Polls Suggest Mamdani’s Election Chances Hinge on One Factor: Curtis Sliwa

Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s chances of beating independent candidate Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s mayoral race appear to be strongly correlated with the level of support for long-shot Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, according to a spate of recent polling.

Two polls released Thursday show that Mamdani, a self-avowed socialist, enjoys wide leads over Cuomo, the former Democratic Governor of New York, and Sliwa in the city’s mayoral race.

On the other hand, a Suffolk University poll released Monday — in which Sliwa polled lower than in the two more recent polls — found that Mamdani’s lead over Cuomo was only 10 points.

An Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill survey released Thursday found that Mamdani secured a 25-point lead over Cuomo, 50 percent to 25 percent, while 21 percent of voters backed Sliwa and 4 percent were undecided.

Compared to a separate Emerson College poll released Sept. 10, support for Mamdani in the mayoral election rose by seven percentage points, from 43 percent to 50 percent.

“Mamdani appears to have built a coalition across key demographics, increasing his margin among Black voters since last month, from 50 percent to 71 percent, whereas Cuomo dropped ten points among black voters since September,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.

“Mamdani continues to have a base of young voters; 69 percent of voters under 50 support him, whereas 37 percent of voters over 50 support Mamdani, while 31 percent support Cuomo and 28 percent [Sliwa].”

Meanwhile, a Marist University poll published Thursday showed Mamdani leading with 48 percent support. Cuomo gained 32 percent of the vote, Sliwa received 16 percent support, and 3 percent reported they were undecided.

Sliwa has reportedly been facing increasing pressure from some Republicans to drop out of the New York City mayoral race in an effort to improve Cuomo’s chances of beating Mamdani in the election.

Sliwa has doubled down on his plans to stay in the race until Election Day, saying during an Oct. 20 interview with Fox Across America that he would rather be “impaled” than drop his mayoral bid.

If Sliwa were to drop out of the contest, Mamdani would lead by only six points, receiving the backing of 51 percent of likely voters, compared with 44 percent for Cuomo, according to the Marist poll.

Moreover, 2 percent of voters said they would vote for someone else, and 3 percent were undecided, the poll found.

“My message to your readers is that a vote for Curtis Sliwa is a vote for Zohran Mamdani,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo’s campaign, told the DCNF in an ed statement.

“For weeks this has been a tightening race with early voting showing a surge of older voters — the exact inverse of the primary — and turnout on track for between 1.9 and 2 million. With those dynamics, every poll out there is essentially meaningless from this point out.”

David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said in a statement Monday, when Suffolk’s poll was released, that he thinks Sliwa could have “an outsized impact” on the outcome of the Big Apple’s upcoming mayoral election.

“There is one person in New York City whose voters could have an outsized impact on the outcome. That person isn’t Mayor Eric Adams, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Senator Chuck Schumer, or any New York billionaire. It’s Republican Curtis Sliwa,” Paleologos said. “And when asked for their second choice, those voters preferred Cuomo over Mamdani 36 percent-2 percent.”

Mamdani previously called for the New York City Police Department to be defunded, referring to the department as “racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety.” The Democratic socialist has since downplayed some of his previous anti-police rhetoric.

President Donald Trump notably told reporters on Oct. 22 that if Sliwa dropped out of the Big Apple’s mayoral race, “maybe Cuomo would have a little bit of a chance, but not much.”

“He’s [Sliwa is] not going to win — and not looking too good for Cuomo, either,” Trump added in his comments to the reporters at the time.

Cuomo claimed on Oct. 17 that Sliwa “cannot win,” adding that if “you vote for Curtis, save yourself the time, and vote for Mamdani,” The New York Times reported.

Additionally, Cuomo suggested to SiriusXM host Stephen A. Smith during a Wednesday interview on “Straight Shooter with Stephen A.” that if Mamdani is victorious in New York City’s Nov. 4 general election, it would be “the death of the Democratic Party.”

The Emerson College poll was conducted Oct. 25 to Oct. 27. The overall sample of NYC very likely voters/those who have already voted, n=640, has a credibility interval, similar to a survey’s margin of error, of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

The Marist University survey of 1,134 New York City adults was conducted Oct. 24 to Oct. 28. Results for all adults (n=1,134) are statistically significant within plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

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