N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race Live Updates: Candidates Traverse the City to Make Closing Arguments to Voters

“Socialist ideals have played a powerful role in this city,” Mr. Dinkins, dressed in a sharp suit and striped tie, told a council meeting of the Socialist International in October 1990. “Public education, a strong and vibrant trade union movement and many great cultural institutions are products of the socialist movement.”

Historically, he’s right: Throughout the history of New York, a city of immigrants and political machines and union loyalists, democratic socialist voices have been part of the thrum of local politics. Mr. Dinkins himself was, at some point, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Yet as Zohran Mamdani, the front-runner in this year’s mayoral race, campaigns as a D.S.A. member, his opponents have cast the prospect of a socialist in City Hall as simply un-New York — a big-city mismatch up there with pastrami with mayo.

“Socialism is not going to work for New York,” former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, one of Mr. Mamdani’s opponents in the general election, said bluntly last month.

“You are a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America,” Whitney Tilson, the former hedge fund executive who ran for mayor, said to Mr. Mamdani during a Democratic debate in June. “You refer to each other as comrade.”

“Yes, like David Dinkins, I am a member,” Mr. Mamdani shot back.

In fact, Mr. Dinkins is not the only city leader to have had ties to socialism. Fiorello La Guardia, the three-term Republican mayor, ran for re-election to Congress in 1924 on the socialist party line (for pure political convenience, after he couldn’t get the Republican nomination). Ruth Messinger, who served as Manhattan borough president in the 1990s and ran for mayor in 1997, was a D.S.A. member. In 1917, a socialist union lawyer named Morris Hillquit ran for mayor and won nearly a quarter of the vote. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez catapulted to Congress in an upset over the Democratic establishment in 2018, she did so as a member of the D.S.A., which endorsed her just before the primary.

“It’s a misunderstanding of our history to think our leaders have not been affected by and connected to deep progressive traditions,” said former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who attended a D.S.A. conference in the early 1980s and wrestled with whether to call himself a democratic socialist. “They were seen as a moral force,” he added, referring to the D.S.A.

Mr. Mamdani’s relationship with the D.S.A., though, is in many ways distinct, reflecting an organization whose profile is rising fast among an electorate with an appetite for change.

Mr. Mamdani joined the New York City D.S.A. around 2017, when he was in his mid-20s. The organization’s membership was surging at the time, thanks to Bernie Sanders, whose presidential candidacy had turned “millionaires and billionaires” into a galvanizing slogan for hundreds of thousands of politically unmoored millennials. Mr. Mamdani spoke at the D.S.A.’s national convention in 2023. The New York chapter endorsed him in his run for State Assembly and when he announced his mayoral campaign.

Mr. Mamdani has said that his “platform is not the same as national D.S.A.” His, for example, doesn’t propose eliminating all misdemeanor offenses. Still, his “affordability” proposals, such as city-owned grocery stores and free child care, reflect his socialist thinking. The New York City chapter of D.S.A. has emphasized the essential role it has played in his political rise: sending members to knock on thousands of doors and weighing in on Mr. Mamdani’s policy priorities, particularly his push for “fast and free buses.”

“We were his political home when he was working for a City Council candidate in 2017,” said Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of New York City’s D.S.A. chapter. “That experience became his launchpad into politics.”

“Zohran told us that if we did not endorse his mayoral campaign, he would not go forward with a push to run for mayor,” Mr. Gordillo added. (A spokeswoman for the Mamdani campaign confirmed this.)

City Hall has never had a leader with ties quite that close to democratic socialism.

Some scholars of democratic socialism say Mr. La Guardia governed like a socialist, though he wasn’t one. In City Hall, he took an expansive approach to government services, creating sweeping public housing developments and extending public transit’s reach. La Guardia, who was half Jewish and a Yiddish speaker, like many card-carrying socialists at the time, employed socialists in his administration. A protégé turned aide, Vito Marcantonio, later became a congressman in the American Labor Party, representing East Harlem.

“He was mayor at a time when expansive government was not seen as subversive or anti-American,” said Joshua Freeman, a professor emeritus of history at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. “He was ruling during the period of the New Deal.”

Some mayors who came after La Guardia were eager to distance themselves from the political left, especially socialists and communists. During the Cold War, some political aides recalled, “socialism” became almost a dirty word in City Hall. John LoCicero, who was special adviser to Mayor Ed Koch, was emphatic about his boss’s view.

“He was against socialism!” said Mr. LoCicero, now 95. He recalled how Mr. Koch would open City Hall’s doors to “refuseniks,” or Soviet dissidents, who would come into his office and tell their stories of coming to America.

Mr. Koch’s press secretary, George Arzt, whose parents immigrated to New York from Poland just before World War II, recalled the fears his mother and father had about both socialism and communism. “They would talk to me in Yiddish and if I said something wrong, they’d say: ‘Bist du communist?’” (“Are you a communist?”)

Socialist activists set about working to change public perception of their ideology, both during the Cold War and as it was fading. Both on the national stage and in local politics, they sought to distance democratic socialism — meaning socialists committed to liberal democracy — from communist and nondemocratic socialists leaders abroad.

In 1982, two sprawling left-wing groups merged to form the D.S.A. For some political leaders, especially in liberal New York, joining the group became a way to prove their progressive bona fides.

By the late 1980s, the D.S.A. was far from an influential force in New York City life. Nationally, the group had under 10,000 members; today it has more than 90,000. But some longtime D.S.A. members, and friends of Mr. Dinkins, said it wasn’t a surprise that the mayor was part of the group and occasionally attended its meetings because D.S.A. members shared his left-wing principles. Mr. Dinkins also had a close aide, Bill Lynch, who was a D.S.A. member and trade unionist, and may have encouraged his involvement.

“David didn’t run around talking about himself that much, but he considered himself a member,” recalled Ms. Messinger, who worked closely with Mr. Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor. “It’s logical, given David’s interest in making sure that the needs of all people in New York were being met, that he would find the group attractive.”

The affiliation wasn’t the slightest bit influential in Mr. Dinkins’s decision-making. Few people who worked with Dinkins recall democratic socialism ever coming up.

“I knew Dinkins pretty well; I’ve known him since I was a baby,” said Keith Wright, a former New York State assemblyman. “I never knew that he was a member of the D.S.A.”

And some who have studied Mr. Dinkins’s involvement with the D.S.A. note that he struggled to translate some of his high-minded progressive values into the more quotidien duties of being mayor, from dealing with trash to crime — a challenge some say Mr. Mamdani could face, too.

“He may have on some level thought of himself as a democratic socialist,” Mr. Freeman said of Mr. Dinkins. “But when it came to running the city there wasn’t a whole lot that could have meant.”

Mr. Mamdani has framed his campaign as trailblazing in many ways: He would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, its first South Asian mayor and its first millennial mayor. He has highlighted a surge in support for his campaign from young voters, working-class voters and immigrants.

When he arrived outside City Hall, where he hopes to report to work on Jan. 1, Mr. Mamdani spoke about moving past the tenure of Mayor Eric Adams, which he said was defined by “small ideas and scandal.”

Mr. Mamdani said: “We stand on the verge of ushering in a new day for our city.”

Then Mr. Mamdani, repeating his campaign pledges, said he would make the city more affordable and that he would use city government for good.

“Let them feel the light of City Hall when their late-night bus home is faster and freer and safer too,” he said. “Let them feel the light of City Hall when the clock strikes midnight to mark the first day of a new month and the rent payment that looms doesn’t make them feel a pit in their stomach.”

The seven-minute speech served as a closing argument for Mr. Mamdani as he vowed to fight President Trump’s agenda. Mr. Mamdani said that his main rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, was compromised by his support from Mr. Trump, who offered his backing to Mr. Cuomo in an interview that aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday night.

Mr. Mamdani was joined Monday by Letitia James, the state attorney general, who is facing federal charges from the Trump administration. He said that her case and Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown were part of a “moment of grave political darkness.”

“Let City Hall, with our compassion, our conviction and our clarity, be the light that our city and our nation so desperately need,” he said.

“I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or another, but if it’s going to be between a bad Democrat and a communist,” Mr. Trump said, falsely claiming that Mr. Mamdani is a communist, “I’m going to pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you.”

Mr. Mamdani has sought for months to portray Mr. Cuomo, whom he defeated in the Democratic primary in June, as Mr. Trump’s choice for mayor, calling him a puppet and parrot of the president.

Mr. Trump had publicly urged Mr. Cuomo, who is running as independent, to stay in the race shortly after his primary loss, and spoke privately about the race with Mr. Cuomo.

Mr. Cuomo has asserted he has no allegiance to Mr. Trump, and has argued that he, not Mr. Mamdani, would be better prepared to stand up to the president — all while courting Mr. Trump’s supporters as he seeks to win Republicans’ votes.

Soon after the “60 Minutes” interview aired, Mr. Mamdani jumped on Mr. Trump’s comments.

“Congratulations, Andrew Cuomo,” he wrote on social media. “I know how hard you worked for this.”

Mr. Mamdani addressed the topic again on Monday morning after he led a sunrise walk across the Brooklyn Bridge into Lower Manhattan, before holding a news conference outside City Hall.

“The answer to a Donald Trump presidency is not to create its mirror image here in City Hall,” he said. “It is to create an alternative that can speak to what New Yorkers are so desperate to see in their own city and what they find in themselves and their neighbors every day — a city that believes in the dignity of everyone who calls this place home.”

A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said that Mr. Mamdani was “lying and gaslighting.”

“Only one candidate has a record of standing up to Trump when he tried to hurt New York and winning and that’s Andrew Cuomo,” the spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, said. “If you want President Trump to try to take over the city — National Guard on streets, choking federal funding — vote for Zohran Mamdani because Trump just said he will be coming and this poser Zohran Mamdani won’t be able to stop him.”

No longer a New York City resident, Mr. Trump has remained focused on the city and its politics, and its race for mayor in particular. He has declined to support Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee for mayor, whom he derided as “not exactly prime-time.”

Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting.

Mr. Mamdani’s low-key appearance at Madison Square Garden underscored the accessibility and relatability he has tried to convey as a candidate. It also stood in stark contrast to how former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a third-party candidate for mayor, took in a Knicks game last month — wearing a suit and sitting courtside beside Mayor Eric Adams.

Mr. Cuomo had arrived after halftime after hustling from the election’s final debate. By sitting next to Mr. Adams, he was telegraphing a shotgun political marriage of shared enmity for Mr. Mamdani. (Mr. Adams, who ended his re-election bid in September, would officially endorse Mr. Cuomo the following day.)

“Corruption goes courtside,” Mr. Mamdani wrote on social media as Mr. Adams and Mr. Cuomo exchanged laughter in seats that can cost over $10,000.

On Sunday, Mr. Mamdani headed to the Garden after spending time with Gov. Kathy Hochul watching her beloved Buffalo Bills at a bar in Astoria, Queens. With about two and a half minutes left in the second quarter, he settled into a far less conspicuous perch than Mr. Cuomo: Section 212.

A decent vantage point from which to see, but not to be seen.

With a Black Knicks cap pulled low over his head and a Josh Hart jersey over his white collared shirt, Mr. Mamdani sat with several aides and with the comedian known as The Kid Mero, a campaign supporter.

As the Knicks blew out the Chicago Bulls, the scoreboard showed celebrities who were attending, including Billy Baldwin, Jim Gaffigan and the former New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz. Not Mr. Mamdani.

Most fans either did not know or did not care that the front-runner in Tuesday’s mayoral election was seated among them. It helped, The Kid Mero said, that Mr. Mamdani had taken off the suit jacket and tie that he typically wears on the campaign trail.

Now, the comedian observed, Mr. Mamdani looked just like “one of my Dominican cousins.”

Mr. Mamdani seemed to relish being mostly unobserved for a change. He sang and danced along with the crowd to “I Want It That Way,” a hit song released by the Backstreet Boys in 1999, when Mr. Mamdani was 8 years old.

“The exhilaration of the last few days of the campaign is like little else, but so is the anxiety,” he said while watching the game. “Somebody described it to me once like playing tennis but not being able to see the score until the last minute.”

As the game went on, fans wearing their medals from the New York City Marathon visibly struggled to climb the arena’s stairs to their seats — prompting Mr. Mamdani to recall his marathon experience the year before.

“I’m clearly better at campaigning,” he said. He added that his knowledge of Knicks lore paled in comparison to his familiarity with soccer and cricket.

Even so, Mr. Mamdani played off the team’s popularity to try to boost his campaign during the Knicks’ playoff run last season. He interviewed die-hard fans outside the arena about the high cost of living and how expensive tickets had become. (A seat in Section 212 on Sunday cost more than $200 on the secondary market.)

But his fondness for the Knicks has not always been returned in kind.

In a campaign ad that aired during the first game of the Knicks’ season, the team’s logo was merged with his campaign’s logo. In response, lawyers for the team, which is owned by a company that has donated heavily to Mr. Cuomo’s political pursuits, sent Mr. Mamdani’s campaign a letter saying they had to stop using the logo and reiterating that the team did not endorse him.

That did not deter Mr. Mamdani from showing up on Sunday. He stayed until the game’s final minutes, the Knicks comfortably ahead. With his first public appearance set for 7 a.m. Monday, he walked a few steps up to an elevator and headed out.

One couple stopped him for a photo, but no one else.

The two people sitting next to Mr. Mamdani had no idea who he was, and were surprised at the revelation after he had left.

“It feels good that somebody who is running for the mayor is sitting right next to us,” said Aanshi Mistry, 25, an Indian immigrant living in Hell’s Kitchen, a neighborhood near the arena.

Mr. Mamdani did little to give his identity away. Normally quick to take any selfie and shake any hand, he seemed in no rush to be recognized. He wondered, perhaps in half jest, whether moments like this would stop if he were to win.

“I think,” he said, “you have to be a little bit more inventive and creative.”

Most polls show the Democratic nominee, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, with at least a 10-point lead over former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who is running as a third-party candidate, with the Republican, Curtis Sliwa, in third.

If Mr. Mamdani were to prevail, his success would underscore his ability to build a coalition of voters beyond the city’s traditional voting blocs — challenging assumptions about what a winning coalition might look like in New York.

Here are five groups whose vote will be closely watched and pursued as Election Day approaches Tuesday:

Faith voters

New York City is home to the nation’s largest Jewish population, and the war between Israel and Hamas has become a decisive issue for many in the city’s Jewish communities, with the candidates’ responses to the war serving as a litmus test.

Mr. Cuomo, a strong ally of Israel, has repeatedly criticized Mr. Mamdani for his views of the conflict, suggesting his criticisms of Israel and its conduct in the war are antisemitic. Mr. Mamdani has said he would try to arrest the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, if he traveled to New York under his mayoralty, and referred to the widespread death and destruction in the Gaza Strip as a “genocide,” prompting a rebuke from hundreds of the city’s Jewish leaders.

But Mr. Mamdani, who has stressed that he would ensure New York is safe for its Jewish residents, has also garnered support from many of those voters, and polling shows that many share his concerns about the war and support of Palestinian rights.

Mr. Mamdani’s candidacy has drawn the attention and ire of Jewish leaders across the country. Many have opposed him, while some rabbis have felt pressure from their congregants in recent weeks to publicly condemn him. Others have resisted taking a side in the race altogether.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Mr. Mamdani has faced Islamophobic attacks from members of both parties. On the Friday before early voting began, he addressed the attacks during a speech in front of a mosque in the Bronx, contending that prejudice against Muslim New Yorkers is seen as permissible in many parts of the city.

Muslims in New York and beyond say they see themselves in Mr. Mamdani’s open embrace of his faith, and many have expressed concerns about the attacks against him.

Mr. Mamdani, who is Muslim, has heavily campaigned in the city’s Muslim communities and visited more than 50 mosques during his run for mayor.

In September, Mr. Cuomo visited a mosque for the first time during the campaign.

Black voters

Long considered the Democratic Party’s most reliable voting bloc, Black voters overwhelmingly supported Mr. Cuomo during the mayoral primary, helping him win precincts in Southeast Queens and the Bronx.

But they did not carry Mr. Cuomo to victory — a rare instance when the Democratic primary winner was not the choice of Black New Yorkers, potentially changing the calculus of which voting blocs were most critical.

Mr. Cuomo has continued to court his base. On Sunday, he vowed to use the mayoralty to help Black families, noting that hundreds of thousands have already left the city in response to rising costs of living. In an interview with WBLS’s “Open Line,” Mr. Cuomo underscored the need for experienced leadership to respond to such a crisis — a theme that has resonated with many of the city’s older Black voters.

Mr. Mamdani’s campaign has not ceded Black voters to Mr. Cuomo. Mr. Mamdani made an immediate effort to build relationships with Black New Yorkers after the primary, hoping to close a gap in support for him between the city’s older and younger Black voters.

The assemblyman has spent nearly every Sunday visiting Black churches in the city since the June primary and notched some meaningful endorsements from leaders like Representative Yvette Clarke, the Brooklyn-based congresswoman who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, and Letitia James, the state’s first Black attorney general.

Mr. Mamdani has also found an ally in the civil rights leader, the Rev. Al Sharpton. During a visit to the headquarters of the National Action Network, the social justice organization he leads, Mr. Sharpton condemned the Islamophobic attacks that Mr. Mamdani’s opponents have levied in the race’s final weeks, saying he was “outraged” by them. He has not made an endorsement in the election.

South Asian voters

South Asian voters have helped fast-track New York City’s expanding voter coalition: Their turnout increased by roughly 40 percent between the 2021 mayoral primary and the 2025 contest, according to the nonpartisan data firm L2. Thousands of them registered to vote for the first time this year.

On Saturday, Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and one of the party’s most prominent South Asian elected officials, joined Mr. Mamdani for a rally in a South Asian community in Jamaica, Queens. Both men encouraged those in the crowd not to trust the polls showing Mr. Mamdani’s lead and celebrated the prospect of his mayoralty — should he win, Mr. Mamdani, an Indian born in Uganda, would be the city’s first South Asian mayor.

Sharmin Choudhury, 50, said Mr. Mamdani’s promises to reduce the cost of housing and public transit resonated. Similarly, Ms. Choudhury, who is originally from Bangladesh, expressed pride at seeing someone with South Asian roots succeed on such a grand stage.

“We faced a lot of discrimination,” Ms. Choudhury, who attended the Saturday rally featuring Mr. Khanna, said of being a Muslim in New York City.

Mr. Mamdani’s success is her success, Ms. Choudhury added, saying that if he can implement his agenda, her life will improve.

Mr. Cuomo has also aimed to make inroads with the bloc. In October, his campaign launched “South Asians for Cuomo,” an affinity group that it formed to blunt Mr. Mamdani’s momentum. But their effort proved slightly clumsy: Mr. Cuomo struggled to define the group as South Asian or Southeast Asian, prompting a ribbing from Mr. Mamdani’s campaign.

Young voters

Mr. Mamdani’s social media savvy and promises of a four-year rent freeze of stabilized apartments have brought thousands of the city’s youngest residents out to canvass and vote for him. The last weekend of early voting saw a surge in turnout among voters under 35, contributing to a slight increase overall from that age group’s turnout last year — a possible plus for Mr. Mamdani’s campaign. But the transient, unpredictable nature of young voters has kept many observers of the race from drawing sweeping conclusions about whether they will be a deciding factor in the race.

Still, the Mamdani campaign has pointed to the young and first-time voters it added to the city’s electorate, often through its huge canvassing operation and outreach events like a bar crawl through Brooklyn on Halloween weekend. On Sunday, scores of young city residents stopped Mr. Mamdani for selfies and hugs as he cheered on runners in the New York City Marathon.

Among the young voters supporting him at the polls was Julia Friedman, 24, an actress who also works at a restaurant. She said she admired his confidence and related to him.

“It really feels like he is here for the community of New York. It feels like he’s one of us,” she said. Ms. Friedman also said she was heartened by his leadership at a time where she felt disenchanted by the Democratic Party. So far, she said, he represents a shift away from the status quo.

“So many people get stuck in the cogs of the system, and you get used to functioning a certain way,” she said outside of her polling site on the Lower East Side. “He’s not there yet, which is kind of nice.”

Flexible Republicans

Though nearly two-thirds of New York City voters are registered Democrats, the city is still home to a sizable Republican voting base, and its residents voted in larger numbers for President Donald Trump in 2024. Mr. Sliwa and Mr. Cuomo see an opening there.

Mr. Cuomo and his supporters have repeatedly argued that voting for Mr. Sliwa, a long-shot candidate with a colorful background, would only increase Mr. Mamdani’s chances of success on election night. Mr. Cuomo has made entreaties to the city’s Republican and conservative independent voters through campaign events on Staten Island, the city’s most conservative borough, and appearances on conservative media.

Last week a handful of Republicans in New York, including Representatives Mike Lawler and Nick Langworthy, threw their support behind Mr. Cuomo, calling their endorsements an effort to blunt Mr. Mamdani’s momentum.

It is unclear if the strategy will work, especially in a city that still remains largely hostile to Mr. Trump. Still, Mr. Cuomo has tried to make inroads with the city’s conservatives through his campaign message, emphasizing his years as governor and contrasting his résumé with Mr. Mamdani’s thin political experience and membership in the Democratic Socialists of America.

Reporting was contributed by Tim Balk, Molly Longman, Olivia Bensimon, Alex Lemonides and Matthew Haag.

Turnout among younger age groups lagged early in the week, with about 80,000 people under 35 voting from Sunday to Thursday. That number jumped from Friday to Sunday, with over 100,000 voters under the age of 35 casting ballots, including more than 45,000 on Sunday.

More than four times as many early ballots were cast in this year’s closely watched mayor’s race, in which Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, leads his two rivals, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, as in the last mayor’s race, in 2021.

That election, the first mayor’s race in New York City where early voting was an option, saw approximately 170,000 early votes cast. The race was not very competitive, however, with Mayor Eric Adams capturing more than double the votes of his closest competitor, Mr. Sliwa.

The early in-person turnout this year was not quite so high as in last year’s presidential election, which saw over a million people vote early, but the electorate was younger. That’s surprising, because people who vote early generally skew older than registered voters as a whole.

Far more early ballots were also cast in this year’s mayoral race than in the 2022 midterm elections, during which approximately 433,000 people voted early in New York.

In that general election, when Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, faced a challenge from Lee Zeldin, a Republican, most early voters were older than 55. In last year’s presidential election, on the other hand, when turnout was higher, the median age sank down to 51. The median age of early voters this year fell even further to 50.