With Eric Adams Out Of The Race, Andrew Cuomo Surges In Poll

NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo is gaining on front-runner Zohran Mamdani in a New York City mayoral field that no longer includes incumbent Eric Adams, a poll released Thursday found.

A Quinnipiac University survey — the first major poll conducted since Adams suspended his campaign on Sept. 28 — found the ex-governor receiving a 10-point boost even as Mamdani maintains a commanding double-digit lead in the contest to lead the nation’s largest city. Adams wasn’t included in the poll, but remains on the November ballot.

It remains unclear how much support he will garner as an independent candidate who is not actively campaigning.

Mamdani, a state assemblymember, received 46 percent of the vote to Cuomo’s 33 percent. Republican Curtis Sliwa received 15 percent, the poll found.

The results for Mamdani and Sliwa are essentially unchanged from a Quinnipiac poll released on Sept. 10. Cuomo, though, drew 23 percent in that survey, while Adams received 12 percent.

The mayor, who has been polling in the single digits in other surveys, quit the race last month and has not endorsed any of his former rivals.

Cuomo’s campaign — running without the institutional support he enjoyed during his failed primary bid — cheered the narrowed gap with Mamdani as a sign the campaign was coming down to two Democrats who offer starkly different solutions for the city.

“The path is now clear: This is a two-person race between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani,” Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement.

Mamdani’s campaign was unfazed by the results.

“Zohran is meeting voters every day in all five boroughs, who are ready to turn the page on the broken politics of the past and build a city everyone can afford,” spokesperson Dora Pekec said. “As the billionaires continue to throw out their last-ditched efforts to prop up Andrew Cuomo, we have genuine enthusiasm and 80,000 volunteers on our side. Last time, it wasn’t the billionaires who won that matchup.”

Cuomo’s campaign has long maintained that Adams’ exit from the race would benefit the former governor. The men share a base of moderate, blue-collar New Yorkers and people of color — a cross section of voters that Mamdani struggled with during his otherwise successful Democratic primary campaign. Adams and Cuomo campaigned on public safety themes as well, further splitting a significant share of the vote.

Cuomo, a Democrat, had led most polls preceding his upset loss to Mamdani in June. The former governor is now running as an independent against the 33-year-old democratic socialist.

Mamdani’s support in general election polling has been consistently below 50 percent and the upstart nominee has been trying to run up the score to surpass that baseline in order to claim a mandate should he win City Hall.

His front-runner status, though, has been consistent since the primary. The poll released Thursday found he commands more excitement than his rivals: 90 percent of Mamdani voters said they were either very or somewhat enthusiastic about voting for him. A similar share of Sliwa voters — a combined 85 percent — are eager to cast their ballots for him.

Cuomo drew less ardor from his supporters. Only 69 percent of his voters have similar degrees of enthusiasm.

And Cuomo, who resigned as the state’s chief executive following sexual harassment allegations that he denies, remains broadly unpopular: 52 percent of voters hold an unfavorable view of him, the poll found. Voters view the former governor as being more experienced than Mamdani — an argument Cuomo made to little success in the primary.

Mamdani’s nomination catapulted him onto the national stage as Democrats are grappling over a coherent platform in the wake of Donald Trump’s return to the presidency. His primary win followed an affordability push, with pledges for free buses, a rent freeze and government-run supermarkets that all resonated in a deeply expensive city.

Mamdani’s criticism of Israel has made him a lightning rod for moderate Democratic officials, though a plurality of voters — 41 percent — believe he aligns with their views on the conflict with Hamas.

The Democratic nominee has received endorsements from local powerbrokers and Gov. Kathy Hochul, but prominent Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are yet to back him.

The poll of 1,015 voters was conducted from Oct. 3 to Oct. 7. It has a 3.9 point margin of error.