State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is the leader as first-choice votes are tallied in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, ahead of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who declared his rival the winner even though no candidate appears likely to secure a majority in the first round of the ranked choice election.

Mamdani had been surging in the race’s final weeks as he touted a progressive vision for a new direction for the city — one with rent freezes, city-run grocery stores to cap prices, free city buses and more. He boosted his appeal with energetic direct-to-camera videos, as well as moves like spending a weekend night before Election Day walking the length of Manhattan, stopping to chat with voters and film clips along the way.

And he won the backing of prominent liberal politicians in the city as the flag-bearer of a unified, progressive effort aimed at depriving Cuomo a political comeback.

Late Tuesday night, Mamdani leads the first-choice vote count with about 44% support, followed by approximately 36% for Cuomo.

While New York City will have to wait at least a week, possibly longer, to find out who will ultimately win the Democratic nomination through the city’s ranked choice tabulations, Cuomo made clear to his supporters he believed the clock was running out on his bid, even as he didn’t slam the door on an independent bid in the general election.

“Tonight was not our night. Tonight was Assemblyman Mamdani’s night and he put together a great campaign and he touched young people and inspired them and moved them and got them to come out and vote and he really ran a highly impactful campaign. I called him. I congratulated him,” Cuomo said, asking supporters to give Mamdani a round of applause.

“Tonight is his night. He deserved it, he won.”

Under ranked choice voting in the city, voters rank up to five preferences on their ballot. Support for the lowest-finishing candidates is then reallocated to those voters’ next choices, and the process continues until there are two candidates left.

The city Board of Elections plans to release the results of those initial allocations next Tuesday. But depending on how many mail-in and provisional ballots still need to be counted, it could take longer to determine a winner.

The wait had been expected considering the 11-candidate field splitting Democratic votes. And the ranked choice system can encourage low-polling candidates to stay in because they know their supporters’ choices can still be taken into account if they fall short.

If Mamdani holds onto the lead during the ranked choice voting allocation and ultimately wins the Democratic nomination, he may not have fully vanquished Cuomo. The former mayor created his own party and could run in the general election on that party’s ballot line. Speaking Tuesday night, Cuomo didn’t rule that out, although he also didn’t give an indication he was readying a general election bid.

Mamdani’s rise

Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor if elected, has gained steam in the closing weeks of the race as he’s pitched a progressive vision for the city. He centered his energetic campaign on tackling higher costs and promising progressive policies that would be paid for in part by raising taxes on the rich.

Born in Uganda, Mamdani grew up primarily in the city as the son of an academic and a filmmaker, attending Bowdoin College in Maine before returning to Queens to work as a foreclosure prevention counselor. He became an American citizen in 2018 and soon launched a bid for state Assembly leaning on that work in housing. He narrowly defeated an incumbent Democratic legislator in the primary, in which he was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

And he embraced that democratic socialist moniker at a time where Democratic Party faces an identity crisis across the country. His campaign has been centered on a call to “put working people first” and providing a new direction for the city.

Along the way, Mamdani became the focal point for an anti-Cuomo movement that rallied behind the banner of “Don’t rank Cuomo,” arguing the former governor doesn’t deserve a successful political comeback after resigning from office in 2021 over sexual harassment allegations. Mamdani has secured cross-endorsement deals with fellow candidates including city Comptroller Brad Lander and former DNC vice chair Michael Blake.

They directed their supporters to also rank the other candidate on their ballot, an attempt to team up to use ranked choice voting to have a candidate pull away from Cuomo after several rounds of accumulated support from non-Cuomo voters.

Lander, who was arrested earlier this month serving as an advocate for defendants in federal immigration court, is the only other candidate sniffing double-digits. His decision to cross-endorse Mamdani, and to stand by him when other prominent New York Jews lambasted Mamdani’s unwillingness to denounce the slogan “globalize the intifada,” could prove integral if Lander’s supporters break largely for Mamdani and help him officially clinch the nomination.

Mamdani also received prominent endorsements from Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Working Families Party, and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who, like Mamdani, identifies as a democratic socialist. Other prominent New Yorkers, like state Attorney General Letitia James, have asked supporters to include Mamdani on their ranked choice ballots (and for them to leave Cuomo off) even while saying they’d prefer another candidate.

But Mamdani’s rise made him a top target of Cuomo and allies who tried to frame him as too radical for the city, castigating Mamdani’s his plan to reform the New York Police Department as “defund the police” and signal-boosting a non-endorsement from The New York Times’ editorial board, which wrote, “We do not believe that Mr. Mamdani deserves a spot on New Yorkers’ ballots.”

The progressive also drew significant blowback from Cuomo and prominent Jewish leaders for not denouncing the slogan “globalize the intifada” when asked about it during a podcast interview. Mamdani, who was running to be the city’s first Muslim mayor, referred to the slogan as “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”

Cuomo and his allies boosted criticism from those like the head of the Anti-Defamation League and the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Mamdani addressed the backlash during an emotional press conference in which he denounced antisemitism, recounted some of the threats he’s received for his religious beliefs and accused critics of trying to weaponize these comments without weighing in on the threats against him.

“It pains me to be called an antisemite, it pains me to be painted as if I am somehow in opposition to the very Jewish New Yorkers that I know and love and that are such a key part of this city,” Mamdani said. “And yet I know that when I share that emotion, I continue to face a language as if I am a beast. And it takes a toll,” he said earlier this month addressing that criticism.

Cuomo’s comeback attempt

Cuomo was long seen as the frontrunner in the race, with his unique profile as a former statewide official and national Democratic Party heavyweight lending him broad name identification from the start of his campaign, which none of his rivals could match at the beginning. He leaned heavily on that experience to argue he is the only candidate who’d be able to adequately fight back against President Donald Trump.

He marshalled heavy political support from prominent Democrats like former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr., state and multiple members of Congress. And he received a big boost from a deep-pocketed super PAC (which received $8.5 million from Bloomberg) that blanketed the airwaves with ads singing his strengths and criticizing Mandami.

But could never fully overcome the reason he was in the race in the first place — that he resigned four years ago under pressure after investigations by the state attorney general found that his administration undercounted Covid deaths in nursing homes and that he sexually harassed multiple women.

His current supporters include many who previously called on him to resign from his post as governor, as they argue Cuomo’s experience is what the city needs right now.

The two top candidates, and their allies, have been unsparing in their criticism of each other. The pro-Cuomo super PAC has run a deluge of ads framing Mamdani as “a risk we can’t afford,” criticizing him as too radical for the city.

“Experience matters, and I think inexperience is dangerous in this case. Mr. Mamdani has had a staff of five people, you’re now going to run a staff of 300,000 employees?” Cuomo said during a debate hosted by Spectrum News NY1 earlier this month.

He added: “He’s never dealt with the City Council. He’s never dealt with the Congress. He’s never dealt with the state Legislature. He’s never negotiated with a union. He’s never built anything. He’s never dealt with a natural emergency. He’s never dealt with a hurricane, with a flood, et cetera. He’s never done any of the essentials. And now you have Donald Trump on top of all of that.”

But while Cuomo has leaned on that experience as a strength, his opponents have tried to turn the tables by reminding voters of the reason he’s in the race in the first place — his fall from grace four years ago after sexual harassment allegations.

“To Mr. Cuomo: I have never had to resign in disgrace, I have never cut Medicaid,” Mamdani replied to Cuomo at the Spectrum News/NY1 debate.

“I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accuse me of sexual harassment, I have never sued for their gynecological records, and I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo,” he added, ending by forcefully correcting Cuomo for saying his last name incorrectly.