NYC mayoral candidates Mamdani and Cuomo cast their ballots on Election Day

NEW YORK – Leading New York City mayoral candidates, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, cast their ballots on Election Day, with the future of New York City and the Democratic Party hanging in the balance.

While Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa voted early, Mamdani and Cuomo flocked to their local polling places Tuesday morning. Polls close at 9 p.m. in New York.

“Now is the time to enter a new era for our politics,” Mamdani told reporters after voting alongside his wife Rama Duwaji at the Frank Sinatra School of Arts in Queens.

After voting with his daughters in Manhattan, Cuomo told reporters that a “civil war” was brewing within the Democratic Party, where “radical far lefts led by socialists,” like Mamdani, are challenging “moderate Democrats,” like himself.

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Mayoral candidates Rep. Zohran Mamdani and former Governor Andrew Cuomo cast their ballots on Election Day, November 4, 2025, in New York. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

“I think if the far-left socialists won, in the long run, it would be very detrimental to the future of the Democratic Party,” Cuomo said. “This country is not a socialist country. This city is not a socialist city. The state is not a socialist state. Socialism has never worked anywhere in the world. Not Venezuela, not Cuba. It will not work in New York.”

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But when Mamdani was asked at his own press briefing Tuesday morning what his success in New York would mean for the future of the Democratic Party, he replied, “My ambitions are clearly in those five boroughs.”

In his closing remarks, Mamdani said his campaign ends where it began, as a campaign “that seeks to transform the most expensive city in the United States of America into one that is affordable for every person who lives there.”

Democratic candidate for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani holds hands with his wife Rama Duwaji after voting at a polling station at the Frank Sinatra School of Arts in the Queens borough of New York on November 4, 2025. (Leonard Munzo/AFP via Getty Images)

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said state authorities briefly closed several polling places in the neighboring Garden State due to “threats received by email” on Tuesday.

Mamdani called it “incredibly concerning.”

“I think this is an illustration of the attacks we are seeing on our democracy,” Mamdani said. “Sometimes these bomb threats are blatant and explicit…”

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The Democratic candidate said one of his supporters was harassed at a polling station after voting for him.

“We need to understand this as part of the overall approach the Trump administration has taken to try to intimidate voters with baseless claims of voter fraud in an attempt to suppress the voices of Americans across this country,” Mamdani asserted.

“When we think about how best to fight Donald Trump, one way to do that is to understand Andrew Cuomo for what he is: the candidate supported by Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Stephen Miller,” Mamdani said.

Andrew Cuomo, ballot in hand, goes to a voting booth in New York, Tuesday, November 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trump urged New Yorkers to vote for Cuomo in a Truth Social article Monday evening.

“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You have to vote for him and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!” » Trump said.

In response, Cuomo told reporters Tuesday that Trump was “just being pragmatic,” while reiterating his belief that a “vote for Sliwa is a vote for Mamdani.”

“My record with President Trump is 100 percent clear,” Cuomo said. “I was governor. He was president. No one fought for New York against President Trump more forcefully than me. We’ve had battle royals. There are a lot of them. And if there’s anyone who can protect New York against President Trump, it’s me. If Zohran Mamdani were mayor, Trump would go through him like a hot knife through butter. He would just go through him.”

Zohran Mamdani votes at a voting site on Tuesday, November 4, 2025 in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova)

While Trump threatened to cut federal funding to New York City if Mamdani was elected, the democratic socialist vowed to fight back against Trump.

“President Trump also encouraged all New Yorkers to vote for Andrew Cuomo,” Mamdani said Tuesday. “There are many things he will say and do that will not actually be reflected in the results in our own city. I will treat his threats as they deserve to be treated, which are the words of a president, and not necessarily the law of the land.”

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Mamdani said it’s time the city had a “mayor who stands up for New Yorkers every day, not a mayor willing to sacrifice those New Yorkers so they can stand up for themselves.”

“I will not be intimidated by this president,” Mamdani said.