The closely watched New York mayoral and governor’s races appear to be forming into shapes that will bring little comfort to centrist Democrats, with both elections happening in November.
A new Siena Institute poll released on Tuesday shows New York City’s Democratic socialist mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, leading former New York governor Andrew Cuomo by 19 percentage points – while the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik is chipping away at incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul’s lead in a hypothetical contest for the New York governor’s mansion in 2026.
Hochul’s lead over Stefanik, who was nominated to be US ambassador to the United Nations before withdrawing to help Republicans maintain a majority in Congress, has now dropped from 23 points in June to 14 points.
Stefanik has not officially decided on whether to seek the governor’s office, but she has been noticeably attacking Hochul’s record. The poll found that 49% of voters in the state said it would be bad for New York if Stefanik were elected governor.
“The latest Siena poll is catastrophic for Kathy Hochul as she is losing independent voters to Elise Stefanik, is below 50% on the ballot, and only 35% of voters want to re-elect Kathy Hochul,” said Stefanik’s executive director Alex DeGrasse in a statement to the Guardian. He predicted voters are looking to Stefanik to deliver new leadership.
“Chairwoman Elise Stefanik will continue to focus on providing results such as delivering the largest middle class tax cut in New York history. She will repeal Kathy Hochul’s failed bail reform and dangerous sanctuary cities policies and cut taxes for New Yorkers,” DeGrasse added.
In the mayoral race, the poll found 44% of registered New York City voters backing Mamdani, followed by 25% for Cuomo, 12% for the Republican party nominee, Curtis Sliwa, and only 7% for the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams.
However, Cuomo leads among Black and Jewish voters, two groups that Mamdani underperforms with. But Mamdani holds a towering lead with younger voters, leading Cuomo by 49% among voters aged 18 to 34 but trailing Cuomo by 6% among voters 55 years and older.
Mamdani is the Democratic party candidate in the race. Cuomo and Adams – who are both Democrats – are running as independents.
Tuesday’s poll also signaled that outside New York City, surveyed voters have a negative impression of Mamdani, with 37% having an unfavorable opinion and 28% positive. But Cuomo scored lower, with 61% of voters polled statewide holding a poor impression.
Yet leading centrist New York Democrats, including the US Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, US House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and Hochul have yet to throw their weight behind Mamdani.
“We still have many differences,” Hochul said two days earlier on Fox News Sunday. “I don’t know how you whitewash that away.”
But she said she was willing to work with “whoever the voters elect” in New York City.
On Monday, Mamdani kicked off a week-long tour titled Five Boroughs Against Trump, highlighting what he maintains are the dangers posed to the city by the presidential administration.
Cuomo, meanwhile, is attempting to highlight what he sees as a flaw in Mamdani’s position on the key issue of housing and affordability.
Cuomo’s campaign has pitched a state law to keep the rich out of rent-stabilized apartments that it calls “Zohran’s Law”. Cuomo has been bashing his rival for living in a $2,300 rent-stabilized, one-bedroom while making more than $140,000 a year as a state assembly member.
Cuomo proposed that rent-stabilized apartments should go to individuals who pay no less than 30% of their income in rent to qualify. The Mamdani campaign has said their candidate would have met this standard when he moved in and was earning $47,000 a year.
Mamdani responded to Cuomo’s accusation that he is too wealthy for his rent-stabilized apartment on Monday, saying: “I live rent-free in his head.”
The Mamdani campaign also hit back in a video with insinuations of links between Cuomo and Jeffrey Epstein, the late disgraced financier who pleaded guilty in Florida to charges of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008.
The video demanded that Cuomo release his list of consulting clients, noting the ex-governor once worked on a yacht marina project in Puerto Rico with Andrew Farkas, a former partner of Epstein on Caribbean marinas.
