New Yorkers head to polls early in divisive Democratic primary election

Emma Seiwell, Rebecca White and Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News on Jun 14, 2025

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NEW YORK — Early voting began in the city on Saturday with a small but stalwart contingent of Democrats slogging through rain-swept streets to select a mayoral candidate in one of the most contentious primary elections in recent memory.

Voters trickled into polling places across the Big Apple. In both Brooklyn and Manhattan, many had their eyes on supporting Zohran Mamdani and City Comptroller Brad Lander, the leading progressive candidates in a field of 11, in their bid for the Democratic nomination.

Mamdani and Lander cross-endorsed each other Friday, asking their respective supporters to rank the other candidate second on their ballots.

Very few early voters who spoke to The New York Daily News on Saturday endorsed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. At a Greenpoint, Brooklyn, polling location, one voter wore a shirt reading, “Don’t Rank Cuomo.”

Cuomo and Mamdani are the front-runners in the race, according to recent polls. The two men got into several heated spats over age, experience and personal integrity during this week’s second and final candidates’ debate on Thursday.

“I didn’t love the crop this year,” Brooklyn attorney Matthew Palluch told the Daily News as he stepped out a voting location on Lorimer St. in Greenpoint. “I did rank Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani. I don’t love them either but I think they’re more future-looking than past-looking and we have to be a bit more future-looking right now.”

Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who lost against Mayor Eric Adams four years ago, is the presumptive Republican nominee for mayor.

“I love early voting,” Palluch, 39, said. “It makes it so much easier.”

“It’s more about making voting available for everyone,” he said of casting ballots early. “I don’t love the system of Election Day being on a work day for most people.”

At the Forum at Columbia University, on W. 125th St., a City University of New York adviser who would only identify herself as Rhonda said Mamdani was her top choice.

“I went to a tenant PAC rally and (Mamdani) promised to freeze the rent and I need my rent to be frozen,” she said. “Every time I renew my (lease, my) rent goes up. Right now I’m on a two-year lease, which is going to expire next April.”

Rhonda didn’t think Cuomo, who left the governor’s office in disgrace amid allegations of sexual harassment, would make a good mayor.

“I don’t need any more people with baggage attached to them as my mayor,” she said. “He can go retire and do something else.”

Candidates for mayor, as well as city comptroller, City Council, public advocate, borough president and district attorney, held rallies Saturday to promote early voting, which will continue through June 22. Primary election day is Tuesday, June 24.

Palluch was happy he didn’t have to consider Mayor Adams for the Democratic primary. Adams opted to run for reelection as an independent candidate following the widely publicized scandals that rocked his administration, which culminated in a federal corruption indictment against him that was later dismissed.

“The stench of moral rot that has emanated from this administration is an embarrassment,” Palluch said.

Holly Dowell, sporting the “Don’t Rank Cuomo” T-shirt outside the Greenpoint voting spot, was excited to rank the other candidates Saturday morning.

“I feel like it gives more people a shot and allows more variety in the field,” Dowell, 33, said. “It’s cool to see a bunch of the candidates building a coalition and working together instead of all fighting each other.”

Over at Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn, Kirstie Johnson was raring to vote early. She and her partner are going on a trip and wouldn’t be able to vote on primary day.

Johnson planned to put Lander pretty high on her list.

“Brad’s my No. 1 because he has a plan,” she said. “Zohran is No. 2 because that’s what Brad said to do. We lived in Park Slope a long time. (Lander is) kind of the guy you see at the bar.”

More than 1 million New York City residents voted early in last year’s presidential election — a new record, city officials said at the time.

By comparison, about 1.1 people million in total — or roughly 21% of all registered voters in the city — cast ballots in the 2021 mayoral election that Adams won. The 2021 turnout was the lowest total in modern city history.