Mamdani leads Cuomo and Sliwa in polls

The New York City mayoral election is too early to call after polls closed at 9 p.m. ET, with turnout reaching peaks not seen in nearly six decades, NBC News reports.

In the closely watched race, Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani will face former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, founder of Guardian Angels.

President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed Cuomo, a lifelong Democrat, calling him the best alternative to Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist.

The winner will replace Eric Adams, New York’s scandal-plagued mayor, who withdrew from the contest in late September.

The city’s Board of Elections said more than 2 million votes were cast in the contest, the first time that number has been reached since 1969.

Mamdani, a state Assemblywoman now in her third term, defeated the 67-year-old Cuomo in a surprising upset in the Democratic primary in June.

General election polls consistently show Mamdani leading the race.

Mamdani, a Ugandan native who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018, called for freezing rents for rent-stabilized apartments in the city, creating free public buses and municipally owned grocery stores.

His platform and political worldview sparked a backlash from billionaires and other business interests in the city; Anti-Mamdani political action committees have raised more than $40 million to oppose her nomination and support Cuomo.

Cuomo, who was previously the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and New York state attorney general, resigned as governor in August 2021 after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.

Cuomo, whose father Mario Cuomo served three terms as the state’s governor, has denied any wrongdoing.

Campaign platform calls for increasing the size of the city’s police force, assigning more officers to the city’s subways, building more affordable housing, and reducing the number of classrooms in schools.

Sliwa, 71, a former radio host, has focused heavily on public safety issues in his second campaign for mayor and called for the hiring of 7,000 additional police officers.

Adams was also running as an independent after skipping the Democratic primary.

Adams’ public approval ratings had fallen following his indictment on federal corruption charges in 2024; those charges were later dismissed by a judge at the behest of the Justice Department after Trump returned to the White House.

Last month, Adams supported Cuomo, whom she recently called a “snake and a liar.”

Since Adams’ withdrawal, Sliwa has faced a situation that has become even more violent. Pressure for Cuomo to drop out of the race to improve his chances against Mamdani.

Among those calling for Sliwa’s withdrawal was fellow Republican Trump, who repeatedly and incorrectly claimed that Mamdani was a “communist.”

This is developing news. Please check back for updates.