\u2018Tonight is his night,\u2019 Cuomo said while conceding the race to Mamdani
\n new york
\nZohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state lawmaker and self-described democratic socialist, was poised on Tuesday to win New York City\u2019s Democratic mayoral primary in a surprising upset over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
\nIn brief remarks to supporters, Cuomo, 67, who had been seeking a political comeback four years after resigning amid sexual harassment allegations, said he had called Mamdani to congratulate him.
\n\u201cTonight is his night,\u201d Cuomo said while conceding the race to Mamdani.
\nMamdani, who entered the campaign as a virtual unknown, was ahead of Cuomo 43.5% to 36.4% with nearly 95% of ballot scanners reporting, according to the city\u2019s elections board. Nine other Democratic candidates trailed far behind.
\nThe outcome will not be final until next week, due to New York\u2019s ranked-choice system that allows citizens to pick up to five candidates in order of preference.
\nBut Mamdani\u2019s lead in Tuesday\u2019s preliminary results appeared too large for Cuomo, or any other candidate, to overcome, particularly since the third-place finisher on Tuesday, City Comptroller Brad Lander, encouraged his supporters to list Mamdani second.
\nThe race was seen as an early read on the direction Democrats believe the party should take five months into Republican President Donald Trump\u2019s tumultuous second term.
\nTheir differences were clear: Cuomo, a moderate backed by the establishment who served a decade as governor, or Mamdani, a progressive newcomer who promised a break with the past.
\nMamdani will likely be the favorite in November\u2019s general election in a city where Democrats dominate.
\nThe current mayor, Democrat Eric Adams, will also appear on the November ballot as an independent, but a series of corruption scandals and his perceived ties to Trump have weakened his standing.
\nThe Republican candidate is Curtis Sliwa, a radio host best known as the founder of the Guardian Angels anti-crime patrol who lost to Adams in 2021.
\nFor some voters, Mamdani represented a chance to usher in a new era for the party.
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s time for somebody young, a person of color, something different,\u201d Ignacio Tambunting, a 28-year-old actor, told a Reuters reporter outside a polling station in Manhattan after putting Mamdani atop his ballot.
\nAnother voter, Leah Johanson, said she listed Mamdani first even though she was concerned he was too liberal. But she did not rank Cuomo.
\n\u201cNo. God, no,\u201d said Johanson, 39, who voted on Tuesday in Queens, where Mamdani lives. \u201cI\u2019m not gonna vote for a man who is credibly accused of molesting women.\u201d
\nCuomo has denied the harassment accusations, which he has characterized as ill-conceived attempts to be affectionate or humorous.
\nZohran Mamdani
\nBorn in Uganda to a family of Indian descent, Mamdani, who would be the city\u2019s first Muslim mayor, has a history of pro-Palestinian activism.
\nHe was elected to a state assembly seat in New York\u2019s Queens borough and has garnered the support of US Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, two prominent progressives.
\nCuomo accused Mamdani of lacking the experience required, while Mamdani attacked Cuomo over the harassment allegations.
\nCuomo, who emerged as a vocal critic of Trump during his first term as president, won the endorsements of former President Bill Clinton and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
\nIn ranked voting, the last-place candidate is eliminated after each round, and their votes are redistributed to the second choice marked on the ballots of their supporters. The process is repeated until one candidate achieves 50% of the total.
\nMamdani seems likely to expand his lead when the additional counts are conducted, after he and Lander endorsed one another and urged their supporters to rank the other as second choice.
\nLander, who was the first choice on 11.6% of ballots counted on Tuesday, made national headlines last week when he was briefly detained while escorting a defendant out of an immigration court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2018Tonight is his night,\u2019 Cuomo said while conceding the race to Mamdani new york Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state lawmaker and self-described democratic socialist, was poised on Tuesday to win New York City\u2019s Democratic mayoral primary in a surprising upset over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. In brief remarks to supporters, Cuomo, 67, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-486566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n