Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary to Zohran Mamdani as the 33-year old member of the state Assembly had a significant lead in the race Tuesday night.
Cuomo’s concession came as the race’s outcome will be decided by a ranked choice count after neither Democrat got a clear majority in the vote.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist member of the state Assembly, started to pull ahead with more than an estimated 80% of ballots counted.
I mean, yay, but…
That’s just the first round, right? Does he not understand how RCV works? Unless his team already knows who everyone’s second and third choices are, it’s not remotely over yet. What am I missing?
There were a lot of “Don’t rank cuomo” chants and fliers around the city. That’s not data, but I wouldn’t be surprised if few people had him as lower ranked choices.
Cuomo was projected to be ahead after the first round. The election was going to be a question of whether or not Mamdani’s certain gains in subsequent rounds would be enough to catch up. Mamdani being so far ahead after the first round meant Cuomo was done.
He must have had polling or results that showed he wasn’t picked high enough on enough ballots to win
From https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/06/24/mayoral-election-first-round-results-cuomo-mamdani/:
So I’m guessing Cuomo didn’t think round two was going to do him any favors.
A historically massive over performance of the polls and how the candidate (Lander) who is third on the first round is also a progressive
Few polls had Zohran winning. Even the polling that had Zohran winning had him losing the first round vote by a fair amount and only flipping to win in the 7th round. No polling had him winning the 1st round. He’s just won the first round by like 7% of the vote. He’s not far from 50% of the vote outright on round one
We won’t have the official results from the later ranked choice rounds until July 1st, but just ~60% of Lander’s #2 votes alone would push him above 50% even if all candidates below Lander went 100% Cuomo for #2. Lander cross endorsed Zohran and told his supporters to rank Zohran #2
He saw the writing on the wall and decided to make a strategic exit. A definitive defeat now would permanently end his career as a politician, but by conceding he leaves the door open to possible future efforts like a presidential bid.
He’s not going to avoid the definitive defeat, the votes are still going to be counter, he’s just not holding out to the bitter end refusing to recognize reality. That might help make the final tally a less interesting news story.
Based on the results reported that’s already in the bag. There’s no doubt he can’t govern with what his current support looks like.