I have always prided myself on being able to read the public temperature in terms of how polling reads. Well, I have to admit, I got this one wrong, and it could cost us a major city.
It would appear that I jumped the gun a bit in saying that Mamdani was losing traction, as that last poll appears to have been an outlier.
Just a few weeks ago, HarrisX released a poll that showed Mamdani taking a major hit.
Prior to that poll, he was up over 50% in most polls, but the Harris poll had him tied or close to being tied with Cuomo in most voting scenarios.
The only scenarios where he was dominating were when Cuomo was out of the picture.
I usually don’t get so confident after just one poll, but I allowed the negative reports coming out against Mamdani to overly influence me in my analysis of where he stood in that race.
This week, there was a horrific attack that took place in New York City, as a man who was disgruntled with the NFL walked into a building, armed, and opened fire.
He was reportedly looking for the NFL offices but instead wound up on the floor of Blackstone’s offices, killing four people, including a police officer, and wounding another.
This happened just as reports of Mamdani’s previous statements about defunding the NYPD were blowing up all over the place.
For instance, he had stated, "As Mayor, I will disband the SRG, which has cost taxpayers millions in lawsuit settlements + brutalized countless New Yorkers exercising their first amendment rights." SRG is the unit that responded to the shooting in NYC. I am sure Mamdanis was getting ready to scramble to cover this up and spin it, but it turns out, it is actually helping him, not hurting him.
New polls were released this week, and I was fully expecting Cuomo to be in the lead in a three-way and head-to-head election, but that was not the case.
The Zenith Research/Public Progress Solutions poll has Mamdani back over 50% in just about every scenario.
The best chance to defeat him would be a head’s up match against Cuomo, but even in that scenario, Cuomo still loses 40-55%.
Since Republican Curtis Sliwa has already stated he will not leave the race, it looks like Mamdani could have a walkover election. I won’t go that far just yet, as I have learned my lesson, but unless we see a consistent big move, a major US city is about to get turned over to a socialist, possibly showing a major change in politics in blue states over the next decade.