Primary Recap: What New Yorkers Told Us About the Candidates, And Why They Voted

Many of the voters who spoke to City Limits this primary election said they’re pulling for one of the two mayoral frontrunners: Andrew Cuomo or Zohran Mamdani. They cited concerns about affordability, lack of housing, and dog poop on the city’s sidewalks—among other issues.

The polls are open Tuesday until 9 p.m. Look up your poll site here. Check your voter registration status here. Read more about the mayoral candidates’ policies and plans here.

New York City voters turned out Tuesday to cast ballots in the primary for mayor, venturing out during an early summer heat wave to choose between a wide field of Democratic contenders hoping to move ahead to the general election in November.

Also on the ballot: races for City Council, borough president, public advocate and comptroller, as well as some judge positions. By 3 p.m., more than 700,000 people had already voted, according to the NYC Board of Elections, many of them during the early voting period, which ran from June 14-22.

Among them was Charlesia Brown, who cast her ballot in Morrisania last week with her son in tow. “I’m an avid voter,” Brown said. “I love to vote and I want to also show my son that this is the way you get things done—you vote for the people that are going to hopefully change your neighborhood for the better.”

In interviews with City Limits, many voters spoke about the need to restore trust in local government. Some said that motivated them to choose candidates with more experience in office, opting for familiar names; others expressed a desire for change, saying they want fresh faces and new ideas at City Hall.

“I am looking into Zohran, I’m definitely going for him. He’s one of my tops,” Brown told City Limits, referring to democratic socialist and Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who, alongside former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has been leading in recent mayoral polls.

The two appear to be neck and neck. This is the second city mayoral primary using Ranked Choice Voting, which debuted in 2021, meaning voters can list up to five candidates in their order of preference.

^{Scenes from early voting in Manhattan and The Bronx. (Photos by Adi Talwar)}

“He seems like he’s going to be doing something different,” Brown said of Mamdani. “I’m tired of voting for the same old people too. It’s time to give it up to somebody who’s newer, younger.”

But Chaz Greene, another South Bronx resident who works with a nonprofit called Guns Down, Life Up, said Cuomo and Assemblymember Michael Blake were among his top choices. “I’ve seen their work so I trust them,” he told a reporter. “They have already made a difference and I see it.”

It’s been a tumultuous year for New York City politics. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams was indicted last fall on corruption and bribery charges, though the case was later dropped at the behest of the Trump administration, which said it would interfere the president’s immigration enforcement plans. Adams, who is skipping the primary to run as an independent this year, has denied those allegations.

Though he didn’t name the incumbent, Greene said he wants the city’s next leader to “be more transparent, be honorable.”

“I want the next mayor to start focusing on not lying,” he said.

Other candidates’ alleged misdeeds loomed over the polls on Tuesday. Cuomo is attempting a political comeback after resigning as governor in 2021, when 11 women accused him of sexual harassment. Mayor Adams and another candidate, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, also faced previous sexual misconduct claims. All three have denied wrongdoing.

Kat L., who asked to withhold her full name for privacy reasons, said she ranked current Comptroller Brad Lander as her first mayoral pick “because he didn’t have any sexual harassment scandals.”

On the issues

One thing consistently on voters’ minds this primary: the high cost of living in New York City. “Everything is aggressively expensive,” Connor M., 27, told a reporter as he voted for Mamdani in East Harlem. “That’s all I was thinking about going in there.”

Erica Rivera, who voted early in Morrisania, said she was drawn to candidates who’ve been vocal about the need for more housing. “Those are the candidates that I obviously placed higher in the ranking,” Rivera said. “Let’s try to keep the buildings community owned, let’s try to make sure that if we are building new buildings they maintain affordable rent prices, and not make people have to sell their first-born child just to get a one-bedroom or studio apartment in the Bronx.”

Manhattan voter Kat L. had a specific housing issue in mind: the fate of the Elizabeth Street Garden. Located on a city-owned lot in Nolita, officials had long planned to replace the garden with affordable apartments for seniors and public green space. Fans of the park fought the proposal, and the dispute dragged out for years. On Monday, in an abrupt about-face, Mayor Adams announced the city is dropping the plan, and will pursue rezonings to build affordable housing at alternative sites nearby (a process requiring additional review that could take many months more, critics of his decision say). 

Kat, a garden supporter, liked several progressive Democratic mayor candidates. But those contenders told the New York Times they were in favor of developing the site, pointing to the dire affordable housing shortage. After hearing Monday’s news that the garden will remain, she felt like she could vote her conscience and base her rankings on other, bigger issues facing the city. 

“I know the garden is not the most important thing. Affordability and housing stuff is more important,” she said.

Kevin Rutledge, 23, a park attendant at Little Island, said he was voting for Mamdani, who’s promised to freeze the rent for tenants in stabilized apartments for the entirety of his term. “It’s rough out here for people trying to make a living. I think that anything that could stabilize rent would be great,” he said.

Other New Yorkers told City Limits they’re concerned about crime and public safety, immigration, schools and childcare costs. Dennis McKenzie, a 65-year-old landlord who moved to Brooklyn 30 years ago from Jamaica, said he wants the next mayor to focus on a specific quality of life problem.

“Most of the time when people bring their dogs, they poop on the sidewalk and leave it like that,” said McKenzie, who said he’s a Cuomo supporter. “I think that the city should be stricter with these owners to clean up their poop. That’s my biggest concern.”

A Cuomo-Mamdani showdown?

Many of the New Yorkers who spoke to City Limits for this story said they were voting for one of the two mayoral frontrunners.

Mamdani fans said they were drawn to his bold ideas, like making city bus service free. They also cited his energetic campaign, which has been fueled by a wave of small-dollar donors (something the candidate has touted as a contrast to Cuomo, who’s received millions from a billionaire-backed super PAC).

“I think he can get it done, and he’s not backed by the landlords or the super rich elite in New York, unlike Cuomo,” said Junior Jean, 22, who recently graduated from Pace University and ranked the Working Families Party’s slate of candidates. “I think Zohran Mamdani has legitimate reason to listen to the voters because it’s the voters who put him here, who gave him the money.”

Steven Rutledge, a 23-year-old attendant at the Whitney museum, said Mamdani “had an optimism to him that I feel like a lot of politicians don’t.”

“I like [Mamdani’s] youth, his energy and that he is progressive. And I’m scared to death of seeing Andrew Cuomo in that spot,” said James Skidmore, a 59-year-old lifelong New Yorker who works with developmentally disabled adults.

Another voter said they were inspired to vote for Mamdani after seeing he was endorsed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And Ivy, 26 from East Harlem, said she’d be excited to see New York City elect its first Muslim mayor.


”A lot of my friends also support him, and I think people in my age range who I know like him a lot,” she said. “And he went to Bronx Science. I also went to Bronx Science … He’s very relatable.”

When it comes to support for Cuomo, many voters cited his years of experience as governor, including his role as a prominent voice during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

“Just him being governor of New York, getting us through COVID, being trustworthy, in my opinion,” said East Harlem resident Gabrielle Evans, 53. “I know other people will think, you know, otherwise, but I trust him.”

Sabrina Pierre, a healthcare worker, cast the first ballot of her life for Cuomo alongside her 18-year-old son. “I honestly believe he was an excellent governor,” she said.

At the polling site at P.S. 269 in Flatbush, Brooklyn, City Limits ran into Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who chairs the Kings County Democratic Committee. Though she was a key endorser of Eric Adams in his 2021 run for mayor, she’s backing Cuomo this time around (and her husband, Edu Hermelyn, is working for him as an advisor.)

“People see a hero in Andrew Cuomo,” Bichotte Hermelyn said.

The former governor has “probably has the broadest spectrum of voters,” she added. “He has rich people voting for him, he has low-income people voting for him, he has a very wide, diverse, ethnic group of people working for him.”

Still, as head of Brooklyn’s Democrats, Bichotte Hermelyn said she’ll support whoever wins the party’s nomination on the general election ballot. “If Zohran or Brad Lander wins, I would endorse them,” she said. “I would endorse the Democratic nominee.”

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