New Poll shows Mamdani breaking 50 percent in New York Mayoral Race; aftermath of debate with Cuomo

New poll shows Zohran Mamdani crushing mayoral field earning support of 52% of likely voters. Mamdani dominates New York City Mayoral debate

Following a commanding performance in the first debate in the general election for New York City Mayor, a new Fox News poll shows Zohran Mamdani at 52%, a massive 24 points ahead of Andrew Cuomo.

Mamdani’s relentless focus on affordability resonated with New Yorkers again during the debate, leading all candidates on cost-of-living issues with his signature policies of freezing the rent, fast and free buses and universal childcare.

During the debate, Cuomo was rattled as a laundry list of his scandals took center stage including 15,000 nursing home deaths due to his COVID policies, using $60 million in taxpayers money to defend himself against sexual harassment claims and his recent failure to stand up to Trump’s targeting of NY AG Letitia James.

Meanwhile, Mamdani’s momentum is still growing with 87,000 volunteers knocking doors heading into the weekend before early voting.

Zohran Mamdani, New York City Mayoral candidate

Today, the campaign announced that next weekend, Mamdani will be joined by Rep. Ocasio-Cortes and Sen. Bernie Sanders for a massive “New York City Is Not For Sale” rally.

In response to the new poll, Zohran Mamdani campaign spokesperson Dora Pekec issued the following statement:

“Today’s poll shows a majority of New Yorkers are rejecting Andrew Cuomo’s billionaire-backed politics of the past and joining Zohran Mamdani’s movement for a new kind of politics that answers to the people, not Donald Trump or the billionaire class. As was made crystal clear on tonight’s debate stage, while Zohran Mamdani’s affordability agenda continues to resonate across the city, Andrew Cuomo has zero vision, solutions, or plans to offer – and New Yorkers are taking note.”

Mamdani delivers clear vision to lower costs, stand up to Donald Trump, and turn the page on the broken, billionaire-backed politics of the past.

Cuomo fails to coherently answer to his record of disgrace or offer solutions to New York’s most pressing issues.

NEW YORK, NY — Tonight, Zohran Mamdani dominated the debate stage and sent Andrew Cuomo chasing his tail. He was the only candidate on the stage who delivered a clear, compelling vision to make New York City affordable for working families: freezing the rent, making buses fast and free, and delivering universal childcare.

Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, appeared increasingly out-of-touch and incoherent. Faced with a mountain of evidence about his close ties to Donald Trump, his pay-to-play donors, and his wide array of broken promises to New Yorkers, the disgraced, scandal-tarred former governor offered only deflections and falsehoods.

Here are the key moments from tonight’s debate:

“You’ve heard from Andrew Cuomo that the number one crisis in this city is the housing crisis — the answer is to evict my wife and I. He thinks you address this crisis by unleashing my landlord’s ability to raise my rent. If you think that the problem in this city is that my rent is too low, vote for him. If you know the problem in this city is that your rent is too high, vote for me.” Watch the moment HERE.

“If we have a health pandemic, then why would New Yorkers turn back to the governor who sent seniors to their death in nursing homes? What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity. And what you don’t have in integrity you can never make up for in experience.” Watch the clip HERE.

“Andrew Cuomo thinks it’s all right to spend $60 million to fund his legal defense from accusations of more than a dozen women of sexual harassment. But if I say we should spend the same amount of money on delivering cheaper buses, that’s unfathomable.” Watch the moment HERE.

“It’s been an hour and 20 minutes of this debate, and we haven’t heard Governor Cuomo say the word affordability. That’s why he lost the primary. That’s why he’ll lose the general election.”Watch the moment HERE

“It took Andrew Cuomo being beaten by a Muslim candidate in the Democratic primary for him to set foot in a mosque [for the first time in] 10 years and he couldn’t name a single mosque at the last debate we had that he visited. What Muslims want in this city is what every community wants and deserves — they want equality and they want respect. It took me to get you to even see those Muslims as part of the city, and that, frankly, is something that’s shameful, and is why so many New Yorkers have lost faith in this politics.” Watch the moment HERE.

See what leaders are saying about Zohran Mamdani’s debate performance below:

Congressman Jerry Nadler, @JerryNadler

“Zohran will do in his first 100 days what Andrew Cuomo has failed to do for 10 years — stand up to Donald Trump and deliver an affordable New York.”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, @DRichardsQNS

“Safety means investing in housing and real community solutions—not empty rhetoric.

@ZohranKMamdani has released a real plan that does just that.”

State Senator Mike Gianaris, @SenGianaris

“Proud to work with Zohran to deliver first of its kind free bus pilot that reduced assaults on bus drivers & increased ridership—particularly for working class NYers

I’ll be proud to work with Zohran when he’s mayor to make free buses a reality for every NYer”

Councilmember and Chair of the Finance Committee Justin Brannan, @JustinBrannan

“Cuomo gets fired up when he attacks Zohran.

@ZohranKMamdani gets fired up when he talks about making New York City more affordable.”

NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, @bradlander

“Andrew Cuomo couldn’t even name Donald Trump when @TishJames was baselessly targeted by his Justice Department.

If you can’t name a problem like Donald Trump, how can you be expected to tackle it?”

Maya Wiley, @mayawiley

“This was a powerful moment. It remind[s] us who Zohran is and why he is running. Affordability. It also underscores that Cuomo is the past and Mamdani is the future.”

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Ray Hanania

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Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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