New York Mayor Democratic Primary Update

Well, things are getting interesting.

Most of the polls up until now have shown Andrew Cuomo with a clear lead but today Emerson dropped a poll with Cuomo narrowly leading Mamdani on a first pass but after all the rounds of ranked choice voting had Mamdani ahead of Cuomo by 4. When this poll came out Cuomo's price took a plunge from mid 60s to mid 30. Later in the day a poll from HarrisX / Fix The City came out with Cuomo winning comfortable. Many are skeptical of the poll because of its crosstabs. Nonetheless, Cuomo rebounded and now both candidates are close to 50c each with the election day being tomorrow.

This has been a difficult race to read. Mamdani's momentum seems to be everywhere now, almost to an absurdly astroturfed extent. At the same time, his momentum seems to be primarily among affluent whites who are very vocal online whereas Cuomo hasn't really had a ground game but has been blitzing the TV networks. Cuomo is also polling better with most minorities and has widespread name recognition even with people who don't really follow politics closely.

Cuomo and Mamdani have both been divisive figures, Cuomo because of the controversial circumstances under which he resigned as governor and Mamdani because of being a literal Islamic socialist. The system appears to have coalesced around Cuomo despite having ousted him several years before while Mamdani threatens to be the first attack dog to break loose from his leash in several decades from the Democrats. They appear to be very anxious about having a 33-year old promising free shit to everyone running one of the primary cities in America. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to run a DNC special to keep him out.

I have desrisked some of my positions on Cuomo to reflect the higher degree of uncertainty. When I go by naive metrics, it seems like its Mamdani's to lose. When I go by the sanity check, it points to Cuomo seeing out the stretch. Surely New York is not, after trending rightwards for several election cycles, go straight back to failed 2010s politics? Surely the most Jewish city in the US isn't going to nominate someone who advocates for a global intifada? Stranger things have happened.

Let me know what you think. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on closing line value for this election, especially @RobertBarnes . I have the feeling we are going to learn a lot about the state of play ahead of the midterms in a couple of days.