NYC mayoral candidates Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani on the campaign trail. Photo by Collage photo — Charles Triballeau and Angela Weiss for AFP via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh
May 15, 2025
Andrew Cuomo, who is aggressively courting Jewish voters in New York’s mayoral race, has not seen his numbers rise among Jews, even as he maintains a commanding lead in the June 24 Democratic primary, according to a new poll.
The Marist poll, conducted May 1 through May 8, shows Cuomo with 26% support among Jewish voters, with most split among five other candidates, two of whom are Jewish and one Muslim.
Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist with a long history of criticizing Israel and who leans left on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has the support of 14% of Jewish voters — just three points behind Brad Lander, the city comptroller, who is Jewish. The other Jewish candidate, Scott Stringer, has 8%, behind Council Speaker Adrienne Adams with 10%.
About two-thirds of New York’s voters are registered Democrats, making the party’s primary all but determinative of the November election. Jews make up 16% of the electorate in the Democratic primary, according to the survey.
The Marist poll of 3,383 likely voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6%, also shows Mamdani with a 20-point lead over Cuomo among younger voters under age 45. Nonetheless, the poll projects Cuomo would beat Mamdani with 60% of the overall vote in the fifth round of the ranked-choice voting system introduced in 2021 to avoid run-off elections and allowing voters to rank up to five candidates.
The Jewish vote in the NYC mayoral election
Historically, Jewish voters have proved to be a powerful and even decisive factor in mayoral elections. David Dinkins’s 1989 victory over incumbent Mayor Ed Koch, who was Jewish, was attributed in part to Koch’s share of the Jewish vote dropping down to two-thirds. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio narrowly avoided a run-off in the crowded 2013 Democratic primary by winning more Jewish voters than his competitors.
Ranked-choice voting could play an even more pivotal role. Mayor Eric Adams, who opted out of the primary to run on an independent line in the general election, in 2021 won the Democratic primary with the help of Orthodox support, voting in blocs based on rabbinic endorsements. The race was decided by just 7,000 votes in the final round of ranked-choice voting.
The split in the Jewish vote in the Marist poll could be attributed to the fact that an overwhelming majority —71%— of Jewish Democrats want a candidate who will oppose President Donald Trump as strongly as possible. A recent poll of Jewish voters shows that most disapprove of Trump, even when it comes to his fight against antisemitism and his crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters. Lander and Mamdani have consistently tied Cuomo to Trump, highlighting their shared billionaire donors.
In recent weeks, the leading candidates have intensified their outreach to the city’s Jews, who trend centrist on Israel, frequently emphasizing their plan to fight antisemitism. Delivering speeches at Orthodox synagogues and canvassing in Orthodox neighborhoods has become routine.
Last month, Cuomo, outlining his plan to counter antisemitism in an appearance at the West Side Institutional Synagogue, singled out Lander, Mamdani and Adrienne Adams as “far-left” politicians and “disciples” of the Democratic Socialists of America, advocating for anti-Israel policies.
“They can be stopped,” Cuomo said, suggesting that if all registered Jewish Democrats in New York mobilize and turn out to vote, it would “send a message that resonates across the country that the Jewish community is fighting back and when hate and discrimination is revealed, it’s defeated.”
