Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani has widened his lead in the New York City mayoral race a week before Election Day, but many voters remain skeptical of his progressive policies, according to a Manhattan Institute poll released Tuesday.
The survey of 600 likely voters, conducted Oct. 22-26, found Mamdani with a 15-point advantage, 43%-28%, over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, an independent candidate he walloped in the Democratic primary.
Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa registered 19%, and 8% were undecided. The poll had a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.
The poll noted a “striking dissonance between Mamdani’s electoral strength and support for his progressive policy agenda.” A majority of respondents favored repealing New York’s 2019 bail-reform law, tougher enforcement against subway fare evasion, and rejected his plan to eliminate bus fares.
A majority (55%) supported scrapping the bail-reform law and returning to the pre-2019 system. The current statute allows defendants to remain free pending trial for most nonviolent crimes.
Mamdani supports the existing law and opposes reinstating cash bail, arguing that community-based alternatives work better than punitive measures.
Asked which statement came closer to their view, 60% said that letting fare evasion go unchecked invites more crime and freeloading; 30% considered it mostly harmless and not worth aggressive policing. Although Mamdani has not publicly opposed enforcing fare evasion, his broader transit policy would remove fares altogether.
That leads to his proposal for free buses: 58% opposed eliminating fares, saying it would worsen service and turn buses into mobile shelters while straining an already unreliable system. Just 33% favored the idea, citing affordability and reduced conflicts between riders and operators.
The poll revealed that should Sliwa drop out of the race — many have encouraged him to do so — the race would narrow to within the margin of error. In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, Mamdani still leads Cuomo, but by a 44%-40% margin. If it was Mamdani-Sliwa, Mamdani leads 47%-33%.
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