New York City Jewish voters have consolidated behind mayoral candidate and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, according to a Wednesday Quinnipiac University poll ahead of the Tuesday election.
Sixty percent of Jewish respondents said that if the election were held during the survey period between October 23 and 27, they would vote for Cuomo, while 16% said that they would vote for NY Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa yielded 12% of the vote from survey participants, and eight percent said that they were undecided. The poll also showed a shift in the Jewish vote behind Cuomo after Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race in September.
A July New York Solidarity Network Poll, September American Association of Retired Persons Poll, and September Marist Poll suggested Cuomo had the backing of 21%, 38%, and 35% of Jewish voters, respectively.
Mamdani scored 37%, 22%, and 35% in the same polls.
Yet the favorability for Cuomo in the Quinnipiac poll indicated that the consolidation behind the former governor was not out of love for the man.
Fifty percent of survey respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Cuomo, and 39% had a favorable opinion of the candidate. Mamdani was more unpopular, with a 75% unfavorable rating to 15%.
Opinions were more balanced on Sliwa, with 31% favorable and 37% unfavorable, but 29% of Jewish respondents said that they haven’t heard enough about the Republican candidate to form an opinion.
The issue that most informed NYC Jewry when voting for mayor, according to Quinnipiac, was crime, with 48% ranking it as their most important issue. This was followed by 16% for affordable housing, eight percent for schools, seven percent for health care, and four percent for inflation.
Mamdani led the general polls
Quinnipiac indicated that Mamdani led the general polls with 43% support among likely voters, while Cuomo and Sliwa received 33% and 14%, respectively.
The previous Quinnipiac October 9 poll showed Mamdani leading by three more percentage points, Cuomo with the same level of support, and Sliwa with 15%. The number of respondents who were undecided rose from three to six percent from the last poll.
The survey of 911 likely voters had a four percent margin of sampling error.