Zohran Mamdani Clinches NYC Mayoral Primary, Extending Lead Over Andrew Cuomo

Upstart democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani clinched the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City, extending his lead to 12 points in the primary over Andrew Cuomo and raising new doubts about the viability of the former governor running as a third-party candidate. 

The ranked-choice tabulations released by the city Board of Elections on Tuesday showed Mamdani with 56% of the vote after after lower-ranking candidates were eliminated. Cuomo garnered 44%. After the polls closed on June 24, Mamdani had a 7-point lead. The city uses a preference voting system that allows votes for the eliminated candidates to transfer until one candidate gets a majority.

For Mamdani, the results confirmed what the first round of counting showed within minutes of polls closing last week: a decisive victory for the 33-year-old state lawmaker, who ran on a progressive platform of taxing millionaires, freezing rents and making buses free.

His surprisingly strong showing has rattled the city’s political and corporate establishment, which largely saw Cuomo — the former three-term governor and once-frontrunner in the race — as the best choice between Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent in the general election. A Cuomo-backed PAC raised $25 million from the city’s real estate and financial industry, including $8 million in donations from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

The final count only confirmed Cuomo’s unpopularity. As candidates like Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and city Comptroller Brad Lander were eliminated, more of their votes likely went to Mamdani than Cuomo. Cuomo failed to gain traction in the outer boroughs and underperformed even in his Manhattan base, where turnout lagged behind the gentrifying neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens that were Mamdani strongholds. 

Still, Cuomo could play a role in the November election. He secured a third-party ballot line as a backup plan and missed a Friday deadline to drop out of the race while he looked for a silver lining in the ranked-choice vote. Republican talk show host Curtis Sliwa and independent former prosecutor Jim Walden are also running, further fracturing any anti-Mamdani bloc.

Mamdani’s convincing win reshapes the November mayoral contest and makes him a national leader among the progressive wing of the Democratic party. He’s already gotten the attention of President Donald Trump, who called him a “100% Communist Lunatic,” and of Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin, who has had to navigate the enthusiasm of the party’s left with centrists who fear that Mamdani’s rise could alienate voters in congressional swing districts. 

Eric Adams, who abandoned the Democratic primary and is now running as an independent, must now meld those center-left and conservative voters into a cross-party coalition.