Zohran Mamdani seized a commanding lead in Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary, prompting ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to concede the race and putting the socialist lawmaker within striking distance of becoming the youngest man in modern New York history to run City Hall.
With more than 94% of ballots counted, unofficial returns from the city Board of Elections showed Mamdani leading Cuomo by a margin of roughly 44%-36%.
The Tuesday night tally only includes the No. 1 picks on voters’ ranked-choice ballots. The Board of Elections won’t start tabulating the secondary choices on voters’ ballots until next week, making it unlikely any candidate will on Tuesday night reach the 50% threshold required to officially win.
But Cuomo, who consistently polled as the primary’s front-runner, told supporters at his election night party in Manhattan he had called Mamdani to congratulate him on his victory.
“He deserved it, he won,” said Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid sexual and professional misconduct accusations. He was flanked by his daughters, who cried as he spoke.
Mamdani did not immediately address the crowd at his election night party in Long Island City. But earlier in the evening, Andrew Epstein, Mamdani’s communications director, struck an upbeat tone.
“We have the message, we have the team, and we feel very, very good going into the rest of the night,” Epstein said at the Greats of Craft brewery, where a large crowd of supporters had gathered.
Mamdani’s campaign is seen as likely to surge in the ranked-choice rounds, given his focus on cross-endorsing with several candidates, including Brad Lander, the city comptroller who was coming in third in the early results, holding about 11% of the vote.
At his election night party in Gowanus, Lander, joined by his wife and kids, declared he saw the early results as an effective Mamdani victory.
“With our help Zohran will be the Democratic nominee,” Lander said. “We are on a path to win a city that all New Yorkers can afford and where everyone belongs.”
Mamdani, a 33-year-old socialist Assembly member from Queens, has centered his mayoral run on affordability, leading a campaign that featured both savvy social media strategies and the deployment of thousands of volunteers. He has made ambitious promises — which critics say are unrealistic — to increase taxes on millionaires and corporations and then use subsequent revenues to freeze rent for stabilized tenants, drastically expand subsidized child care and make public buses free.
Just a few months ago, Mamdani was a little known figure in the world of city politics and a victory for him in the primary is monumental, especially over Cuomo, who has near-universal name recognition in New York.
Although typically the results of the city’s Democratic primary determine who will be the next mayor, this year’s general election in November is expected to be competitive.
Cuomo has previously said he plans to run on an independent third party line in November, regardless of the result of the primary. Just on Tuesday morning while voting in Manhattan, he said he was planning to
However in his concession speech Tuesday night, he didn’t commit to running in November, only saying he will make “some decisions” soon.
Mayor Adams is running in November as an independent, as is lawyer Jim Walden, and Republican Curtis Sliwa will be on the ballot, too. Adams dropped out of the Democratic primary earlier this year amid fallout from his federal corruption indictment.
In Tuesday’s primary, polls closed Tuesday at 9 p.m., but a total of over 930,000 New Yorkers had already braved the heat wave and cast ballots by 7:30 p.m., putting the election on track to have the highest turnout in decades. There were also 45,597 mail-in ballots included in Tuesday’s count.
Mamdani has generally outpaced Cuomo among younger voters, while the former governor has led among older Black and brown residents, according to prior polling.
In the final stretch of the race, Cuomo hits Mamdani’s young age and lack of experience, and accused the Muslim lawmaker of antisemitism in reference to his vocal support for Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war.
Mamdani has hit Cuomo over his deep-pocketed donor base, which shares overlap with Trump’s, and argued the city needs fresh leadership.
While the race has largely been a two-man contest, Lander has had a strong couple weeks in the lead-up to the election. After being arrested by ICE agents last week while volunteering at immigration court, nearly all the Democratic candidates coalesced around him.
The intense heat on Tuesday, with feels-like temperatures above 100 degrees, was seen to be a potential problem for Cuomo since the former governor’s voter base generally leans older, experts said.
During a rally on Monday night he told union members to vote despite the weather and in a leaked call leaked by health care worker members, Cuomo beseeched the union to help him get out the vote.
“We can do it, but it’s going to take all of us,” Cuomo said on the call with 1199SEIU, which has deployed members to canvass and phone bank for the ex-governor. “Please, please, please make the special effort.”
Originally Published: June 24, 2025 at 9:51 PM EDT
