Yet another poll of the 2025 NYC mayoral race shows former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who has yet to enter the contest — handily beating all declared candidates for the Democratic nomination, including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams.
Not only is Adams polling in single digits on the first ballot, but the Honan Strategy Group poll released Monday also found Hizzoner more unpopular with those surveyed than President Donald Trump.
Cuomo, the Queens native who resigned as governor in 2021 amid a sexual harassment scandal over accusations which he had always denied, has been rumored for some time to be considering a campaign for mayor but has not yet officially declared.
Nevertheless, the Honan Strategy Group poll of 769 likely New York City Democratic primary voters, taken Jan. 23-26, showed Cuomo with a 25-point lead over all other Democrats currently seeking the office.
The former governor had the support of more than a third of those surveyed (35%), far ahead of current City Comptroller Brad Lander at 10%. He was followed by Mayor Adams and socialist Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, both of whom had 9% of voters’ support. One in five voters (20%) said they did not know who to vote for.
The Democratic mayoral primary is a ranked-choice contest in which voters pick their top five choices for mayor. Simulating such a vote, the Honan group poll found that Cuomo would win on the sixth ballot of voting with 58%; Mayor Adams, on the other hand, would be eliminated after the fifth round.
Still ‘premature’
Despite the strong poll numbers, the Cuomo camp did not indicate on Monday whether the former governor would officially join the race.
Rich Azzopardi, founder and principal of Bulldog Strategies and a long-time Cuomo aide and associate, said on Feb. 3 that talk of a Cuomo mayoral bid remains “premature” but that the poll numbers reflected the strength of the governor’s previous accomplishments.
“It all remains premature, but Andrew Cuomo will always be a Queens boy who loves New York and will always help any way he can to have it succeed,” Azzopardi told amNewYork Metro in an email. “New Yorkers know he worked day and night for them, raising wages for millions of workers, actually building infrastructure projects that politicians merely talked about such as the Second Ave. subway, the Moynihan Train Hall and the new Kosciuszko Bridge and delivering progress where Washington faltered, including passing the strongest gun violence prevention and paid family leave measures in the nation, and codifying Roe vs. Wade in state law before the Supreme Court overturned it, all while cutting taxes and reining in spending.”
Even so, the clock is ticking for the former governor to jump into the Democratic mayoral primary, which will take place on June 24. Petitioning for the contest and other races on the ballot takes place in March.
Strong polling on key issues
Cuomo has polled strongly before in surveys conducted in recent weeks. A December poll commissioned by Progressives for Democracy in America had the former governor with a 22-point lead over the declared field.
At around the same time that survey was published, an internal poll from former City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s mayoral campaign also found that Cuomo would have a 20-point lead on the field if the ex-governor enters the contest. (That poll suggested Stringer would narrowly win the primary if Cuomo chooses not to run.)
Indeed, the Honan Strategy Poll found that voters have more confidence in Cuomo than other candidates in the Democratic primary field on a number of issues affecting the Big Apple. More than a third of voters said they trusted Cuomo more than the rest on fighting crime, making New York City safer, taking on the Trump administration, ending the migrant crisis, creating jobs and growing the economy, improving the overall quality of life, and fixing the MTA.
Crime, quality of life, and affordability were the three issues that the survey respondents said were most important to them.
Name recognition also helped Cuomo in the poll, which found that 50% of those surveyed had a favorable view of Cuomo; only Stringer (53%) had a higher favorability rating.
Too close to Trump?
On the opposite spectrum, however, is Mayor Adams — whose term has been beset with scandal and a federal criminal indictment that the Trump Justice Department may drop.
The Honan poll found that 83% of those surveyed had an unfavorable view of the incumbent mayor; by contrast, 81% had an unfavorable view of President Trump. Nearly two-thirds of voters (64%) said they believed the moderate Adams is too closely tied to the right-wing president.
In recent months, Adams has taken a more measured and cooperative tone with the new president amid rumors that he might seek a pardon from the federal indictment — an accusation that Adams has repeatedly and strongly denied. The mayor previously met with Trump in Palm Beach ahead of the president’s Jan. 20 inauguration at the Capitol, which Adams also attended — foregoing a slate of local Martin Luther King Jr. Day events in the process.
Adams’ poor favorability ratings seem to reflect another general view in the poll, which found that 75% of those surveyed believe the city is heading in the wrong direction. Honan Strategy described the mood of voters as “largely negative,” with 80% saying they were worried about crime; 70% saying they were fearful about the future; 66% rating the city government poorly; and 45% saying they may be forced to move out of New York City if things get worse.
amNewYork Metro reached out to Adams’ campaign for comment about the poll and is awaiting a response.
The mayor has previously dismissed other polls that showed Cuomo ahead, going so far as to compare the situation to early in the 2021 contest, in which entrepreneur Andrew Yang had a commanding lead in a race Adams would eventually win.
Honan Strategy Group conducted the survey using a text-to-web methodology. Participants were sent a text message with a link to the survey, to which they responded. The overall margin of error is +/—3.53%.
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