Could A Republican Actually Win New York City Mayor Race?

On "Forbes Newsroom," Emerson Senior Pollster Matt Taglia discussed the state of the NYC mayoral race and whether a Republican could actually win.

Transcript

00:00But New York City, as I said, blue city, but it did move more red during the 2024 election.

00:07Republican support grew in this city. Read the tea leaves for me a bit there. Do you think that

00:11means anything for this race, especially when you're looking at Cuomo and Momdani? Cuomo's

00:17more moderate, Momdani's way more progressive. Yeah, and in the Democratic primary, I think that

00:25it is going to come down to this question of whether New York City Democrats are willing to

00:32back a progressive candidate. That remains to be seen, but there is definitely a swell of support

00:39for that progressive candidate. And, you know, if we look at all of the progressives on the ballot

00:46generally, then we do see that there's a sizable number who do back one of those candidates.

00:51If we look a little bit further towards the general election, you know, I don't think that

00:56there's any danger here that a Republican or independent candidate is going to be elected

01:00as mayor. We tested both Cuomo and Momdani on the ballot. They would both win. That's with Eric Adams

01:09as well, running as an independent. Cuomo does a little bit better. He gets 44 percent. Momdani gets

01:1535 percent. Some of that support that dissipates from Cuomo doesn't go towards Mondani or undecided.

01:24Instead, it goes towards some of these other candidates. But nevertheless, I don't see any

01:29real danger that a Republican is going to win the general election.

01:34To that point, the last time New York City saw a Republican mayor was Mayor Rudy Giuliani,

01:39and that was over two decades ago. So essentially, based on the numbers that you're seeing right

01:43now, whatever Democrat wins the primary in June, it's pretty safe to say they will be the city's

01:49next mayor.

01:52I think that's definitely fair to say. You know, we we don't see any groundswell of support for

01:59Republicans on the ballot here. When we test the general election, we see that Curtis Lewa

02:06is at 13 percent when Cuomo is on the ballot. He's at 16 percent with Momdani on the ballot.

02:13Those are not high numbers. None of the independent candidates garner significant support. Adams included

02:21here, you know, 15 percent at most. So, yeah, I don't see any real risk here that a Republican or

02:29even independent candidate is going to make a difference on the general election ballot for mayor.