Huge questions remain unsettled with less than a month remaining before the June 24 primary election that could crown New York’s next mayor, comptroller, new borough presidents and a slew of City Council members.
The final stretch before the June 24 Democratic primary will feature more strategic alliances and heavy spending by both campaigns and outside super PACs. The current mayoral front-runner, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will fend off increasingly sharp attacks from rivals, who continue to believe they have a narrow path to defeating him.
As the June 14 start of early voting nears, big questions about outside spending, ranked-choice voting and the candidates’ actual policy agendas are growing more pressing.
1. How much radical change do voters really want?
Before this election cycle got underway, the conventional wisdom was that New York City’s electorate was in a conservative mood — as evidenced by Donald Trump’s electoral gains in the city last fall and continued anxiety about crime under Eric Adams’ mayoralty.
Zohran Mamdani’s momentum in the Democratic mayoral primary is testing those assumptions. While it’s no surprise that a charismatic young progressive like Mamdani — a 33-year-old socialist Assemblyman from Queens — would gain traction among left-leaning voters, he has exceeded expectations by settling into a consistent second place behind Cuomo in polls. A late May survey showed Mamdani earning 46% support head-to-head against the ex-governor in the final ranked-choice round.
With that momentum comes added scrutiny, particularly on Mamdani’s extremely ambitious agenda. Mamdani’s platform calls for raising $10 billion in new annual revenue by persuading the state to approve tax hikes on millionaires and businesses — helping to fund universal free child care, five city-owned grocery stores and a $1 billion Department of Public Safety to augment the NYPD. He would also add billions to the city’s capital budget, borrowing money to fund the construction of 200,000 affordable housing units.
The commitments are far costlier than anything Cuomo has proposed, and he’s all but certain to hammer Mamdani as a dangerous socialist if the gap between them narrows further. Mamdani’s ideas are well to the left of policies offered by other leading candidates, who, while outlining their own ambitious plans to boost housing construction and expand child care, are not calling for tax hikes to achieve them.
Mamdani’s supporters argue his policies are no less realistic than Cuomo’s — the ex-governor raised eyebrows this week, for example, by committing to remove hundreds of mentally ill detainees from the Rikers Island jail complex within 30 days of taking office.
Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, argued that none of the leading mayoral candidates is reckoning with the reality of upcoming federal cuts that will force tough choices on city spending.
“Lots of criticism of Trump and Trump policies, but no real understanding of what that suggests in terms of how the city is going to have to shepherd spending and think about how to reduce the tax burden on individuals and businesses,” Wylde said. “Everybody talks about affordability, but affordability is about spending less, tightening the belt and trying to bring down the cost of living and doing business in the city.”
2. How will corporate super PACs influence the mayor’s race — and shape the next City Council?
Until now, the six-figure donations pouring into the pro-Cuomo Fix the City super PAC have been more of a curiosity than a race-shaping issue. After all, the PAC’s $5.6 million in ad spending through May 21 was devoted entirely to positive spots promoting the ex-governor, rather than negative ads aimed at bringing down his rivals.
That could change if polls tighten further and Cuomo’s allies decide to go on the attack. Further spending would put a spotlight on the corporate interests that have poured money into Fix the City, including real estate firms Rudin Management, Two Trees and Vornado CEO Steven Roth, and aspiring Penn Station developer Halmar International.
One business-world executive coordinating another city super PAC predicted that Fix the City — which is being run by longtime Cuomo aide Steven M. Cohen — would see another influx of big checks after the May Emerson College poll that showed Cuomo’s lead narrowing.
“I would imagine there’s a bunch of people that called Steve Cohen in the last 24 hours,” the person said.
Outside spending could have an even greater impact on down-ballot races for City Council, where giants like Uber, DoorDash and the Real Estate Board of New York are spending heavily to influence voters in low-turnout races. As of late May, outside super PACs had spent a combined $3.3 million to boost candidates for council, borough president and public advocate — supporting mostly moderate Democrats and incumbents who may run for City Council speaker.
Other outside interests planning to funnel money through so-called independent expenditures include Airbnb, Madison Square Garden Entertainment, the United Federation of Teachers, and the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council union of hotel and casino workers.
3. Will a third mayoral candidate break out?
For weeks, the mayoral race has been static, with Cuomo and Mamdani locked in first and second place, and the remaining candidates mired in the single digits. Some strategists expect that to change in the coming weeks as candidates broadcast advertisements, and more voters start paying attention to the race. That could provide openings for middle-tier contenders like Brad Lander, Scott Stringer and Adrienne Adams.
Those candidates were encouraged by the late-May Emerson College poll that gave Cuomo 34% of first-round votes — a few ticks down from where he had begun in other polls — with the other candidates starting a few points better than they previously had.
“We always viewed Cuomo’s big numbers as more or less a default reaction from voters who had not begun to think about the race in particular detail,” argued Evan Roth Smith, a strategist and pollster who works for Stringer’s campaign. “Cuomo’s high numbers were a holding pattern for voters that reflected an undeveloped state of the race. The race is now in a state of developing rapidly, and that’s why we’re starting to see change in those numbers.”
4. Will anyone cross-endorse?
Ranked-choice voting, which is in use for just the second time in a New York City mayoral election, gives hope to the non-Cuomo candidates. While the former governor would likely run away with the primary in a regular contest given his sizable base of support, ranked-choice offers his rivals the opportunity to team up in hopes of uniting all the voters that dislike him.
Yet as of press time, with less than a month before the primary, no candidates had taken the seemingly obvious step of cross-endorsing: encouraging one’s own supporters to also rank another candidate lower down on their five-slot ballot, and vice versa. The tactic has proven efficacy — in 2021, Kathryn Garcia overtook Maya Wiley for second place in ranked-choice balloting thanks to the large numbers of second-place votes Garcia got from supporters of Andrew Yang, with whom she formed an alliance just days before the election.
The Emerson College poll hinted at the strategy’s potential: By the 10th and final hypothetical ranked-choice round, Mamdani had gained 22.9 percentage points from respondents who had supported other candidates but included him lower on their ballots, while Cuomo had gained 19 points. Non-Cuomo candidates who endorse one another would likely discourage their supporters from ranking the ex-governor at all.
Candidates are well aware of the potential: Lander and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie both said at a Crain’s event last month that they would have more to say soon on cross-endorsements. And the candidates endorsed by the progressive Working Families Party — Mamdani, followed by Lander, Adrienne Adams, Myrie and state Sen. Jessica Ramos — have informally urged voters to rank that entire “slate.”
5. Is the primary still the only real race?
Since Michael Bloomberg left office, general elections for mayor have not been competitive in deep-blue New York City, meaning the Democratic primary has all but crowned each new mayor.
That is less assured this year. The November general election ballot will feature incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, as well as fellow independent attorney Jim Walden and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
More intrigue could come courtesy of the Working Families Party. Although the WFP typically aligns with the Democratic Party to support their nominee in the general, WFP leaders have suggested they would not back Cuomo if he wins the Democratic nomination, given his longstanding animus with the progressive group. That means the WFP could end up supporting their own candidate in November, making for a lively general election.
The party has gone so far as to commission polling showing which non-Cuomo candidates would be most viable against him under the Working Families ballot line, Politico reported, and found Adrienne Adams would beat Cuomo while Lander and Mamdani would both lose.
