%.
Analysts predict the final turnout could top 2 million voters, the highest since 1969, when liberal mayor John Lindsay was elected.
Late-breaking polls have consistently shown Mamdani leading Cuomo, with margins ranging from 25 points to six.
McLaughlin said the latest poll was the first to find Mamdani’s favorability underwater, with 44% viewing him negatively and 50% positively.
“Mamdani having a negative rating is a sea change,” McLaughlin said. “Either the issue attacks on him are working or there are too few Democrats in the poll.”
