Independent Andrew Cuomo would beat democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race if Republican Curtis Sliwa were not running, according to an Atlas poll released Monday.
In a hypothetical two-way race, Cuomo tops Mamdani 49.7% to 44.1%.
With Sliwa in, Mamdani leads with 43.9% of the vote while Cuomo trails behind at 39.4%. Sliwa remains in third with 15.5% while 1.2% of voters were undecided or said they would not vote.
Atlas surveyed 2,404 respondents between Oct. 31 and Nov. 2. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Mamdani, the front-runner, has drawn the ire of Trump, who criticized him as a “communist” and a “100% communist lunatic.”
Trump has also threatened that if Mamdani becomes mayor and tries to limit cooperation with federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “we’ll have to arrest him.”
Trump has not endorsed a candidate in the race, but he indicated on “60 Minutes” over the weekend that he viewed Cuomo as the lesser of two evils.
“It’s going to be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York. Because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there,” Trump said.
“So, I don’t know that he’s one, and I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other, but if it’s going to be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you.”
Early voting has ended in New York City, with initial numbers showing the highest turnout for a non-presidential election in city history.
The New York City Board of Elections reported 735,317 early voting check-ins over the past nine days, more than four times the total in the 2021 mayoral race, which reported only 169,879 early voting check-ins for the general election.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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