On "Forbes Newsroom," Emerson College Polling senior director Matt Taglia discussed a recent poll about the NYC mayoral Democratic primary election, showing NYC Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani beating former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the last round of the poll's ranked choice simulation.
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is
00:07Matt Taglia, Senior Director of Emerson College Polling. Matt, thanks so much for joining me.
00:13Thanks for having me, Brittany.
00:15Emerson College Polling picks 11 and the Hill has their final poll on New York City's mayoral race.
00:22And this is a local primary that has really garnered national attention,
00:27with even a former president weighing in and endorsing one of the candidates.
00:31Early voting has begun and Election Day is tomorrow, Tuesday, June 24th.
00:36And this race has really changed in the last three months since you and I started talking about it back in March.
00:42So what are your takeaways of what the poll says right now?
00:48Yeah, Brittany, the polling has really changed over the past few months.
00:53And I think the story there is really Mamdani.
00:56So in the first round of voting, asking folks their first choice, Cuomo does still have a lead, but it's only three points.
01:04So we have him at 35 percent, Mamdani at 32 percent, Lander at 13 percent, everyone else is under 10 percent.
01:13And then just 4 percent are undecided on that first ballot.
01:17So, you know, as you said, things have changed a lot.
01:20I think Mamdani started out in our polling at around 1 percent.
01:25He's now at 32 percent in the first ballot.
01:29And we have very few undecided here.
01:31There's not much there's not much to say about them.
01:34There are more folks who don't have necessarily second, third, fourth or fifth choices.
01:39But, you know, we see that that does ultimately end up benefiting Mamdani in final voting.
01:47So let's talk about that a little bit, because if there was not ranked choice voting in this race, it seems like Cuomo would eek ahead based on the numbers you have now.
01:56But remind us how ranked choice really factors in here and shakes up this race.
02:02Yeah, it definitely shakes things up.
02:04So folks are asked and we asked it just as they will be asked on Election Day for their first, second, third, fourth and fifth choice in on the ballot.
02:15And in the final round, which is the eighth round in this case, we find that Mamdani receives 52 percent of the vote, Cuomo 48 percent after all of those first, second, et cetera choices have been reallocated as the lowest scoring candidate is removed from the previous ballot.
02:35So, you know, if we look back at the seventh round, just before the final round, we have Cuomo at 41, Mamdani at 39 and Lander at 20.
02:46So the real crux here is that these Lander voters are ultimately voting for Mamdani as their second choice.
02:56So let's talk about that a little bit, because earlier in this race, Mamdani and Comptroller Brad Lander cross endorsed each other.
03:03So I know that Comptroller Lander is saying, put me as number one, put Mamdani as number two.
03:10That strategy is seemingly helping both of them and hurting Cuomo then, correct?
03:17That's right.
03:18We see that in that final round, those Lander voters who are eliminated and reallocated, they're backing Mamdani by about a two to one margin versus Cuomo.
03:30So it's not exactly a one to one sort of conversion of Lander voters to Mamdani, but it is definitely helping Mamdani here.
03:40We see overall that Lander is up a little bit, I think, due to the press coverage from last week.
03:46So I think he's definitely benefited from that.
03:48And ultimately, that will end up benefiting Mamdani, again, four point lead in that final voting tally.
03:57Matt, this race really seems to be a tale of two headlines.
04:01I want to read the headline from our conversation at the end of March.
04:04This is what our YouTube headline was.
04:07New poll shows Cuomo's lead widening in NYC mayoral race.
04:10Then this is our headline from the end of May at our conversation then.
04:15Could Andrew Cuomo lose New York City Democratic mayoral primary to Democratic Socialist Zoran Mamdani?
04:22What happened here when it comes to Cuomo's race and when it comes to the surge that Mamdani has really seen?
04:30Yeah, it really is incredible, huh?
04:32You know, just those two different headlines.
04:35You know, we've seen a meteoric rise for Mamdani here.
04:38We did have a higher undecided rate, you know, back in March.
04:42But, you know, I think we've seen people just sort of taking a position here.
04:47Mamdani has benefited from a lot of press coverage.
04:51And meanwhile, Cuomo we've seen sort of stuck at that 35 percent mark.
04:56He really hasn't moved on past that, certainly not since last month.
05:00And in this poll, that's exactly where he is.
05:03So he has not expanded his lead really with any demographics.
05:07If anything, he's bled a little bit from some of the older voters, especially.
05:12We see more of them now backing Mamdani than we did previously.
05:17So there's just been a little bit of melt for Cuomo everywhere.
05:20He's not been able to break out past that 35 percent mark in the first ballot.
05:24And as long as he's not able to do that, it's going to be a really tough race for him.
05:28So it seems like what you're saying, Cuomo has essentially plateaued.
05:32He has reached a ceiling here.
05:35We've seen Mamdani surge from essentially, I believe it was one or two percent to essentially
05:40almost tying and in ranked choice voting, essentially beating out Cuomo.
05:45When you see the surge at the end of a campaign cycle, does that translate to votes?
05:49Does that excitement have a ceiling as well?
05:52What does that really look like?
05:53Yeah, and I think, you know, that's a reasonable question to ask every single time, whether
05:59that's actually going to mean that this candidate receives votes in the end.
06:04Now, what's interesting here is that if we look at the early vote in this poll, we ask
06:08folks if they were very likely to vote or if they had already voted.
06:12We look at that already voted number and we see that Mamdani is winning them by a two
06:18to one margin.
06:19So if I'm the Cuomo camp, that's pretty alarming.
06:22I think that that momentum really is translating to votes here.
06:27We've seen that it's been a historic early voter turnout.
06:31And by this measure, Mamdani is winning those folks.
06:36And the Trump administration has certainly been in the news a lot in recent weeks, whether
06:41it be the tariffs, immigration, most recently this weekend with the bombing of Iran's nuclear
06:47facilities, do those types of events, those national events, does that impact this race
06:53here?
06:53Or is this race coming down to local issues?
06:55You know, I think that it probably will have a limited effect, at least on folks who are
07:03turning out on election day, perhaps.
07:06But I think that this really does come back mostly to local issues.
07:10You know, again, this is a Democratic primary.
07:11So, you know, we're not necessarily going to see the national reflection like we would if
07:18it were a general election, even at the statewide level.
07:22So it might have a limited effect.
07:24But I really think this is more about local issues, about the personalities and about the
07:28campaigns, which have been very different.
07:31I think we've seen something very new from the Mamdani campaign.
07:35And that's clearly resonating with some folks here.
07:40And early voters, as you said, are supporting Mamdani over Cuomo.
07:43And does it hurt?
07:44Do you think Cuomo that this primary election is in an off election year?
07:49And do you think it's coming down to just turnout alone?
07:54Yeah, so normally I would say that it would help Cuomo for sure.
07:57His camp is more so the older voters.
08:02And those are usually the highest propensity voters, the folks that you know will turn out
08:08on election day or even before then casting either an absentee or early ballot.
08:13In this case, I think it is a little bit different just because it is at the city level.
08:19And, you know, the fact that there are so many eyes on it this year.
08:24We're just following a presidential election cycle.
08:26I think that there's a lot more interest in this race than there would be in a normal
08:31off-cycle election.
08:33So normally I would say that it would benefit someone like Cuomo, especially.
08:38But in this case, I'm not so sure that it does.
08:42And there's the smallest sliver of voters that are undecided,
08:46less than a day out from election day here, 4%.
08:49You're saying they don't matter.
08:51Why not?
08:52Well, I'm not saying that they don't necessarily matter, but it is a very small number at this
08:58point.
08:58And I think we can see the trends in the data.
09:02You know, if we allocated those undecided voters to, you know, the candidates equally,
09:08it wouldn't really change the final tabulation.
09:12I think it will matter how folks end up ranking the ballot.
09:15We talked about this last time.
09:17People don't necessarily have a fifth choice in this race.
09:21So, you know, how folks ultimately end up ranking their ballots, that will make a difference.
09:27We do see some drop-off from the first to the final round in voting here,
09:32simply because folks just don't necessarily have choices between Mamdani and Cuomo.
09:38So, you know, there's a little bit more of an undecided factor here than the top line number
09:45sort of suggests.
09:46But at the end of the day, I think we do see the trends.
09:50And I think we have a decent idea that this is going to be a close race.
09:55And I think that just how close this race is now becoming and who the top two candidates
10:00are, are a real case study for the Democratic Party and where they're going next.
10:05Because you have the young, more progressive candidate in Mamdani.
10:09He's a Democratic Socialist versus the more moderate Governor Andrew Cuomo.
10:14He's making his political comeback here.
10:16Democrats have really had to look inward since their 2024 loss.
10:20Some Democrats have told me that the party needs to move more towards the center.
10:24They need to become more moderate.
10:25Other Democrats have told me they need to really lean into more left issues.
10:30They need to lean into being more progressive.
10:32As a pollster here, when you're reading the numbers here, does this give you any insight
10:37of where the Democratic Party is headed next?
10:42Yeah, and I've seen some commentary about this and looking at, you know, more progressive
10:47candidates versus more moderate candidates.
10:50And, you know, I don't want to extrapolate too much from this race.
10:53I think it's a special race.
10:55It is New York City, which is very different from the rest of the country.
10:58So I wouldn't necessarily want to, you know, make too many generalizations here.
11:05But, you know, in general, you know, I don't think we've seen a lot of progressive candidates
11:10have success in general elections at a competitive level where you say swing state.
11:17You know, that's not to say that these candidates can't win.
11:20But, you know, we haven't seen that yet.
11:24We've seen more so these moderate candidates ultimately have success.
11:28Now, when we look at the general election here in New York City, that may not be the
11:32case.
11:32It might be that a progressive candidate could win as on the ticket, depending on what that
11:38ticket ultimately looks like.
11:39And I know that both Cuomo and Momdani are likely to be on the ballot regardless of these
11:46results.
11:46So I think we might actually see a test of this towards the end of the year.
11:51Well, Matt, we certainly have a very close race to look out for.
11:55Thank you so much for your polls, for breaking it down with me.
