Zohran Mamdani has won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, a new vote count confirmed on Tuesday, cementing his stunning upset of former governor Andrew Cuomo and sending him to the general election.
The Associated Press called the race after the results of the city’s ranked choice voting tabulation were released and showed Mamdani beating Cuomo by 12 percentage points.
Mamdani’s win had been widely expected since he took a commanding lead after the polls closed a week ago, falling just short of the 50% of the vote needed to avoid another count under the city’s ranked choice voting model. The system allows voters’ other preferences to be counted if their top candidate falls out of the running.
Mamdani, who declared victory the night of the 24 June primary, will face a general election field that includes the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, as well as the independent candidate Jim Walden and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Cuomo conceded defeat on the night of the primary but is contemplating whether to run in the general election on an independent ballot line.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and member of the state assembly, was virtually unknown when he launched his candidacy centered on a bold slate of populist ideas. But he built an energetic campaign that ran circles around Cuomo as the older, more moderate Democrat tried to come back from the sexual harassment scandal that led to his resignation four years ago.
The results, even before they were finalized, sent a shock wave through the political world.
Mamdani’s campaign, which was focused on lowering the cost of living, claims it has found a new blueprint forDemocratswho have at times appeared rudderless during President Donald Trump’s climb back to power.
The Democratic establishment has approached Mamdani with caution. Many of its big players applauded his campaign but do not seem ready to throw their full support behind the young progressive, whose past criticisms of law enforcement, use of the word “genocide” to describe the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and “democratic socialist” label amount to landmines for some in the party.
If elected, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim mayor and its first of Indian American decent. He would also be one of its youngest.
For Republicans, Mamdani has already provided a new angle for attack. Trump and others in the GOP have begun to launch broadsides at him, moving to cast Mamdani as the epitome of leftist excess ahead of consequential elections elsewhere this year and next.
”
New York City’s ranked choice voting model allows voters to list up to five candidates on their ballots in order of preference. If a single candidate is the first choice of more than 50% of voters, then that person wins the race outright. Since no candidate cleared that bar on the night of the primary, the ranked choice voting process kicked in. The board is scheduled to certify the election on 15 July.
Cuomo did not remove his name from the November ballot last week, ahead of a procedural deadline to do so, and has said he is still considering whether to mount an actual campaign for the office.
Adams, while still a Democrat, is running in the November election as an independent. He dropped out of the Democratic primary in April after he was severely wounded by his now-dismissed federal bribery case.