A Sliding Doors Moment in New York
The Democratic Party is at a crossroads, and the New York Mayoral election is a battle over where to go next.
Hey folks, happy Tuesday.
I was off last week (A little break now that my school year is over), but I am hoping to have the blog back at least weekly (With some biweekly posts!) going forward. Today is an Election Day, which longtime subscribers will note is always a pretty fun time for this blog, and it is especially fun today as we conclude the first leg of what has increasingly become the most dramatic election of the usually quiet off-year.
If you follow politics, even casually, you have almost certainly heard the increasingly noisy buzz surrounding the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City. The race, which will be the center of today’s piece, has so many conflicting angles, interest groups, and narratives, but the actual crux of the race may ultimately be much simpler than you think. But of course, the city that never sleeps is never going to be without drama, and this race has been absolute chaos from the very start.
The incumbent Mayor’s indictment, the attempted comeback by a disgraced former Governor, the fact that this race is even competitive enough to merit a post at all—all of these have merited signifcant coverage throughout the race, and we will get to all of them tonight. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the reason this race has taken the nation by storm is the insurgent campaign of a 33-year old democratic socialist who was polling in the low single digits just 3 months ago.
This is a brand of primary that became quite unfamiliar during the Biden years, but as someone who began following politics during Trump 1.0, this is actually pretty well-treaded ground. A contest between a progressive insurgent and a well-connected, establishment-backed centrist became the central storyline of democratic primaries in both 2018 and 2020—just think of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning intial upset.
You may not personally be affected by what happens in NYC tonight, but make no mistake, the ramifications of this race will reverabate throughout the country, particularly within the Democratic party. The nominee will likely (Though NOT certainly) be the next Mayor, and that is a position that comes with immediate national promience. Whoever it is will immediately be a leading figure of the Democratic party. Suveys show that democratic voters are increasingly demanding new leadership and more aggressive counters to Trump. So today, let’s talk about this absurd primary, and why it will be the first opportunity for those voters to show the nation if they really mean that.
Context! Very Important!
So, before we meet the candidates for Mayor, let’s discuss why this race became so chaotic in the first place, becuase in theory, it shouldn’t be.
Many of you may be at least somewhat familar with Eric Adams, the incumbent Mayor of New York. Adams was elected in 2021 after a long career in public service. Adams, who had a long career as an NYPD officer was elected to the state Senate in 2006 and by 2012, he was the powerful Brooklyn Borough President. In 2021, Adams finally set out to achieve his long-time goal of becoming Mayor, and won by less than a percentage point after multiple rounds of ranked choice voting (We’ll discuss that later).
Adams ran as a moderate Democrat with a tough-on-crime message, but he also leaned on his local roots to pledge support for various police reforms. Well-liked in Brooklyn, Adams rode strong support among the city’s working class and minority voting groups to his incredibly narrow victory in a primary that may have even been more chaotic than this one.
Adams built a wide-ranging coalition to become Mayor, and slowly watched that coalition collapse as his mayoralty turned into chaos. Adams largely failed to address the concerns about crime that he made the center of his campaign, and alienated activists with his zero-tolerance policies on the homeless and his chaotic attempts to address housing affordability. Adams has clashed with the teacher’s union over funding cuts, clashed with state and national Democratic leaders over the migrant crisis (Where he was quick to declare that the influex of immigrants would "destroy" New York), and even with his own City Council, which issued a rare reversal of an Adams veto on bills that would’ve increased aide to the homeless.
By late 2023, Adams’ approvals were in the gutter, but the real kicker was yet to come: In September 2024, Adams was indicted on multiple criminal charges, including bribery, conspiracy, and fraud. The indicments accused Adams of taking over $100k in bribes from the country of Turkey in exchange for helping them out with some large consular building without a proper fire inspection. These bribes included all sorts of free perks to the man who was described as a “true friend of Turkey.” The indicment also suggested some type of conspiracy to cover-up the bribes. I should note that Adams denies all of these charges, and has implied that they were retaliation from the Biden administration for his criticsm of their immigration policies. I should also mention that this is not the only investigation into his behavior—this is the just the one he got charged for.
Just kidding! In February, the Trump DOJ ordered prosecutors to drop all charges, claiming they would impact Adams’ ability to work with Trump on his deportation efforts, and sure enough, Adams has gone onto give ICE significantly more power. In April, Adams, who was already facing multiple primary challengers PRIOR to his indictment, annouced that he would drop out of the Democratic primary to instead run as an independent.
So, that’s why we have an open field, and hopefully that provides some context for the state of NYC politics that this Democratic field finds itself in. Let’s be clear: Adams was not going to be the Democratic nominee. He was already in trouble prior to his indictment, and by the time he dropped out he was facing a billion challengers and was struggling to even crack double-digits in some polling. But his exit also does line up quite well with this race intensfying and feeling more competitive.
Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that Adams is a strange character who will factor in down the line when we go to the general. Take for example, this bizarre video where he shows parents how to stalk their children, this tour of his "home" after facing residency questions, his recollections of his "shawty", his very public eyebrow lift, his son's excursion to Albania to become a rapper, and of course, the most baffling interview answer in U.S. history. (Can you guys tell I’ve wanted to write about this dude for a while?)
A couple other things to note about this unique primary:
1. Ranked Choice Voting: This mayoral primary will be New York’s second using RCV, a system of voting in which each voter ranks their top 5 candidates. If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote in the first round, the last place candidate is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed based on their second choice. This continues until someone crosses 50%. This doesn’t actually go as slowly as it sounds—that’s because of batch elimination, “…multiple candidates in last place(s) will be eliminated in a single round if their combined vote total in that round is less than the vote total of any other candidate.” Still, the result of this is that we won’t know the winner until NEXT Tuesday—and we do expect this to go long.
2. Public Matching Funds: Since I am gonna mention this later, I should note that NY has an interesting system that provides eligible candidates with some extra money for campaigning. Every donation (up to $2,100) is matched 8 to 1, so a $10 donation would, for example, become $90. The idea is to reduce the candidate’s dependence on big donors and self-funding, and expand the potential people who can run for office. There are some interesting limits however: Firstly, candidates must raise a minimum of $250,000 from 1,000 different contributors (And obviously they must be NYC residents) to qualify for matching funds. Secondly, candidates can only spend a little under $8 million during the primary. This is notable, because some candidates reach the spending limit quite quickly AND there are no rules preventing what Super PACS can do, meaning they are free to spend as much as they want supporting or opposing certain candidates.
With all of that out of the way, let’s meet our candidates!
The Established Pick: Andrew Cuomo
Let’s be very clear: Though I will discuss all the key figures in this race in this post, because ranked choice voting makes everyone at least a little important, this is absolutely a two way race at this point. We haven’t always had a lot of polling of this race (And certainly not a lot of GOOD polling), but everything we have seen as of late shows this coming down to Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, who truly, truly, could not be more different in their experiences, styles, and policies.
Let’s start with Cuomo, the ex-Governor of New York attempting to stage a remarkable political comeback less than 4 years after resigning in disgrace. Cuomo has a storied career in New York politics, stretching all the way back to his birth: The son of former Governor Mario Cuomo, who became something of a liberal icon during his governorship in the 1980s, Cuomo followed in his father’s footsetps from the very start, quite literally serving as the campaign manager during Mario’s first run for Governor. The younger Cuomo would later serve in Bill Clinton’s cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development before facing his first notable political setback in an unsuccessful bid for Governor in 2002. In 2006 Cuomo would be elected New York Attorney General, and was elected Governor just 4 years later.
It would be impossible to discuss the totality of Cuomo’s governorship in this post, but like most Governors, he left behind a complicated legacy. Proponents point to Cuomo’s efforts to legalize same-sex marriage and recreational marijuna, his support for strict gun control laws, his work on Medicaid expansion and paid family leave, and his administration’s work on several major infastructure projects, most notably a remodel of LaGuardia Airport that Cuomo has taken to citing on the campaign trail.
Detractors of course, paint a very different picture of Cuomo’s governorship, and have evidence to back it. Cuomo’s budget cuts have been a huge point of contention: He supported a sizable cut to Medicaid at the beginning of the pandemic, citing in part the need to produce a balanced budget. Cuomo also made major cuts to education during his tenure as Governor, and was often criticzed for insufficiently funding high-need school districts in particular, creating a lasting feud with educators in the state. And while Cuomo has heavily touted his work on infastructrue on the campaign trail, many NYC figures blame the former Governor for the increased struggles of the subway over the last decade, citing his decision to cut or withhold funding from the MTA at various points. The New York Times notes that when Cuomo did take the problem seriously by appointing a new head of New York City Transit, his personal beef with said head resulted in him resigning and the problem going right back to square one. Cuomo also presided over an increase in homelessness in the city and was criticized for failing to address the city’s affordability crisis, an allegation he certainly did not beat when his team was accused of using ChatGPT to write his latest housing plan as a mayoral candidate.
But of course, Cuomo’s policies and history are just a small part of his actual problems: The real discourse with Cuomo is largely over the circumstances surrounding his resignation. There’s two major things here, but let’s start with what actually forced his resignation in the first place: Throughout 2021, 13 women would come out to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment, ranging from inapproriate jokes and comments to unwanted groping and kissing. I don’t have time to get into the details of everything Cuomo allegedly said or did, but needless to say, it is all quite gross and inappropriate, and while Cuomo has admitted he may have made some “uncomfortable” comments, I will note that he has denied the most serious allegations. While criminal charges related to the investigations ultimately went nowhere, in August 2021, New York Attorney General Letitia James released a bombshell report revealing Cuomo did sexually harass at least 11 women during his time in office. The report caused an outpouring of calls for Cuomo’s resignation, including from figures like Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi, and facing the prospect of impeachment, Cuomo ultimately stepped down just weeks later.
Despite appearing somewhat regretful at the time, Cuomo’s tone during his mayoral race has been less… diplomatic, we’ll say. Cuomo has referred to himself as a victim of cancel culture, has argued that Jones’ investigation was politically motivated and has attempted to sue for the records of her investigation, in addition to pursuing defamation lawsuits of many of his accusers.
Cuomo has also faced massive blowback for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically as it relates to nursing homes. Hey, do any of you remember the start of pandemic, when nearly every liberal in the country was obsessed with Cuomo? For those uninterested in hearing the President suggest drinking bleach, he seemed like a pretty good option: People wanted him to replace Biden as the democratic nominee, they tweeted stuff like this, he even got a book deal (Which he is now under investigation for). Just one catch: Cuomo’s administration may have attempted to cover up the death toll of the state’s nursing home residents during the pandemic.
Here’s the story: At the start of the pandemic, Cuomo issued an order requiring nursing homes to take back COVID-19 positive patients once they’d fully recovered. Cuomo fiercely beat back on critics who questioned if maybe this was just not the safest idea, and he even came back with a report from the state health department saying there was no problem caused by the policy. Except… that pesky AG Letitia James issued a report in January 2021 stating that the Cuomo admin had systematically undercounted deaths in nursing homes, which Cuomo defended by claiming the true statistics would’ve been weaponized by the Trump admin. However, not only did it turn out that the admin had messed with that state report, he and his aides went to great lengths to cover up the numbers. Cuomo is now under criminal investigation from the DOJ over this, and while he says that’s politically motivated, the FBI has been looking into this stretching back into 2021.
So, here’s the summary: Cuomo has argued that in a time of crisis, New York needs a Mayor who can go toe-to-toe with Trump and provide competent management after the scandals of the Adams administration. Cuomo is NOT arguing for major changes to New York—in fact, he’s taken to critiquing the Democratic Party for its shifts to the left over the last few years, and has made his support for Israel a major part of his campaign. Cuomo’s critics argue that his litany of scandals and misdeeds make him not just a terrible candidate for Mayor, but a terrible person as well (Brad Lander has called him a “psychopath”), and that his history of bullying and feuding with other leaders (See: That New York Transit guy, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Letitia James) make him unfit for the job of being a mayor.
Cuomo entered this race late—early March to be exact, and immediately became the frontrunner, due in large part to his massive name recognition advantage. Cuomo’s lead has whittled down as the race has gone on and the rest of the candidates have increasingly united against him, but he remains the leader in polling, and has coalesced establishment support. Backers of Cuomo include his old boss Bill Clinton, his old enemy Michael Bloomberg, and high ranking democratic party figures like Rep. Jim Clyburn, in addition to a litany of union support. Not all of Cuomo’s endorsers have brought him good press: One, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, also happens to a big time supporter of the U.S. President, a fact Cuomo’s opponents have relentlessly pointed out.
Cuomo also holds a big time money advantage. While he’s closing in on hitting his personal spending limit, Cuomo has the benefit of a major Super PAC behind him, which has poured in millions promoting him and attacking his chief opponent (And recently received a multi-million dollar boost from Bloomberg). So despite the scandals and increased pressure, Cuomo has been able to count on multiple reinforcements as he attempts to defend what was once a 40 point lead against…
The Upstart Insurgent: Zohran Mamdani
Now, let’s meet Zohran Mamdani, who has taken the internet (and this race) by storm. As you might have noticed, I wrote a lot about Andrew Cuomo and his life. I am going to be writing a lot less about Mamdani, which is the first major contrast between the two: At 67 years old, Cuomo would be New York’s oldest mayor at the time of taking office. At 33, Mamdani would be one of the city’s youngest. And that’s only where the differences begin.
Mamdani (Who, fun fact, is the son of well-known filmaker Mira Nair) was born in to an Indian family in Uganda and moved to NYC at 7 years old. A popular attack from Cuomo as of late has been that Mamdani has “never held a real job,” and while it is true that his rap career went nowhere, Mamdani did actually work as a housing forclosure specialist before getting involved with the Democratic Socialists of America and working on several leftist campaigns before launching his own in 2020.
Mamdani won an upset victory in his Queens-based state Assembly seat over a four-term Democratic incumbent, campaigning with the support of the DSA in which he campaigned on issues like universal housing, defunding the police, and public ownership of utilities. Mamdani has since walked back some of his more controverisal positions (He no longer supports defunding the police, which has become a common line of attack from Cuomo), but his 2025 mayoral campaign sounds remarkably similar to what he initially campaigned on 5 years ago. Mamdani’s entire campaign is staked around the issue of affordability—his main priorties are to freeze the rent, provide free fares for city buses, and provide free universal childcare. Mamdani proposes paying for such programs by increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations, which critics cry will result in businesses flocking from the city.
Some will argue that Mamdani’s proposals aren’t realistic, and of course, there will be major challenges for a mayor Mamdani when it comes to interacting with the City Council, state legislature, and Governor. However, the relentless focus on affordability—combined with Mamdani’s personal charisma and social media skill—have come together to make this a real race. Mamdani entered the race last October in the low single digits, but slowly worked his way up into second around March, then began surging in May. Now, several polls show him just barely behind or even leading Cuomo after the RCV tallies are calculated. Most seem to agree that Mamdani, miraculously, has made this race a jump ball.
It has not been without challenges, of course. In addition to attacks on his experience and work history, Cuomo has also charged Mamdani with being a do-nothing in the state Assembly (Only three bills he sponsored were passed into law). Mamdani however, has countered this by citing his activism work in the assembly, including a 15-day hunger strike in support of taxi drivers negotiating loan relief with the state. Mamdani has also taken to comparing his lack of experience with Cuomo’s “bad” experience, which has resulted in several viral video clips online.
A major factor in Mamdani’s campaign to date has been his position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Mamdani has long called the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza a genocide, and made headlines in the first debate when he declined to say whether he’d visit Israel at any point. Cuomo has in past claimed Mamdani does not support Israel’s right to exist (Mamdani has said he supports Israel’s right to exist “with equal rights for all”), and the last-minute scandal of this campaign has revolved around Mamdani’s decision not to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada.” Needless to say, significant media coverage has revolved around Mamdani’s positions in New York, home to the largest Jewish population in the country, where many of the most prominent leaders are backing Cuomo. Mamdani, for his part, has proposed increasing funding to hate crime and antisemitism prevention measures, and recently gave an emotional response to the criticism that he personally is an antisemite.
Of course, as I’ve written about in the past, it’s not clear how much Democratic primary issues care about an Israel-critical stance anymore, as polls show increasing sympathy for Palestians in the party. Still, in a city where the Jewish bloc is so critical, storylines like this have become a major part of the race, though interestingly, Cuomo has largely ceased attacking Mamdani on this front in the final stretch of the race, focusing instead on the experience argument. It will be interesting to see if the accusations do genuine damage to Mamdani’s campaign (In a race so close, everything will be analyzed and blamed or credited tenfold), or if Democratic primary voters are increasingly willing to accept criticsm of the Israeli government (After all, the conclusion that the Netanyahu government is committing a genocide is shared by the vast majority of internal experts).
Cuomo’s experience argument also did get a boost in the closing weeks of the race when the New York Times issued a pretty scathing editorial of Mamdani’s “paper-thin” experience, and comparing him unfavorably to former Mayor de Blasio, ultimately advising voters not to rank Mamdani (It should be noted that the paper also had some fierce criticisms of Cuomo as well, and declined to endorse his campaign).
Still, none of this has stopped Mamdani’s momentum, and when you watch his campaign videos and listen to his interviews, it’s not hard to see why. I can’t really analyze his entire campaign here, but Mamdani has run a very different type of campaign from most progressives. While he hasn’t discounted social issues, he’s heavily focused on the affordability crisis that seems to be the primary concern of most Americans. He’s shown a willingess to go on any talk show or podcast that will have him, and discuss issues with those who disagree. He’s expressed a flexbility and a willingess to change his mind that contrasts with the rigid stances of some other progressive insurgents. Most importantly, Mamdani has been willing to coalition build. For months, Mamdani has encouraged voters to rank the rest of the Working Familes Party slate—Brad Lander, Adrienne Adams, Zellnor Myrie—on their ballots alongside him. And, as we’ll soon see, that’s paid off.
As his momentum grew in recent weeks, endorsements began to pour in. Mamdani has openly campaigned with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who faces her own test of influence in her open support of his campaign. He’s also received support from progressive stalwarts such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, Reps. Summer Lee, Rashida Tlaib, and Pramila Jayapal, former Labor Sec. Robert Reich (Who, fun fact, served with Cuomo in Clinton’s cabinet), and recently appeared on the ballot of Letitia James. And of course, the amount of celebrites and progressive groups that have backed him is impossible to recount here. He’ll need it though—unlike Cuomo, Mamdani lacks major Super PAC support, and has nearly hit his spending limit. Meanwhile, the Super PAC attacking Mamdani has become relentless in the closing days.
Mamdani’s unique campaign is perhaps best encapsulated by his final major event: A 7-hour walk across the length of Manhattan to greet supporters. If there was a momentum law in politics, Mamdani would enter this election with all of it at his back. As we’ll discuss later, there are signs to suggest that his campaign has fundamentally changed the electorate by engaging young voters at an absolutely unprecedented level. There’s much more I could discuss here, but we really should move onto…
Policy Wonk: Brad Lander
So, FYI, I’m going to go much quicker from here on out since (1) This is already pretty long and (2) None of these people will actually be Mayor in their own right, and this is more about how they’ve impacted the campaign between the top two from an RCV perspective
There was a time when Lander, who jumped into the race last July, seemed poised to take on the progressive mantle. The longtime City Councilor became City Comptroller in 2021, and in that position as, in essence, the chief financial officer of the city, made a number of fans on the left for his feuds with the Adams administration.
Lander has run a prototypical progressive campaign for Mayor, and there’s almost been something of a Bernie-Warren dynamic between him and Mamdani, if that makes sense. While the latter has taken the progressive mantle by inspiring and engaging new voters, Lander has still maintained respect for his detailed policy proposals and his fierce attacks on Cuomo. As Lander will tell you himself, he is not the most charismatic or exciting figure, but he has become a key figure in what I’ll call the Anti-Cuomo coalition. In addition to his aggressive attacks on Cuomo in the debates (Including a memorable incident where he brought the son of a nursing home patient who died during the pandemic into the audience), Lander has become a key figure in this race due to his recent cross-endorsement with Mamdani.
While Mamdani had always been supportive of Lander over their shared placement on the WFP ballot, this cross-endorsement directly linked their campaigns, with each candidate explicitly telling their voters to rank the other second. This is key for several reasons — Firstly, Lander polls third in most suveys (Albeit a distant one), making his support group the largest for the top two to pull from. Secondly, Lander is Jewish, and some have speculated that some of his Jewish supporters could ultimatly decline to rank Mamdani over concerns about his comments on Israel. Lander has been steadfast in his encouragement for Mamdani (Motivated perhaps in part by a fierce hatred for the former Governor), and the two have done a bunch of cute stuff together, like getting ice cream, riding e-bikes, doing double interviews, it’s actually kinda sweet. Lander’s final ad buy in this race doesn’t even mention himself—the ad he’s airing is exclusively an attack of Cuomo.
Lander, who rallied with Mamdani this past weekend at a “Rank the Slate” rally hosted by the WFP also appears on AOC’s ballot, which may be worth noting as you try to keep track of the various coalitions here. It should also be noted that if anyone in this race experiences a late surge, it would certainly be Lander, who made national headlines last week when he arrested and detained by ICE for attempting to accompany some immigrants at an immigration court. Lander is probably too far behind for it to matter, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. He also—kind of?—got the NYT endorsement, except it wasn't really their endorsement, but he’s also just saying it was because why the hell not?
Failure to Launch: Adrienne Adams
When she entered the race in March, many assumed Adams (no relation to the Mayor) would raise as the immediate Cuomo alternative. Adams, who has served as Speaker of the New York City Council since 2022 and has represented her Queens-based seat since 2017, appeared on paper to be a solid bridge candidate between the progressive and moderate wings of the party. With a background in the corporate sector, Adams had risen quickly in local politics and, much like Lander, clashed with the Eric Adams admin at several points during her tenure as Speaker.
For whatever reason though, Adams never broke through in this race. While she cites several notable supporters (The first choice of AG James, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, appearences on AOC’s ballot and the WFP’s slate), Adams perhaps simply entered too late to claim her lane in the race. Many of the minority communities she’s attempted to court as supporters ultimately went to Cuomo, and Mamdani’s surge prevented her from taking up the anti-Cuomo energy.
It also has not helped that Adams, while a fierce critic of the former Governor who has accused him of being uncooperative with the city during the COVID-10 pandemic, has not exactly embraced the anti-Cuomo coalition. Despite Mamdani’s and AOC’s consistent insistence that his voters rank Adams on their ballot, Adams declined to do any type of cross-endorsement, even as it became clear she was not going to win. She even expressed some uneven criticism of Mamdani, posting and then deleting a tweet about his support for abolishing ICE. Still, she did appear at the “Rank the Slate” rally, so again, inconsistent messaging.
Adams’ supporters could ultimately swing the race. On paper, they would appear to be more partial to Cuomo than to Mamdani. On the other hand, Adams is no fan of the ex-Governor, and has made that incredibly clear. In a close race, she might provide the difference.
Abundance-Pilled: Zellnor Myrie
If there is a single candidate in this race who has certainly read Ezra Klein’s “Abundance”, it is the state Senator Zellnor Myrie, who has represented parts of Brooklyn since 2019. Myrie’s campaign has been centered around his prosposal to build 1 million homes and expand after-school and childcare programs. Myrie entered the race all the way back in May 2024, knowning he would likely need to work at a name recognition disadvantage, and yeah, that’s remained his issue.
While Myrie’s focus on housing has absolutely earned him fans, especially among the NIMBY crowd, he’s another candidate who, like Adams, likely needed to emerge as a compromise candidate to truly have a line in the race. With the raise of Mamdani as a no-holds-barred progressive alternative to Cuomo, it’s been even more difficult for Mamdani to find a base. Mamdani is likely too progressive for most centrist voters, but has not always had the most comfortable relationship with NYC progressives, some of whom bristle at his support from the real estate industry.
Like Adams, Myrie has sort of become part of the Cuomo coalition, albeit more circumstance than anything else. Myrie also declined to cross-endorse with Mamdani despite the latter’s past support for him (And their shared presence on the WFP and AOC ballots). Still, Myrie’s last actions in the race have pitted him directly against Cuomo, as he rejected a cross-endorsement offer and instead spent money on radio ads attacking Cuomo’s record, focused on reaching Black voters.
It’s not clear who will benefit from the second choice of Myrie supports, but it’s also not clear if he’ll even win that much support to begin with. That will determine his impact.
How is He Still Running: Scott Stringer
Outside of Cuomo, no one in this race can claim to have a longer history in politics in this race than Stringer. After a decade-plus in the state Assembly, Stringer served as Manhattan Borough President and City Comptroller before running for Mayor in 2021. Stringer was intitally the choice of many progressives in that race (In much the same way Lander has courted support now), but his campaign was wrecked in April of that year by a pair of credible sexual harassment allegations. Stringer has denied the allegations, but they largely spelled doom for his campaign, and he finished a disappointing fifth in the race.
Stringer is back this year, and he simply has not been a factor in the race. Outside of a brief period where his name recognition allowed him to poll in the high single digits, Stringer has mostly been an afterthought. After progressives largely abandoned him in 2021, Stringer has run a more moderate campaign this time around, pledging to be tough on crime and corruption. That pivot has left Stringer with even fewer allies, and he’s the only candidate in this race who can’t be characterized as either pro-or-anti Cuomo. He’s certainly no fan of Cuomo, who he’s called a coward, but has also critiqued Mamdani’s lack of experience. He isn’t present on the WFP slate, so progressives have largely ignored him, although he was still ranked on AOC’s ballot, a fact that became important for the dumbest possible reason, as you are about to see.
It’s absurd that this dude has been running since January 2024. Might have to let it go boss. Much like Myrie, his supporters could impact this race, but we don’t really know how many of them he actually has.
Benedict Arnold: Jessica Ramos
I genuinely debated including Ramos on here, because she’s barely even running a campaign at this point, but technically she is and she’s still on the ballot, so…
State Senator Jessica Ramos entered NY politics as a rising progressive star after she defeated an incumbent conservadem in her Queens-based seat in 2018. That campaign earned her a lot of love and support in progressive circles, and she firmly aligned herself with NY’s left during her time in the state Senate.
There was the occasional weird moment, such as when she randomly took to Twitter to attack AOC for not spending enough time in her district, but by the time she entered the race in September 2024, Ramos had largely engineered a reputation as a mostly-reliable progressive ally who maybe lacked the personal relationships to truly work with the movement. And those skills might’ve helped, as Ramos’ campaign never got off the ground. She failed to qualify for matching funds, and as a result failed to qualify for the second of two primary debates, essentially marking the end for her campaign.
The next day, AOC released her ballot, and notably included Scott Stringer. This was notable because the WFP, which AOC generally aligns closely with, had ranked Ramos over Stringer for their final spot. You can probably guess why AOC wasn’t interested in ranking Ramos, but this seemed to be the final straw for her, as the next day Ramos stunned the enterity of New York politics by endorsing Cuomo.
To be clear: Not only is Ramos on a completely different ideological end of the spectrum than Cuomo, she called on him to resign in the wake of his harassment scandals. Just a few months ago, Ramos made headlines when she claimed Cuomo was “declining mentally,” making an unfavorable comparison to Joe Biden. That is a CRAZY thing to say about someone you turn around and endorse, and as most have said, it generally appears that Ramos is using this as an opportunity to get some sort of revenge on AOC.
If this is an attempt at political gain, it’s a terrible one. Let me remind you all that this is not a cross-endorsement: Cuomo is not encouraging his voters to rank Ramos second or anything. As of now, Ramos is getting nothing in return for doing this. Even if Cuomo wins, it’s hard to imagine she would receive a position in his administration or something, considering their different positions and his history. Wild stuff.
Ramos is on the ballot and encouraging people to vote for her, but is barely campaigning at this point and really only serves as a vote vessel for Cuomo.
Andrew Cuomo’s Biggest Hater: Michael Blake
Much like Ramos, it’s been clear for a while that Blake had zero chance of winning this race.
Blake entered in November with a compelling enough story on paper—the son of Jamican immigrants, Blake served in the Obama Administration before being elected to the state Assembly from the Bronx, and served as Vice Chair of the DNC during the first Trump administration. However, after an unsuccessful campaign for NYC Public Advocate in 2019, Blake retired from the state Assembly to run for Congress in 2020, losing that race too. Without currently holding office and with a couple of losses on his record, Blake lacked the track record to attract many notable supporters, and found himself sort of ideologically in the middle in a primary that really became about ideology. Blake did not qualify for matching funds, making the first debate his only real chance to make a big impact.
But, this is a guy who says the most effective Democrat in the country right now is “himself.” That is to say, Blake does not shy away from bold answers, and in his one debate he more or less attached a bomb to himself, then hugged Cuomo tight. There are many favorite answers I could pick from this, but my favorite is easily his declaration that Andrew Cuomo is the greatest threat to public safety in the city due to his actions around grandmothers, mothers, and young women.
Blake has since cross-endorsed with Mamdani, a minor endorsement that nonethless puts him firmly in the anti-Cuomo camp. And hey! He actually qualified for matching funds with two days to go, which he immdiately used to buy ad time for anti-Cuomo ads. Pretty remarkable solidarity.
Somehow Made Both Debates: Whitney Tilson
Tilson, the only candidate in this race without prior political experience, can best be described as “a very rich guy.” The former hedge fund manager is best known for founding the nonprofit Teach for America, whick works to place recent college graduates as teachers in underfunded schools.
Tilson, much like Ramos and Blake, has had no chance at winning for months, and in the last few weeks of the race has focused all his energy on attacking Mamdani, even taking the pressure off Cuomo at times in the debates. Tilson has fixated heavily on Mamdani’s positions on Israel and his past support for defund the policy, and has placed himself firmly in opposition to Mamdani’s socialism, calling his policies “pie-in-the-sky promises.” (I also should mention that he complained about members of the DSA calling each other comrade, which I find quite funny).
Tilson has recently started posting AI advertisements attacking Mamdani, and at this point in writing this, I am truly too tired to even pretend to take this seriously anymore. He was also the only Democrat on the debate stage to dodge the question about whether or not Mahmoud Khalil shoud’ve been brought home, so do with that what you will.
Tilson hasn’t openly endorsed Cuomo, but it is remarkably obvious that at this point in the race, that’s who he intends to help. He’s expreienced a tiny bit of late momentum as a potential moderate Cuomo alternative, but too little too late.
Prediction
Well, it is time for the moment of truth. There’s so much more I wish I could’ve covered in this blog, from Anthony Weiner vs Harvey Epstein, to whatever the hell Paperboy Prince is doing, but this is already so long, and you probably just wanted to know this the whole time, so let’s get to it.
I have an extremely, extremly difficult time picking this race. Based on the available data we have, Cuomo would still seem to be the on-paper favorite. Yes, the polling of this race has been all over the place, and much of it has come straight from the campaigns themselves. Those who have accounted and weighted for all of that still come away with a narrow Cuomo lead. On paper, his huge financial advantage should also work to his benefit to close the campaign.
At the same time, it’s pretty clear to me, and most who have studied this race that Mamdani has changed the complexion entirely. The Gothamist today published that nearly a quarter of early voters in this primary were new voters, who had never particpated in a Democratic primary before. Even more strikingly, they showed that voters under 34 made up 30% of the final EV, and those under 44 made up 47%. For those who don’t follow elections too closely, that would be ridiculous youth turnout for a presidential election. For an off-year mayoral primary, it’s completely unheard of. On paper, Cuomo would seem to benefit from a higher turnout election as his base tends to feature minority voters (Although Mamdani will dominate with Asians), working class voters, older voters, non-college educated, etc.—all groups that tend to be less engaged. Polls have shown Mamdani’s base to be whiter, wealthier, better educated, and thus more likely to vote in every election regardless. But, if a significant portion of young voters are voting for the first time, it changes that calculus. It implies that Mamdani has activated a new base that usually goes unreached—and that could mean that the massive increase in early voter turnout over 2021 may actually be helping him, contrary to some past expectations.
Much has been made of New York’s heatwave on Election Day, as the city will be sitting in the low 100s for much of the time polls are opened. Considering Cuomo’s base skews older and is more likely to vote on Election Day, such a heatwave would seem to be more damaging to him, especially if—as many seem to think—Zohran leads based off just the early votes. If that’s the case, Cuomo needs huge Election Day turnout, and the heatwave could damage that. I will say, in my experience, extreme weather doesn’t tend to actually swing elections like some believe it does—but in a race this close, who knows?
I’ve been back and forth on this one all weekend. A week ago, I certainly would’ve favored Cuomo. But Mamdani has had an excellent week of early voting, and today led in his first independent poll (Albeit, Emerson has a strange track record). I’m going to take a quick second to plug the Substack of Michael Lange—it’s excellent, and if you want to know even more about this race, I highly recommend his final predictions released yesterday morning:
Not to spoil it, but he’s picking Mamdani +0.14, which is both bold and also close enough that it’s hard to fault him if he gets it wrong. I certainly do not believe this is a Cuomo +10 race, as one poll showed last week. Not after the data we’ve seen. And I can’t get over the fact that I’ve been burned by ignoring early vote data before.
I’ve read a bunch of different articles and threads on this race the last few weeks, but there’s one post that keeps coming back to me: Lakshya Jain, who runs the excellent SplitTicket, is essentially predicting a jump ball with a slight Cuomo tilt. But on Twitter, he wrote the following: “Left-wing candidates who focus relentlessly on the cost of living have a much bigger lane than those who focus on identity politics. And toxic candidates with scandals will generally underperform fundamentals.” That’s stuck in my mind, because we’ve seen it a billion times before. The left-wing candidate hasn’t always pulled it off, but it’s made many races close.
Let’s be very clear. This race should not be close. Mamdani was in the single digits for months. Cuomo’s lead was as large as 40 points as recently as March. There is zero reason this should even be a contest. It is both a credit to Cuomo’s unique personal weaknesses and Mamdani’s unique personal strengths that this has become a jump-ball, and regardless of the result, both wings of the Democratic party have a lot to learn from this. Mamdani’s campaign, win or lose, will be a model for future progressives. Cuomo’s campaign, win or lose, will act as a warning about the dangers of embracing old faces. I also keep thinking back to what I said earlier—so many surveys that show that in the age of Trump 2.0, many Democratic voters are fed up and want new leadership. This is a litmus test for that. And it’s such a fascinating one that it resulted in what’s easily the longest post I’ve ever written on here, I think.
Let’s put the cards on the table: Mamdani by less than a point. I don’t believe in the law of momentum, but I do believe in the law of good trends. Wouldn’t stun me if Cuomo won in the slightest. Maybe he’ll even win semi-comfortably (3+). It’s called uncertainty, don’t complain to me about it.
Thanks for reading. As long as this is, I am very proud of it. And I will be back next week with something fun I’ve been working on for a minute!
I kinda just realized I forgot one remarkably important point in this which is that regardless of who wins today (or next week), we may just get Cuomo vs Mamdani again in November. That’s because New York has no sore loser laws, meaning the losers of party primaries can simply run in the general election as an independent or on a third party line. Cuomo has already set up the organization to do exactly that if he loses. If he wins, the Working Families Party, which usually just aligns with the Democratic nominee, has expressed real interest in running their candidate. Mamdani would be the most obvious pick of course, although Lander, Adams, and Myrie would all presumably be options as well. This could result in a truly absurd 5 way race between Cuomo, Mamadani/some other progressive, the incumbent Adams, Republican nominee Curtis Silwa, and another independent candidate, attorney Jim Walden.
Absolutely fascinating!