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NYC News: Cuomo, Mamdani Push for Votes as Election Looms
Mamdani and Cuomo Vie for Democratic Stalwarts as a Disruptive Election Enters Closing Days
Since his primary upset, Mamdani has attempted to make inroads with older voters and Black voters. Some have been persuaded — others not so much.
This article originally appeared in The City.
Manhattan Voice
November 2, 2025
NYC NEWS - More than 100,000 voters turned out to the polls Saturday, the highest number of early voters in a single day so far, as New York City’s mayoral candidates hustled across the city to win over new voters with just 72 hours before Election Day.
Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens), the Democratic nominee and frontrunner, spent the morning at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and later appeared with Attorney General Letitia James at a Brooklyn church.
Mamdani has consistently held a double-digit lead in the polls since his shock primary victory in June. As voting day approaches, the 34-year-old insurgent has insisted he’s confident — but not complacent — and announced a goal of breaking the campaign’s record for doors knocked in a single day on Sunday.
“You will find the momentum continues to grow. And it's a momentum of young voters, of older voters, a momentum of New Yorkers who are hungry for change,” Mamdani said outside the National Action Network Saturday morning. He ended his afternoon in Jamaica, where he greeted hundreds of volunteers before they fanned out across the neighborhood to knock on doors.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, had a quieter day, talking to voters in Rochdale Village in Queens and then visiting shops along Pitkin Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn.
Inside a beauty salon, he joked that there wasn’t much that could be done for his hair, but urged everyone to vote.
“This election matters, it really matters to determine the future of New York,” he said.
Eliona Johnson, 53, works as a receptionist in healthcare and planned to vote for Cuomo.
“I think he did a lot for the city, and I am for his policies, and I think he’ll do great,” she said.
Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa started the day on Staten Island, before campaigning in Floral Park and Astoria in Queens and planned to end the night campaigning on Houston Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, starting at Katz’s Deli at midnight.
Can Mamdani Widen His Base?
Since his primary win, Mamdani has attempted to make inroads with older voters and Black voters, the backbone of New York City’s Democratic party, many of whom previously sided with Cuomo. This week, he campaigned in senior centers, doing tai chi, dancing salsa and painting.
That outreach appeared to be working on some. At a polling site at PS 68 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, retired homeowners Herman and Pearlina Rainford said they were once loyal Cuomo supporters, even ranking the former governor first on the ballots in the primary.
But they eventually changed their votes for Mamdani, in part because of the torrent of negative ads attacking the young assemblymember.
“You can see right through it,” Herman said. “Cuomo is throwing everything at the wall, whatever can stick but he’s not going to win. He’s had his time already. He’s just using the city as a stepping stone to make a comeback.”
“We don’t want that,” Pearlina added. “We want to see more.”
Outside the Erasmus Hall Educational Campus in Flatbush, which also went for Cuomo in June, Jean Black, 68, told THE CITY that she voted for Mamdani for the second time this year.
“I was going to vote for Cuomo in the beginning” before the primary, based on named recognition, she said. But then she was canvassed by Mamdani supporters.
“Somebody rang the bell. It was two young kids, and they started talking to me, and I was telling my children, and they were saying that's who they were going to vote for, too,” said Black, who’s worked for more than 30 years as a home health aide.
“I listened to [the canvassers] because what they were telling me, it makes sense, this is the younger generation.”
Elsewhere in Cuomo strongholds, supporters were not wavering. In Morris Heights in The Bronx, voters leaving a poll site inside of M.S. 390, said they backed Cuomo both during the primary and again in the general election, including Jenny Duarte, 53, a dental assistant. Her kids were trying to persuade her to back Mamdani to no avail.
“My kids were trying to convince me, they're young, 19 and 23. I thought for a moment, but I changed my mind,” she said in Spanish. “[Zohran’s] a young man. He had a lot of ideas that won't work here in New York.”
Over in Queens, voters at St. John’s University in Jamaica Estates were mixed in support for the candidates.
Dan, 67, who declined to give his last name, lives in Holliswood, Queens – where Cuomo grew up – but voted for Republican Curtis Sliwa, who met with voters across the city including on Hillside Avenue Saturday.
“You now see his ads coming out attacking all the candidates, and I think his interests are more aligned with himself than they are with the city or state,” Dan said, referring to Cuomo.
Mamdani secured his upset victory in June in large part through galvanizing younger voters to the polls, like 32-year-old Oscar Perez, a dog walker, who was casting his ballot in Morris Heights on Saturday.
He said it was the first time he’d ever voted in a mayoral election. Perez hadn’t voted during the primary, but was eager to support Mamdani for his focus on affordability and said he wants to move out of his parents' apartment but hasn't been able to save up the money.
“At some point during the pandemic I was gonna move out. Now I’m looking back, [apartments] went from $1,500 to $3,000,” he said.
“It's getting a little crowded, but I cannot complain. We're just doing what we can.”
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