Mamdani still favored in NYC mayor's race despite Adams dropping out, experts say

The three remaining candidates for New York City mayor on Monday began trying to pick up support from New Yorkers who were planning to vote for incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who suddenly announced a day earlier that he’s abandoning his run for a second term.

But even if second-place candidate former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo picked up every single Adams voter — which is unlikely — that would almost certainly not be enough for him to catapult over front-runner Assemb. Zohran Mamdani, experts said and polls taken before the pullout suggest.

And there’s still the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, who said he is not bowing out.

In the aftermath of Adams’ long-rumored withdrawal, Mamdani said the outcome of the race will not change. Cuomo, running as an independent, has told voters "it is not too late to stop" what he called "destructive extremist forces that would devastate our city."

Meanwhile, on the Truth Social platform, President Donald Trump posted that a Mamdani victory — which Trump had hoped to avert, reportedly with offers of a federal appointment to Adams — "will prove to be one of the best things to ever happen to our great Republican Party" and threatened to withhold federal money from the city so Mamdani can’t "fulfill all of his fake communist promises."

Mamdani, at an event in upper Manhattan on Monday morning, said Trump is experiencing the stages of grief and is now "coming to terms that we’re going to win this race."

The main benefit from Adams’ withdrawal isn’t that Cuomo will pick up enough of Adams’ voters to win the race, but that the foes of Mamdani can narrow their concentration, according to the political consultant Jerry Skurnik with Engage Voters U.S., a "one-stop shop for voter data."

The race would become more competitive if Sliwa drops out. He has said he’s been offered millions of dollars to leave the race but has refused.

"I'm not dropping out under no circumstance, unless a Mack Truck would hit me and turn me into a speed bump. That's the only way," Sliwa told Politico in a story published Monday.

So short of Sliwa bowing out, the Adams news doesn’t do much for Cuomo, Skurnik said.

"I think it probably gives Cuomo a little glimmer of hope, but I think that’s primarily because the anti-Mamdani people can put all their focus on trying to either convince Sliwa not to stay in the race, or can somehow convince Sliwa voters that voting for him is a wasted vote, and that Cuomo could actually win."

Laura Tamman, a clinical assistant professor at Pace University who studies New York City politics, called Adams dropping out "a pretty non-event," given Adams’ back-of-the-pack polling. Those voters will splinter among the three remaining candidates, she said.

"Conventional wisdom would say a lot of his votes would go to Cuomo, but Mamdani has continued to get such broad support, I'm just not sure that's true," Tammon said.

As for whom Adams voters will now cast ballots for, Skurnik said, Blacks and Hispanics, who are disproportionately "knee-jerk Democrats" compared with whites, are likely to go over to back the Democratic nominee, Mamdani, and whites will likely back Cuomo.

Orthodox Jews, and those voters who favor a pro-Israeli policy, are unlikely to go to Mamdani and will go to either Cuomo or won’t vote at all, he said.

But these demographics aren't monolithic. For example, ex-Adams supporters who are older Black churchgoing women are likely to back Cuomo, Skurnik said.

Trump’s specter came up again and again in Harlem Monday night at a candidates' forum focused on Black women.

Mamdani said he'd "fight" the administration and refuse to become "a collaborator in that agenda."

"The most effective response to Donald Trump is an exhibition of strength, not an exhibition of surrender," Mamdani said.

Sliwa took a more conciliatory approach, saying, "You gotta preemptively approach these people, sit them down, and talk to them," but lamented that cuts seem inevitable.

"We're gonna have to tighten our belts. Nobody wants to hear that," Sliwa said.

Cuomo said that as governor, he successfully resisted Trump and as mayor, would channel that experience.

“He is a bully, President Trump. And he tries to bully you, and there's only one way to deal with a bully. Which is when the bully pushes you, you have to push back,” Cuomo said.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.