Mayor Adams’ exit from this year’s race for City Hall is benefitting independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, though the ex-governor still trails Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani by double digits, according to a new poll released Thursday.
The Quinnipiac University poll, the first major survey to analyze the state of the mayoral race since Adams’ Sept. 28 campaign exit, found Cuomo pulling 33% support among likely New York City voters. That’s up from the 23% Cuomo netted in a Quinnipiac survey from early September, when Adams was still in the race and polling at 12%.
Still, Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid sexual and professional misconduct accusations he now denies, remains well behind Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral nominee who scored 46% support in the latest Quinnipiac poll, up one point from the September survey.
“Andrew Cuomo picked up the bulk of Adams’ supporters cutting into Zohran Mamdani’s lead, but Mamdani’s frontrunner status by double digits stays intact,” said Mary Snow, an assistant polling director at Quinnipiac.
Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa, the only other major candidate in the race, raked in 15% support in the new survey, the same figure he got in the September poll.
Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesman, seized on the poll as an indication of his boss’ momentum, saying it shows “this race is shifting decisively.”
“The path is now clear: This is a two-person race between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani,” Azzopardi said. “As voters learn more about the stakes and Cuomo’s record of results — rebuilding LaGuardia, revitalizing the MTA, expanding affordable housing, and keeping New York safe — they are rallying behind proven leadership.”
A spokeswoman for Mamdani didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Since abandoning his reelection bid amid record low approval ratings driven, in part, by his federal corruption indictment, Adams has refrained from offering an endorsement in the mayoral race.
But the new poll suggests Adams’ supporters are gravitating to Cuomo, whose politically moderate base overlaps with the incumbent’s.
The detailed breakdown of the poll includes some downsides for Cuomo, though, including that 52% of New York City voters gave him an “unfavorable” rating, compared to 37% who viewed him as “favorable.” Mamdani, by contrast, got a 43% favorable rating, compared to a 35% unfavorable listing.
The survey, which was conducted between last Friday and this past Tuesday, quizzed 1,015 likely city voters. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.9%.
