What past election results can tell us about the New York City mayoral race

NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams have won support from the same coalition of voters in their bids to lead New York City, setting them on a collision course that could help Zohran Mamdani in his bid to become the next mayor, an Associated Press analysis of recent election results found.

Mamdani, a state Assembly member, won the Democratic nomination for mayor in June, backed by a new coalition of voters. Cuomo, the former New York governor, and Adams, the incumbent mayor, are running as independents in the Nov. 4 election. Republican Curtis Sliwa is running for the second time, after winning just over one-quarter of the vote in the 2021 general election.

To understand the coalitions these candidates have built, The Associated Press examined precinct-level results from the last two Democratic mayoral primaries. Adams skipped the Democratic primary this year, while Cuomo finished almost 13 percentage points behind Mamdani once ranked-choice tabulations were run. Sliwa ran unopposed in 2025.

Should Cuomo and Adams remain in the race, the AP analysis suggests Mamdami could have a clearer path to victory, assuming recent voting patterns repeat themselves. Sliwa, who remains a long shot in the heavily Democratic city, could also draw votes away from Cuomo and Adams — the more moderate candidates — further helping Mamdani.

Here’s a look at key findings from AP’s analysis:

Mamdani’s coalition is distinct

Adams and Cuomo did best in areas with higher concentrations of lower-income voters, Black and Orthodox Jewish voters, and conservative-friendly parts of the city like Staten Island and South Brooklyn.

Even President Donald Trump, a Republican, has expressed concern that both Cuomo and Adams remaining in the race would help Mamdani, a democratic socialist. In early September, Trump suggested Cuomo could beat Mamdani in a one-on-one contest. Adams insisted just last week that he’s staying in the race.

The candidates’ baggage could be a factor in this. Cuomo resigned from the governorship in 2021 after multiple sexual harassment allegations. Adams, meanwhile, was indicted late last year on charges of accepting illegal campaign contributions and travel discounts from foreign officials. The charges were later dropped.

Mamdani’s base stretched into multiracial, lower- and middle-income, and gentrifying areas. He also turned out voters at comparatively high rates to his rivals while also casting a wide enough net to siphon off support among demographics that, four years ago, were not voting for progressive candidates.

Evidence of enthusiasm for Mamdani

Turnout, which only looks at the share of eligible voters who cast ballots, can increase even as absolute votes cast decrease. Citywide, turnout in the Democratic primary was 29% of eligible voters. But in the neighborhoods Mamdani won, approximately 34% of registered Democrats cast a vote. In neighborhoods Cuomo won, only 25% of registered Democrats voted.

Across the city, Mamdani voters turned out at higher rates. But Mamdani was able to further separate himself from Cuomo by driving up turnout in areas where absolute votes cast increased.

In some of the neighborhoods, there were noticeably more votes cast in the 2025 primary compared with 2021. There’s generally a lot of churn in New York, whose metropolitan area added more people than any other metro area last year, so the number of voters could increase due to people moving in, people aging into the electorate or people registering with the Democratic Party.

But even here, there was evidence for more enthusiasm for Mamdani. The increase in votes cast wasn’t uniform across the city. The city overall saw approximately 6% more votes cast in 2025, but in the neighborhoods Mamdani won, the average increase was 14%.

How votes broke down by income

Mamdani’s strong performance in wealthier neighborhoods overshadowed the fact that his coalition was largely made up of middle-income voters.

In general, Cuomo won more votes than Mamdani among the lowest-income voters. But Mamdani started overtaking Cuomo with voters who lived in census tracts with median annual household incomes of $60,000 to 70,000. Voters in these areas wouldn’t be considered low income by national standards, but in New York City, that income would make a family of four eligible for Section 8 housing vouchers.

Higher-income voters are one of the few demographics where Cuomo significantly outran Adams. However, he didn’t beat Mamdani among these voters. Of the 15 neighborhoods with median household incomes over $150,000, Mamdani won eight and Cuomo seven — including the two wealthiest, Tribeca and the Upper East Side. Four years ago, all but one of these neighborhoods voted for former city commissioner Kathryn Garcia, who ran as a technocrat.

So if Adams gets squeezed out by Mamdani’s and Cuomo’s appeal to higher-income voters, what about the lower-income voters? Results from 2025 suggest that Mamdani can compete with both Adams and Cuomo among this group.

Mamdani did well in the city’s most diverse neighborhoods

Using neighborhood boundaries defined by the Department of City Planning, the AP found that Mamdani won 33 of the 109 neighborhoods Adams had won. They ranged from majority Black neighborhoods like Harlem and Flatbush to immigrant-heavy enclaves like Brighton Beach and Kew Gardens.

Almost all of these Adams-to-Mamdani neighborhoods, 30 of them, were majority-minority, meaning less than 50% of the population is non-Hispanic white, according to the latest census estimates. This suggests Mamdani’s appeal to Adams voters wasn’t limited to the incumbent’s white supporters.

Mamdani did particularly well in the city’s most diverse neighborhoods, defined as neighborhoods where no racial or ethnic group constitutes a majority. Almost half of the majority-minority Adams-to-Mamdani neighborhoods had no dominant racial or ethnic group.

Overall, Mamdani won almost two-thirds of the most diverse neighborhoods.

The biggest difference between Mamdani’s and Adams’ performances were the neighborhoods in and around New York’s largest Asian communities. There are only six majority Asian neighborhoods in the city, all around the city’s three biggest Chinese communities: Chinatown in Manhattan, Sunset Park in Brooklyn and Flushing in Queens. Mamdani won all six, plus eight of the 14 plurality Asian neighborhoods.

Adams won just three of these 20 neighborhoods, with businessman Andrew Yang taking 14 and Garcia and activist Maya Wiley each winning one.