Cuomos mayoral bid has life now that Adams has bowed out but he has more work to do to topple Mamdani
Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to end his mayoral campaign is unsurprising.The scandal-tarred incumbent was running a poor fourth in most polls and had no chance of re-election.His choice nonetheless can have important repercussions.
His withdrawal was the first domino to fall in the series of events Andrew Cuomo needs to have any shot of beating Zohran Mamdani in November.The polls clearly show how hard Cuomo’s task is.The Real Clear Politics polling average has Mamdani ahead by a whopping 18.7 percentage points. More importantly, it shows Mamdani receiving 44.4% of the total vote.
That’s already likely to be enough to win in anything short of a two-man race.His lead would still be in the double digits even if every single person currently backing Adams switches to Cuomo. Adams was receiving only 8.4% in the final polling average before his departure.Adding those votes to Cuomo’s still leaves Mamdani with a daunting 10.3% lead.It’s highly unlikely Adams’ remaining supporters would switch to Cuomo in those numbers.
The last three polls testing a three-man race (Mamdani versus Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa) shows Mamdani leading by between 14 and 16 points.Clearly many Adams voters prefer the progressive Mamdani to the old, moderate Cuomo, himself tarred by the scandals that forced him to resign from the governorship.Adams’ withdrawal does, however, set up Cuomo’s next and most important challenge: convincing Sliwa to drop out too.Sliwa’s backing comes almost entirely from New York’s Republican minority.These mostly conservative voters do not want the leftist Mamdani, but they also do not want the liberal Cuomo. As long as Sliwa is in the race, he’ll get enough of those votes to ensure Mamdani’s triumph.Sliwa wants to stay in the race, but it’s impossible to see how he can win. He got 28% in his 2021 mayoral campaign against Adams, and President Donald Trump won only about 30% in the five boroughs in 2024. Even Lee Zeldin wo...