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Politico
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Politico
Cuomo maintains double-digit lead over Mamdani, but his advantage is shrinking
NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo continues to lead the Democratic primary for mayor, with one week left, but the gap between the former governor and top rival Zohran Mamdani is shrinking, according to a new poll from the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. The survey of 1,350 likely Democratic primary voters conducted June 9 through June 12 found Cuomo outpacing Mamdani 55 percent to 45 percent in the seventh round of a ranked-choice voting simulation. Brad Lander, the city comptroller, was eliminated one round earlier at 13 percent and every other candidate was stuck in single digits. The matchup excluded undecided voters; when Marist included them, Cuomo led Mamdani 43 to 35 in the final round. A Marist poll in May showed Cuomo leading Mamdani by 24 points in the fifth round, excluding undecided voters. The poll, which has a 4.3 margin of error, found Cuomo leading in the first-round of voting with 43 percent to Mamdani's 31 percent. Undecided voters stand to shift the election: 11 percent haven't chosen a first-choice candidate while another 11 percent do not rank either Cuomo or Mamdani on their ballots. The survey underscores the degree to which this has become a two-person contest, as Cuomo and a super PAC boosting him flood the airwaves with ads portraying Mamdani as radical and lacking relevant experience for the job. The lefty lawmaker, who has exceeded expectations this cycle, is hitting Cuomo over the scandals and missteps in his gubernatorial record. Early voting began over the weekend, ahead of the June 24 primary. Survey respondents continued to report high dissatisfaction with the direction of New York City, with 77 percent saying it's headed in the wrong direction. Another 72 percent say they want candidates to oppose President Donald Trump. That portends poorly for Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent in the general election, following a judge dropping his federal corruption case at the behest of President Donald Trump's Department of Justice. Mamdani's campaign has shown significant momentum in recent weeks, with endorsements from Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velázquez, as well as progressive icon Sen. Bernie Sanders. And the Marist numbers bear out that surge. Last month, he was the first-choice for 18 percent of voters. Now 27 percent prefer the 33-year old assemblymember, while 38 percent picked the former governor. Mamdani has gained ground among Latinos, winning that demographic 41 percent to Cuomo's 36 percent. Voters are divided by age between the 33-year-old lawmaker and 67-year-old former governor: Those under 45 prefer Mamdani to Cuomo 52-18, while older voters pick Cuomo by a 30-point margin. Forty-eight percent of Black voters backed Cuomo, and none of his rivals came close to winning a portion of that crucial demographic. Mamdani drew 11 percent of Black New Yorkers while Adrienne Adams, who would be the first Black woman elected mayor, received 12 percent. Cuomo's support with Jewish voters is also durable, with 40 percent supporting him, the poll found. A super PAC allied with him has hammered Mamdani's anti-Israel stance in mailers and TV ads. Mamdani and Lander, who once considered becoming a rabbi, are virtually tied with Jewish Democrats, drawing 20 percent and 19 percent respectively. The race is tightening most among early voters, with Mamdani trailing Cuomo by just 5 points. Of those Marist polled, 70 percent were over the age of 45; 35 percent were white, 30 percent were Black, 24 percent were Latino and 7 percent were Asian. Sixty percent of respondents were women; 40 percent men.
New York Post
5 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Who won fiery final NYC mayoral debate? Post panelists rate the Dem candidates: ‘Finally landed some punches'
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo took the harshest personal hits from rivals Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander in the second and final mayoral primary debate — but likely not enough to topple his perch as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, a Post panel of political experts said. But Mamdani, who has emerged as a top threat to Cuomo, took some jabs as well. And the panel of seven analysts questioned whether criticisms about the charismatic 33-year-old Democratic socialist assemblyman's thin resume and experience will blunt his momentum. 'Cuomo, Mamdani and Lander were more vitriolic, throwing haymakers,' said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. Advertisement 5 Former NYC Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during the final NYC Democratic mayoral debate at John Jay College of Criminal Justice on June 12, 2025. AP 'But I don't think the debate changed the dynamics of the race.' Campaign strategist O'Brien 'OB' Murray said Cuomo, Lander and Council Speaker Adrienne Adams were the debate winners. Advertisement 'Democratic opponents finally landed some punches on Andrew Cuomo, but none of these punches will leave any bruises,' said Murray. Still, Murray said: 'Lander went right at Cuomo and was a different debater from the start.' Republican campaign strategist Bill O'Reilly agreed, saying, 'Cuomo likely did well enough to keep his polling lead, but Lander improved on his last performance and may siphon away some Cuomo votes.' One of the signature moments in the debate was when Lander, the city comptroller, recognized Peter Arbeeny, whom he invited as a guest to the debate hosted by NY1 and The City at John Jay College Thursday night. Advertisement 5 Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani stands on the debate stage at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater. via REUTERS Arbeeny's father, Norman, died from COVID-19 after a rehab stint in a nursing home. The stunt allowed Lander to personalize Cuomo's controversial COVID-19 policy that required nursing homes to admit recovering infected patients, which critics claimed accelerated the spread of contagion and deaths of vulnerable, elderly residents. Cuomo has long denied that was the case. Advertisement The panelists said Lander's super aggressive performance was perhaps his last attempt to try to shake up the race and supplant Mamdani as the anti-Cuomo alternative. 'Lander attempted to revive his campaign. It was a hail Mary night,' Murray said. Former Brooklyn Councilman Sal Albanese said, 'Lander was in Cuomo's face. Lander showed fire tonight. He had a pretty good performance.' The Post panelists said Mamdani showed he could go toe-to-toe with Cuomo, when he said of the sexual misconduct accusations that forced the veteran pol from the governorship, 'I have never had to resign in disgrace.' He also scolded Cuomo for mispronouncing his name. 'Mamdani's hammering Cuomo on the sexual harassment accusations and demanding that he pronounce his name correctly was as clean a blow as you'll ever see in a debate. It was a memorable moment,' said Andrew Kirtzman, managing director of the consulting firm Actum. 'Cuomo found it hard to get off the defensive at first, but got stronger and more commanding as the night went on – he projected more gravitas than any of his opponents.' 5 NYC Comptroller Brad Lander speaks during Thursday night's debate. via REUTERS Advertisement Political analyst Ken Frydman said the hit on Cuomo's sex harassment scandal landed — but it wasn't a knockout punch. 'If it was, no woman would've voted for Donald Trump,' he said. Frydman added: 'Cuomo, Mamdani and Adams came into the second debate one, two and three — and came out of it one, two and three.' One of the surprises of the debate, the panelists said, was when the council speaker deftly asked if Mamdani had the experience to be mayor, comparing her background and record to his. 'Adrianne Adams showed maturity and experience while others questioned the same for Mamdani. Her use of the assemblyman is something the others didn't catch onto,' said Murray. Advertisement Another candidate, former city Comptroller Stringer, also took a veiled shot at Mamdani, a foe of Israel who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Jewish state. 'The BDS movement is antisemitic,' Stringer said. 5 Democratic mayoral candidates Adrienne Adams, Andrew Cuomo, Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, Zellnor Myrie, Scott Stringer and Whitney Tilson participate in the debate on June 12, 2025. POOL/AFP via Getty Images Cuomo, Stringer and longshot candidate Whitney Tilson did a 'stellar job hammering home Mamdani's radical and anti-Israel stances,' said O'Reilly. Advertisement Democratic operative Yvette Buckner said there fewer voices than in the first debate but 'the attacks were bolder and more negative,' especially for Cuomo by Mamdani and Lander. She noted that questions were raised about Mamdani's experience as well. 'Mamdani effectively delivered soundbites on his opponents but did not dig deep into his policy positions, like other candidates such as Adrienne Adams did, which leaves unresolved questions with less than 36 hours until early voting,' Bucker said. 5 Democratic operative Yvette Buckner said there were fewer voices than in the first debate, but 'the attacks were bolder and more negative,' especially for Cuomo by Mamdani and Lander. AP Advertisement 'But it remains to be seen if that will slow down his momentum.' Albanese was the one panelists who really thought the debate hurt Cuomo. 'I think Cuomo's numbers are going to drop. He took a pounding. I thought he had a weak debate,' he said. Cuomo couldn't even remember if he'd ever visited a mosque while campaigning, Albanese noted. 'No Muslims are going to vote for him,' said Albanese. The primary election is June 24 with nine days of early voting beginning on Saturday.
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Adrienne Adams, Invoking Father's Death, Says Cuomo Mismanaged Pandemic
The case for Adrienne Adams's bid to become mayor of New York City began in the parking lot of a suburban hospital where she last saw her father alive. More than five years ago, in March 2020, Ms. Adams and her sister drove their father, who was infected with Covid-19, to Long Island Jewish Medical Center as the pandemic grew. He had been turned away at the overcrowded and understaffed Elmhurst Hospital, which was closer to his home. With restrictions in place that prevented visitors, Ms. Adams, then a city councilwoman, gave her father a hug before he was wheeled into the hospital on Long Island. He succumbed to the disease eight weeks later. On Thursday, the fifth anniversary of her father's death, Ms. Adams will deliver a campaign speech at Elmhurst Hospital that will draw a line between her family's tragedy and what she will describe as mismanagement by the state's governor at the time, Andrew M. Cuomo, now the leading candidate in the Democratic mayoral primary. Ms. Adams will say in the speech that her father, an Air Force veteran, 'served his government with pride. But when he needed his government to serve him, it failed him. And it didn't fail him by accident. It failed him by design.' Ms. Adams, now the City Council speaker, was a last-minute entrant to New York's Democratic mayoral primary after urging from influential supporters that included the state attorney general, Letitia James, who has since endorsed her. Allies describe her as a common-sense, 'no-drama' candidate who can compete with Mr. Cuomo for the critical base of Black voters that may be abandoning Mayor Eric Adams, who plans to run in the November general election as an independent. Since starting her campaign in March, Ms. Adams, who is not related to the mayor, has struggled to build name recognition and raise funds, despite her City Council perch and deep ties to some of the city's other influential Black leaders. But Ms. Adams seems to be on the rise. Though she was polling in the single digits in early polls, she placed third in a poll released last week by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. She received the support of 11 percent of likely Democratic voters, behind Mr. Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, a progressive Queens assemblyman. On Wednesday, her campaign announced that she had surpassed the minimum threshold to qualify for public matching funds, an eight-to-one match for many of the contributions received so far and a major lifeline in the final weeks of the campaign. Her fund-raising efforts were unexpectedly aided by Mr. Mamdani, who had appealed to his supporters to donate to Ms. Adams. Mr. Mamdani has characterized his gesture as part of a unified effort by Mr. Cuomo's rivals to keep him from being elected mayor, a strategy that depends, in part, on Ms. Adams's ability to siphon Black primary voters away from him. Under New York's ranked-choice voting system, voters will be able to select up to five of their preferred candidates. A large number of Black voters have signaled support for Mr. Cuomo. Ms. Adams intends to do so by attacking Mr. Cuomo's record on delivering for Black New Yorkers. She said in the early days of the pandemic, she and her Council colleagues had trouble getting masks and other personal protective equipment to constituents, even though she asserted that communities outside the city encountered less difficulty. She is among several mayoral candidates who have suggested that the deaths of more than 15,000 people in New York nursing homes and subsequent delays in allocating resources to hospitals fighting the virus was proof of Mr. Cuomo's management failures. In April 2020, the city's health department reported that Black New Yorkers were dying of Covid at twice the rate of white New Yorkers. 'There really is a stark difference in what some people remember as being the man who delivered the news every day on TV and gave statistics with regard to Covid and Covid deaths, and things surrounding the pandemic itself,' she said in an interview. 'We can contrast that with the leader — the person who was governor — who seemingly slow-walked P.P.E. and hand sanitizer and vaccines into Black and brown communities who needed him to stand up and help at the most difficult, darkest time in this history of our city.' Esther Jensen, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo's campaign, rejected Ms. Adams's characterization of how Mr. Cuomo managed the pandemic. 'We have more respect for New Yorkers than Speaker Adams does,' Ms. Jensen said. 'We know they aren't stupid and won't be fooled by politicians attempting to rewrite history in a transparent and disparate bid for attention.' The Cuomo campaign also provided a response from Bishop Orlando Findlayter, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Brooklyn, who has endorsed Mr. Cuomo. 'Governor Cuomo stood with the Black community during our most difficult days, in ways few elected officials ever have,' he said. 'It is deeply troubling when any leader chooses to mislead our community for political gain.' Mr. Cuomo's handling of the pandemic is sure to be a contested issue in the five weeks until Primary Day. Voters often fondly recall his televised daily news conferences about the virus's spread, and his campaign's first television ad sought to reinforce that image. 'It was the greatest health crisis in our history,' the ad's narrator says. 'And when New Yorkers were desperate for leadership, Andrew Cuomo delivered.' A day after the ad was released, The New York Times revealed that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Cuomo lied to Congress about his handling of the pandemic. A spokesman for the governor accused the Justice Department of abusing its power. Ms. Adams's criticisms of Mr. Cuomo are not limited to the pandemic. Speaking on Monday at a virtual town hall for the Working Families Party, which endorsed Ms. Adams as part of a slate of candidates designed to defeat Mr. Cuomo, she called the former governor a 'coward' for refusing to attend mayoral forums where all the candidates were on the stage at the same time to answer questions about his record. 'We've got scandal running out of the front door of City Hall and we've got scandal wanting to run into the back door of City Hall,' Ms. Adams said. 'Andrew Cuomo is hiding.' Her campaign hopes that Ms. Adams can use these attacks to turn voters against Mr. Cuomo, and bring them to her side once they become more familiar with her personal story. She grew up in a middle-class, union household and pursued careers as a flight attendant and corporate trainer. She began serving on local community boards in Queens, and eventually ran for public office. By 2022, she overcame steep odds to become the first Black person to lead the Council. Much of that back story was detailed in a three-minute campaign ad released last week that highlighted Ms. Adams's roots and her family. She is shown at a family gathering in her backyard with her children, grandchildren and husband. In another scene, she is singing 'To God be the Glory' in church. But with less than a month until early voting begins in the primary, her pitch might not be enough to overcome Mr. Cuomo's stature and fund-raising edge. History is also not on her side: She is the fifth council speaker to run for mayor, and one has yet to succeed. Adding to Ms. Adams's challenges is the task of balancing her City Hall responsibilities with the demands of running a catch-up mayoral campaign. In recent weeks, shed has held few public campaign events as she focused on raising money. But she has kept a largely full public schedule as Council speaker, working to push through the municipal budget while hosting and attending city events. Her work has made her a powerful figure in City Hall, even if it carries no assurance that it will deliver her the mayoralty. 'Being speaker is almost the greatest job you could have, second only to mayor,' said Christine Quinn, a former Council speaker who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2013. 'As my father once said in The New York Times, if you run half the place, why couldn't you run all of it?'
