Tag Archives: NYC Mayoral Primary 2025

“Nearly a quarter of NYC’s early voters were new Democratic primary participants”

June 24, 2025, 5:50 amprimariesNYC Mayoral Primary 2025Tabatha Abu El-Haj

The Gothamist offers fascinating data on early primary turnout this year. It is not just that early turnout is up; it is radically up. Moreover, the uptick is among voters who, while they may have voted before in general elections, have never voted in a Democratic primary before.

“A total of 385,184 New Yorkers voted early in this primary election, compared to 191,197 in 2021.”

“Nearly 25% of early voters had not voted in a Democratic primary at any point between 2012 and 2024, according to an analysis of voter history by John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center. . . .

. . . [In] the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, . . . 3% of early voters had never voted in a Democratic primary.”

We will obviously have to see if turnout today is high, and no doubt it will still be very low compared to the general (let alone a presidential general), but this is, in my view, a good sign for the state of democracy in New York City as the Democratic primary is often the decisive election.

Gothimist won’t let me copy their graphs, but it has lots of interesting data on where turnout is up and whose turnout is up (25-34 year olds), though the group still comes up short compared to voters over 65.

Election of the Week: NYC Mayoral Primary

June 22, 2025, 6:25 amprimariesNYC Mayoral Primary 2025, rank-choice votingTabatha Abu El-Haj

There are lots of reasons to watch the NYC Democratic primary this week. It will be another opportunity to see whether rank-choice voting moderates who emerges out of a party’s primary. It is also just amusing to see the consternation that the primary seems to be eliciting among Democratic Party elites:

“Centrist Democrats are sounding the alarm that a surging democratic socialist mayoral candidate in New York City’s Tuesday primary could further set back the party’s already beleaguered national brand.”

This no doubt explains why James E. Clyburn and Bill Clinton have endorsed Cuomo, and why Bloomberg is throwing a lot of money into the race. Interestingly, as far as I am aware, Hillary Clinton has not endorsed Cuomo. Is that a sign?

Most importantly, if Cuomo wins, as is expected, it won’t necessarily be because of Bloomberg’s money. Cuomo does have significant union support that has also been driving his ground game.

“Bloomberg pours more cash into Cuomo super PAC, bringing his total contribution to $8.3M”

June 20, 2025, 5:34 amcampaign financeNYC Mayoral Primary 2025, Super PacsTabatha Abu El-Haj

Politico

“With the latest gift, Bloomberg is now single-handedly responsible for one-third of the PAC’s total haul of $24 million since it launched in March, according to a POLITICO analysis. Other real estate and finance executives who make up New York’s monied elite, including billionaire Donald Trump supporter Bill Ackman, have poured cash into the group.

Despite polling, Cuomo supporters are nervous about early turnout and heat wave:

“[A] Marist College survey on Wednesday found Cuomo would defeat Mamdani after seven rounds of ranked-choice voting, 55 percent to 45 percent. But early voting is high in some neighborhoods that would appear to benefit Mamdani, and temperatures are expected to hit 100 degrees next Tuesday, which could suppress turnout among older New Yorkers Cuomo is counting on.”