Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s lead over rival Andrew Cuomo shrunk by 3% over the past month, but the frontrunner still maintains a double-digit lead according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
Mamdani leads the race by ten points, with 43% of likely voters’ support, the poll found, with Cuomo nabbing 33% and Republican Curtis Sliwa at 14%.
This compares to the 13-point gap the university’s poll found earlier in October, with Mamdani receiving 46% to Cuomo’s 33%.
The polls comes as Cuomo has ratcheted up attacks against the state assemblymember in the final days of the election and appealed to conservative Sliwa voters to vote for him instead. Cuomo’s support, per the poll, has stayed steady.
“The candidates have made their case, early voting is underway, Zohran Mamdani has a 10-point lead over Andrew Cuomo with Curtis Sliwa a distant third, but one wildcard remains,” Mary Snow, the poll’s assistant director said. “The percentage of likely voters not weighing in has increased a bit since earlier this month, suggesting there’s room for movement in the final stretch.”
The percentage of undecided voters grew by 3% in the latest poll from Quinnipiac’s early October poll.
“We’ve seen this movie before — in the Bloomberg and Giuliani races, late polls missed the surge of real, working-class voters who turn out when it counts. The same thing is happening now,” Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said in a statement.
The ex-governor has pitched himself as the anti-Mamdani alternative to Sliwa for conservative voters, claiming that the Republican nominee has no chance at winning. He’s also launched some more personal attacks at the candidate, going after his age and Ugandan citizenship.
It seems Cuomo has made some inroads among the city’s Republican voters.
Last month’s poll showed right-wing city-dwellers breaking 54-37 for Sliwa and Cuomo respectively. But Wednesday’s poll showed Cuomo had gained 8 points among those voters since then, now just slightly leading Sliwa among Republican voters 45% to 44%.
“They’re starting to learn who, who Zohran really is, and what he has said and what he stands for, and what the democratic socialist agenda is all about, and how unqualified he is,” Cuomo said of New Yorkers at an unrelated press conference on Staten Island Wednesday, saying “normal” voters will come out to support him in the general election because Mamdani “frightens” them.
Polls have consistently shown the race somewhat narrowing between Mamdani and Cuomo, although the democratic socialist still leads the race by double digits.
“Zohran’s going to take his message to every single voter because every New Yorker deserves a city they can afford. Now is not the time to be complacent,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said.
The polls was conducted Oct. 23-27 among 911 New York City likely voters were surveyed with a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points.
Early voting is currently underway and will go through Sunday, with Election Day on Tueday, Nov. 4.
With Rose Abuin
