With just over a week to go before New Yorkers head to the polls, Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani still leads the crowded mayoral field — but former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is tightening the gap in a volatile, high-stakes race that has scrambled city politics.

A new Quinnipiac University poll released Monday shows Mamdani, 34, holding 44 percent support among likely voters, down from his 20-point edge in September. Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June, has surged to 34 percent.

Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, making his second consecutive mayoral bid, trails with 11 percent, while the remaining four candidates combine for just 2 percent. Seven percent remain undecided. The poll of 1,105 likely voters was conducted Thursday through Sunday — entirely after outgoing Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race and threw his support behind Cuomo in a last-minute bid to block Mamdani.

Cuomo’s late rise is fueled largely by Hispanic voters and independents, according to Suffolk University pollster David Paleologos, who said the former governor “is clawing his way back into relevance.”

Since resigning in 2021 amid harassment allegations and investigations into his pandemic-era nursing home policies, Cuomo has sought to reinvent himself as a centrist foil to what he calls the “extremes” of his old party. His message has hardened in recent weeks, warning that “mayhem” would follow a Mamdani victory.

Cuomo has also leaned into attacks on Mamdani’s foreign policy views — and, increasingly, his Muslim faith, accusing the Queens assemblyman of “offending Jewish New Yorkers” and embracing “antisemitic rhetoric” by condemning Israel’s military actions in Gaza as “genocide.”

Mamdani, firing back, accused Cuomo of race-baiting. “We’re speaking about a former governor who, in his final moments in public life, is engaging in rhetoric that is not only Islamophobic, not only racist — it’s also disgusting,” Mamdani told reporters.

Sliwa, the Guardian Angels co-founder and conservative radio host, remains a spoiler in the race — and a growing headache for Cuomo’s campaign. Several prominent GOP figures, including billionaire supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis and allies of President Donald Trump, have pressured Sliwa to drop out and consolidate anti-Mamdani votes behind Cuomo.

So far, Sliwa isn’t budging. But the numbers underscore his leverage: when his supporters were asked for a second choice, 36 percent picked Cuomo, compared with just 2 percent for Mamdani.

“There is only one person in New York City whose voters will determine the outcome,” said Paleologos. “And that person isn’t Eric Adams, Hakeem Jeffries, or Chuck Schumer. It’s Curtis Sliwa.”

Mamdani’s meteoric ascent — from Queens activist to front-runner for City Hall — has upended decades of establishment control in New York politics. The Ugandan-born lawmaker, the son of acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, would become the first Muslim and first Millennial mayor in city history if elected.

His progressive platform — fare-free buses, tuition-free CUNY, rent freezes, free childcare, and city-run grocery stores — has electrified younger voters and working-class New Yorkers frustrated by affordability and housing crises.

Mamdani’s campaign has drawn national firepower, backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the Democratic Socialists of America. His social-media-driven outreach, especially on TikTok, has mobilized low-turnout voters and reshaped the city’s political map.

But his outspoken criticism of Israel and past clashes with the NYPD — including proposals to reassign some policing responsibilities to social services — have made him a lightning rod in a city still defined by its complex ethnic and political coalitions.

With just days left before Election Day, Mamdani’s campaign is betting on its grassroots network and progressive enthusiasm to withstand the late Cuomo surge. Cuomo, buoyed by newfound momentum and crossover support, is working to reassemble his old statewide coalition in miniature.

“This isn’t over,” a senior Cuomo aide said Monday. “The same people who counted him out before are counting him out again.”

For New York City, the stakes are enormous: a generational clash between the old machine and the new movement — and a test of whether America’s largest city is ready to elect a socialist to City Hall.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)