Andrew Cuomo’s lead in the 2025 mayoral race is shrinking, with runner-up candidate Zohran Mamdani cutting the ex-governor’s edge over him nearly in half over the past month, according to a new poll that also found a significant chunk of voters remain undecided.
The new poll, conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, quizzed 1,350 likely Democratic primary election voters between June 9 and June 12. The poll’s margin of error is plus-minus 4.3%.
Cuomo, who has consistently polled as the frontrunner in next Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary, was ranked as the first choice by 38% of New Yorkers surveyed, the Marist poll found.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist Assembly member representing western Queens, nabbed 27% of the poll’s first-choice picks, putting him 11% behind Cuomo.
That’s a marked improvement for Mamdani compared to the last mayoral race poll Marist released May 14, which found Cuomo holding a 19% lead over the lawmaker.
Additionally, the new poll found 11% of voters are still undecided. The poll from May had 17% of respondents listed as undecided.
Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist poll, explained the relatively large margin of undecided voters could be a worrisome sign for Cuomo.
“Cuomo’s numbers haven’t moved that much, his support is staying about the same,” he told the Daily News. “But it’s that the undecideds are getting involved and they’re going a lot to Mamdani. [Mamdani] has a shot.”
Of the Cuomo team, Miringoff continued: “I would be watchful and wouldn’t think that this is in the bank at this point. It’s still a contest, it’s still competitive, but he is the favorite and it is always better to be ahead than behind.”
The other candidates in the mayoral race only clinched single digits of support in the poll, with City Comptroller Brad Lander and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams sharing third place with 7% support each.
Early voting started last weekend in the June 24 Democratic mayoral primary. The primary is ranked-choice, meaning voters can put five candidates in order of preference on their ballots.
In a ranked-choice simulation conducted by Marist’s pollsters, Cuomo would win in the seventh round by a 55%-45% margin over Mamdani. Comptroller Brad Lander was the only other candidate left in the sixth round of that simulation, earning 13% support.
Ranked-choice math can get tricky, Miringoff acknowledged, and it’s hard to predict in a poll how those tabulations will shake out.
In a bid to beef up their own chances, Mamdani and Lander have crossed-endorsed each other, urging their respective supporters to rank the other candidate second on their ballots.
“That leaves some question mark on Cuomo as the front-runner,” Miringoff said.
Another significant finding in the new poll is that Mamdani has expanded his support among Latino voters by broad margins, earning 41% support from that constituency, a 21% increase from his levels in the May survey. Cuomo’s support among Latinos, meanwhile, decreased to 36% from 41%, according to the new poll.
The boost in Latino support for Mamdani comes after New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the Democratic Party’s most popular figures, endorsed him as her No. 1 pick on June 5.
Mamdani, who’s running on a left-wing platform that includes promises to expand free childcare and freeze rent for stabilized tenants, has also aired Spanish language ads in recent weeks.
Originally Published: June 18, 2025 at 12:01 AM EDT
