OAN Staff Blake Wolf
5:53 PM – Thursday, October 30, 2025
New York City Democratic socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani still holds a substantial lead in the race against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an Independent, less than a week before Election Day.
According to an Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill survey, released on Thursday, Mamdani leads the pack at 50%, with Cuomo being the next closest candidate at 25%, followed by Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa — who holds 21% support.
However, a Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday paints an even tighter race, with Mamdani leading by just 10 percentage points at 43% of the support, followed by Cuomo at 33%. Sliwa trails both candidates at just 14% of respondents offering support.
“Mamdani appears to have built a coalition across key demographics, increasing his margin among Black voters since last month, from 50% to 71%, whereas Cuomo dropped ten points among Black voters since September,” stated Emerson College executive director Spencer Kimball.
Advertisement“Mamdani continues to have a base of young voters; 69% of voters under 50 support him, whereas 37% of voters over 50 support Mamdani, while 31% support Cuomo and 28% Sliwa,” he added.
Mamdani also enjoyed a 16-point lead over Cuomo in the latest Marist Institute for Public Opinion poll released on Thursday, with 48% support compared to Cuomo’s 32% support, ultimately placing him in the driver’s seat of the race with just five days left until Election Day.
“It’s Mamdani’s race to lose. Mamdani is in a strong position,” stated Lee Miringoff, a Marist pollster.
Mamdani, a self-described Democratic socialist, is campaigning on a platform to freeze rents for rent-stabilized units, establish taxpayer-funded grocery stores, and taxpayer-funded municipal buses through higher taxes on wealthy New Yorkers.
If Sliwa were to exit the race, Mamdani would lead Cuomo by just 7 points, per the Marist College poll.
The same survey shows Mamdani dominating among voters under 45, with 64% support to Cuomo’s 21%, while the two are nearly tied among those 45 and older (Mamdani 38%, Cuomo 39%).
55% of Jewish voters support Cuomo, while a third support Mamdani, despite his sharp criticism of Israel, according to the poll.
Mamdani defeated Cuomo in the June Democrat primary, after which Cuomo launched an independent bid to stay in the contest. He is backed by progressive leaders such as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Mamdani hosted his “New York is Not for Sale” rally on Sunday, featuring his allies like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez at the Forrest Hills Stadium in Queens — drawing thousands of New Yorkers.
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