Between major corruption scandals, everyone suddenly deciding to be an independent candidate, and old players returning to the ballot, it’s safe to say that this year’s New York City mayoral election has been the most turbulent one we’ve seen in a long time. With all of this added chaos surrounding the election and its candidates, it’s hard not to be a little confused (and stressed) about what’s going on in our country’s largest city—especially when the city is so close by and you don’t have all the facts. So, here’s a quick recap of some of the big events so far, the candidates, and how the polls are looking over in the Big Apple.
When it comes to the NYC mayoral election, it’s usually pretty obvious who’s going to win by this point in the game. After all, New York City residents lean overwhelmingly toward the Democratic Party in most of their political voting, so the Democratic primary elections generally conclude with the next mayor already chosen through whichever candidate wins the primary. That candidate then goes up against the Republican one in the final election, but people don’t really expect the Republican candidate to win when there are so many fewer Republicans in NYC than Democrats.
However, things didn’t follow their typical routine this time around. New York City’s current mayor, Eric Adams, became very unpopular among voters following corruption allegations. Basically, people think Adams may have done some shady things to land his position as mayor in the first place, causing his popularity ratings to plummet—after all, no one wants a mayor they’re not sure they can trust. Despite the scandal, Adams didn’t want to drop out of the race, but he also knew that a win in the Democratic primary was unlikely given public opinion. This led him to run as an independent candidate instead of a Democrat, landing himself a spot on the ballot without having to win the primary.
On top of all this drama with Adams, a former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, decided to rejoin the political scene and run for mayor in the Democratic primaries. You might even remember Cuomo from those images you’d see everywhere a few years back of him peeking out from behind a curtain at his press conferences. He was widely talked about during this period, giving daily briefings during the early months of COVID with updates about how things were going, what the state government was doing, some guidance, and even a bit of comfort for New Yorkers during the difficult days of the pandemic. For the most part, he was pretty well-liked—until the dark truth about him came to light. In 2021, investigators learned that Cuomo had harassed several women, and additional allegations claimed that he may have covered up deaths during the pandemic. With this double scandal, things looked very bad for Cuomo, and he ended up resigning in August of 2021, his reputation destroyed.
After all of Cuomo’s actions were revealed, he stayed out of the public eye for a while before gradually reemerging more recently. This was when he decided to run for mayor, probably hoping that people would focus more on his political experience than his past, especially since Adams had a more recent and ongoing scandal. However, this didn’t work out as he expected: a less widely known candidate, Zohran Mamdani, ended up winning the Democratic nomination. Cuomo didn’t want to give up even after this loss, so he took a page out of Adams’s book and decided to run as an independent candidate too. This is why everyone’s talking about how unusual this election is: there aren’t just two major candidates, there are four, with big names like Cuomo and Adams still in the running despite being independents.
Out of Cuomo, Adams, and Mamdani, the most recent polls show Mamdani in the lead. Cuomo is in second, with Adams trailing behind both of them since most NYC residents want someone new. The election is still over a month away, though, so it’s impossible to say what will happen for sure. For now, it seems like NYC is about to have one of its most unpredictable elections in decades.
