Campaigns & Elections
Live blog: NYC primary day
It's the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can follow along with our copious election updates.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo casts his ballot on primary election day. Annie McDonough
The culmination of an extraordinary primary campaign cycle is here. Follow along with us as we track candidates to the polls, go to their watch parties and process election results. We’ve fanned out across New York City – and we’ve even got dispatches from notable mayoral contests upstate.
6:30 p.m. – Lander closes out primary day on his home turf
Brad Lander’s last stop of the day: the F train station in Park Slope, where he shook a few more voters’ hands, posed for photos and spoke with reporters. “We are offering a hopeful spirit of collaboration and think we are a team New York City can believe in,” Lander said about the cross-endorsement with Zohran Mamdani and their joint appearances. “I feel it, enormous energy out there today, and I'm excited to see how the results come in tonight.”
When asked if that meant a Mamdani victory would feel like a Lander victory, he didn’t hesitate to say yes. “I really think preventing Andrew Cuomo from being the next mayor of New York City would be a gift to New Yorkers,” Lander said. “Helping prevent it is something I would feel proud of.”
On his feelings around the phrase “globalize the intifada” versus Mamdani’s interpretation, Lander responded, “What I have said is, ‘Here's how I hear that phrase, right?’ And therefore, you know, I can say, ‘I hear it that way, I'd rather you not use it.’” He charged Cuomo with weaponizing antisemitism. – Steve Kastenbaum
6 p.m. – More voting totals
The New York City Board of elections recorded almost 831,000 votes in its latest update. Without including early voting numbers, about 447,000 New Yorkers headed to the polls on election day proper in the record heat. Including scanned absentee and mail-in ballots, about 876,000 ballots have been cast in the primary so far. About 1 million people voted in the June 2021 primary election. – Rebecca C. Lewis
— NYC Board of Elections (@BOENYC) June 24, 2025
4:30 p.m. - Scanlon highlights Ryan’s opposition to Buffalo budget asks
Acting Buffalo Mayor Chris Scanlon and Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes hit back against criticisms of the current mayoral administration. Scanlon pointed to this year’s budget requests by the city for an increased bed tax and parking structure sales to help refill Buffalo’s coffers – which he said his chief rival, state Sen. Sean Ryan, opposed.
“When he should be lobbying on behalf of the city of Buffalo he did the exact opposite,” Scanlon said.
Peoples-Stokes has been part of Buffalo’s state delegation alongside Ryan for years, and she took a dim view of his ability to advocate for the city. “People show you who they are and it’s a lot different than when they start telling you things,” she said. – Austin C. Jefferson
4:30 p.m. – Voters try to beat the record heat
Harlem voter Doug Vitarelli cast a mayoral ballot that included both Mamdani and Cuomo lower down.
— Annie McDonough (@Annie_McDonough) June 24, 2025
“I hope he brings a new energy, I like his progressive stance,” he says of Mamdani.
And, “I know Cuomo’s had some personal problems but he gets shit done.” pic.twitter.com/ciWr0qPIna
It’s an unpleasant day to be outside, but 100-degree temps didn’t stop voters from trickling into a couple poll sites off Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem.
Earlier in the day, mayoral candidates urged voters to get out despite the heat: "It is a little bit hot. Frankly not as hot as I think they predicted," said Andrew Cuomo. "You'll be inside voting anyway!" City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said a few hours later. Early voting analyses showed that Cuomo’s outer-borough strongholds did not show up in the same numbers as the brownstone Brooklyn and lower Manhattan areas that are more likely to support Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander. Cuomo’s voters needed to show up in strong numbers on election day to help him make up for that.
A poll site supervisor at the MLK Jr. Towers Community Center in Harlem said that a window AC unit and a couple fans were keeping poll workers relatively comfortable as voters slowly floated in through the late afternoon. One item lacking was water bottles: a couple cases dropped off by the New York City Board of Elections were missing this morning, and they were still waiting on a new delivery.
When Board of Election employees arrived at P.S. 249 on Caton Avenue in Brooklyn at 5 a.m., they walked into a gymnasium that one poll worker said felt like an oven. There found no pre-positioned bottled water, no fans. “It was so muggy, it felt like a boiler room,” said poll worker Shuchi Vyas.
Opening all the doors and windows didn’t bring relief. It got worse as the day wore on. Vyas said a BOE employee came by at midday and dropped off just one fan for the entire gymnasium. “We’re having headaches and issues working through things. I’m having trouble with address look-ups,” Vyas said.
A local homeowner later loaned them four small electric fans. It wasn’t until a little after 4 PM that another BOE worker delivered a few more large fans. At that point, the temperature outside the polling station had reached 100 degrees.
– Annie McDonough and Steve Kastenbaum
4 p.m. – Council District 2 candidates hit the trail
Candidates for the competitive lower Manhattan City Council District 2 race said they’ve seen a high level of energy and turnout today and throughout early voting. “People are expressing their vision of the future of New York,” Assembly Member Harvey Epstein said, taking a brief break from the sun under a tree by the Bard High School Early College poll site. “They’re doing it with their vote and their energy and they’re doing it because they care deeply about the city they live in.”
With so many new primary voters heading to the polls - likely spurred in large part by the mayoral race - it’s been a good opportunity for first time candidates Sarah Batchu and Andrea Gordillo to get their names out there.
As the heat crawls to 100 degrees, things are slowing down a bit this Baruch College poll site in Gramercy. @sarahbatchu, a canidate in the lower Manhattan CD-2 race, said it’s been a busy morning. Many of the people she’s talked to today have been first-time primary voters. pic.twitter.com/8EzaffnlzA
— Sahalie Donaldson (@SahalieD) June 24, 2025
“I think the mayoral race will make a huge difference for myself and Andrea as younger candidates who are more progressive,” Batchu said while campaigning outside of Baruch College in Gramercy. “It’s been interesting to have those conversations with folks who were not expecting to weigh in on something other than that.” Of the roughly 12,000 people who cast their ballot in the Council District 2 race during early voting, 13% were between the ages of 18 to 25 and 28% were 26 to 35 – both a big increase from the last primary, according to data from the Batchu campaign and political consultant Eugene Noh.
Taking a quick respite from the heat with her mother and cousin at a Thai restaurant in the East Village, Gordillo said it’s been rewarding to see so many months of hard campaigning pay off. “A lot of people don’t even know how to find out about candidates,” she said. “But having that runway of knocking doors for almost six months now, at this moment I can feel the groundswell now.” Also running for the seat is former Rep. Anthony Weiner. – Sahalie Donaldson
4 p.m. – The show goes on despite power outages at poll sites
As parts of Baychester and Co-Op City were hit with power outages this afternoon after a transformer blew in the area, according to New York City Board of Elections Deputy Executive Director Vincent Ignizio, PS 160, which houses a polling site, had a partial outage. However, Ignizio said that the polling room itself was not affected. He also said that while other sites throughout the city – he did not say where – had had power go out and come back on, but that again, “voting hasn’t been impacted despite some outages.” The BOE had been preparing for heat-induced outages at polling places, but should power not be restored at sites before scanners’ backup batteries die, some vote counts could be delayed by as much as a few days. – Sophie Krichevsky
3:30 p.m. – Avilés greets voters outside PS 169
As the temperature is still heating up this afternoon, so is the Council District 38 race. City Council Member Alexa Avilés, who is facing a tough challenge from moderate Ling Ye, is canvassing across from PS 169 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and is confident about the turnout.
“I think there is a lot of energy and excitement around the community,” Avilés said.
There are no lines around the block, but voters are definitely showing up to cast their ballots. Garrett Adler voted for Avilés, calling the lawmaker a “major supporter of the community” who advocates for access in local public schools. He showed up to vote in the heat given the high stakes of the primary election in his district and citywide.
“The City Council vote is more serious than I was hoping for. I was hoping Alexa would have an easy win but it seems like there was a stiff competition from her opponents,” Adler said. – Devyn Novikoff
3:20 p.m. – WFP is MIA in Rochester
The New York Working Families Party's decision to stay out of the Rochester mayoral primary, four years after endorsing incumbent Mayor Malik Evans, may be a missed opportunity to cement their role in regional politics, and no one is quite sure how they got there.
Read the full story on what’s happening in Rochester. – Austin C. Jefferson
3 p.m. – New election day totals
In the New York City BOE's latest update, 710,858 voter check-ins have been recorded. Excluding early voting numbers, that brings the votes recorded just today to about 327,000 with six hours before polls close. In 2021, about 1 million voters turned out to vote in the primary election.
— NYC Board of Elections (@BOENYC) June 24, 2025
– Rebecca C. Lewis
3 p.m. - Mail ballots roll in
The New York City Board of Elections released updated absentee and mail-in ballot numbers. Per the agency, just under 45,600 are both valid and scanned as of June 20 – and therefore will be reflected in unofficial election night results released tonight. In total, voters have returned about 55,000 of the 131,000 ballots mailed to voters as of Monday. But as long as they’re postmarked by today, the BOE can continue receiving mail and absentee ballots for about another week.
In 2021, when concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic still loomed large, voters returned about 132,000 absentee ballots during the primary. That’s a far cry from 55,000 currently returned, not all of which are valid. A nearly 100% return rate would be needed to get close to the 2021 numbers, which rarely if ever happens. But combined with the roughly 385,000 early votes cast in person, about 430,000 people had their ballots cast and scanned before primary election day. That’s over 100,000 more votes than early and absentee ballots cast in 2021. – Rebecca C. Lewis
2:45 p.m. – Voters in Brooklyn brave the heat
As the temperature approached 100 degrees, the pace of voting at several polling stations in Park Slope didn’t show signs of letting up, including at PS 282 on Sixth Avenue. Matthew Lowen wasn’t surprised by the turnout. “I think it’s due to a dissatisfaction with overall politics in the country, including the Trump administration,” he told City & State. Locally, he thinks people are interested in replacing Mayor Eric Adams, and “definitely don’t like the idea of Cuomo being in power again.”
Raven White voted in a mayoral election for the first time. “I’m so excited and I feel so hopeful for the future of New York City.” White credited Zohran Mamdani with motivating them to vote. “New York City is the center of the resistance so we need someone like Mamdani.”
Others, like Lee Fondakowski, said they were partially motivated by quality-of-life issues. “I’m really interested in where we are as a city. Are we going to go way to the left? Are we going to go toward the center? Where are we going to go?” – Steve Kastenbaum
2 p.m. – Sean Ryan calls in friends as turnout slows to a trickle in Buffalo
State Sen. April Baskin is helping out fellow state Sen. Sean Ryan, who’s running for mayor of Buffalo. The two lawmakers were posted outside a North Buffalo community center pitching voters on what he hopes will be a breath of fresh air at City Hall. “Buffalo needs a mayor who actually has a plan,” Baskin said while deftly avoiding mention of both Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon, who is running for reelection, and his predecessor Byron Brown. Ryan has been appearing all over town today with his pals from the statehouse.
Turnout has been slow, but his campaign is expecting an uptick once people get off work (and the temperature goes down). Over in the Fruit Belt neighborhood, about six people came in to vote at an elementary school polling site. – Austin C. Jefferson
1:15 p.m. – Adrienne Adams hits Co-Op City
Mayoral candidate and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams visited Co-Op City in the Bronx with Council Members Kevin Riley and Oswald Feliz. Adams has visited several districts with her colleagues in the last stretch of the race, including Yusef Salaam and Diana Ayala. Riley’s also facing a primary challenge today from former Council Member Andy King.
One voter, Jacob Mobley, told me he ranked Adams first and Scott Stringer second because he was impressed with her experience and he liked how Stringer did as comptroller.
Mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams and Council Member Kevin Riley are out in Co-Op City talking to voters.
— Annie McDonough (@Annie_McDonough) June 24, 2025
“We’ve been talking about this election for months and months – the country is talking about this election,” Adams says. “So people are excited to vote.” pic.twitter.com/BHicwXuhbq
– Annie McDonough
12 p.m. - Lander brings in the big guns
Attorney General Letitia James, one of New York’s most popular elected officials, and former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger recorded robocalls for Brad Lander’s mayoral campaign targeting Black and Jewish News Yorkers in hopes of discouraging them from ranking former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “If you want to know why there’s not enough affordable housing in our community? You can blame Andrew Cuomo,” James says in her call. “And if you want to know what he really thinks of us? He used the N-word in a radio interview. And accused Barack Obama of “shucking and jiving.” Cuomo used the N-word to describe anti-Italian discrimination on WAMC in 2019. His “shuck and jive” comment happened while he was state attorney general, and Obama was running for president in 2008. – Sahalie Donaldson
11 a.m. – Andrew Cuomo casts his vote
Accompanied by two of his daughters and his son-in-law, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo cast his vote in the Democratic primary, ranking only himself for mayor. “Ranked choice?!” he joked in feigned surprise, when a poll worker handed him his ballot inside the high school gym and started explaining the ranked choice voting system.
Cuomo said that would be voting for other races down the ballot, but declined to say who he would be voting for in the City Council’s 4th District or New York City comptroller primaries, telling City & State, “My ballot is private.”
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo casts his vote for mayor – not ranking anyone else but himself on his ballot he says
— Annie McDonough (@Annie_McDonough) June 24, 2025
Several voters at this poll site stop him to say they voted for him.
Earlier, he got some jeers on the street, including a cyclist telling women nearby to watch their back pic.twitter.com/7xJUO8M10o
Delivering a closing argument of sorts to a throng of media who accompanied him, Cuomo reiterated his argument that his closest rival in the race – Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani – is too inexperienced for the job and that he would approach it as a “messenger” rather than as a manager. He also alleged that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel – a negative for the Assembly member with some Jewish voters – has driven his career in politics. “It was always about politics, and it was always about Israel,” Cuomo alleged, though the Assembly member’s mayoral campaign has largely focused on affordability. “That has been the driving force throughout his entire trajectory,” Cuomo said.
The ex-governor, who resigned following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations against him in 2021, was embraced by several voters at the poll site – one older white woman told Cuomo’s daughters, “I adore your father.” Outside the pollsite, Cuomo received a couple jeers from passersby as he spoke to reporters. “Ladies, don’t get too close to him,” one cyclist said. – Annie McDonough
11 a.m. – What if Zohran loses?
Many have assumed that if Zohran Mamdani loses the Democratic primary, he will still run in November’s general election as the candidate of the Working Families Party. But people close to Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America say that he would not run unless he believes that the race is winnable, and there are good reasons for him to be wary of running as a third-party candidate against a Democratic nominee. Read more here. – Peter Sterne
10:30 a.m. – Zellnor Myrie casts his ballot
Mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie cast his ballot at Fenimore Street United Methodist Church in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, with his wife former Assembly Member Diana Richardson and parents in tow. While he wouldn’t specify which of his fellow candidates he ranked second and third, Myrie said he’d filled his ballot with the rest of the Working Families Party’s slate
Addressing reporters afterwards, Myrie, a Black progressive, spoke of the generational divide between older and younger Black voters – a divide fueled by the city’s affordability crisis. He said progressives need to do a better job at meeting Black voters where they are and talking about real solutions.
As for why Cuomo is performing so well with older Black voters, Myrie said he thinks it has to do with the fact that he’s been around so many years – and perhaps more specifically, good will garnered from his father’s time as governor. Myrie said he’s tried to remind Black voters over the last few months of Cuomo’s record. “This is someone who has not actually cared about our community, he has used our community when it is politically beneficial to him, but when we have counted on him for actual resources he was nowhere to be found,” Myrie said. – Sahalie Donaldson
10:15 a.m. – Cross endorsing all the way to the finish line
Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander greeted voters on Manhattan’s Upper West Side this morning, offering a final show of collaborative campaigning on Election Day. “You can see New Yorkers are hungry for a different kind of politics,” Mamdandi said, adding that it had been “a joy” campaigning with Lander. The comptroller, in turn, said that “something quite beautiful” happened with their cross-endorsement to block voters to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “People are excited by the idea of a politics that's more collaborative,” Lander said. “They like the idea of a Muslim New Yorker and a Jewish New Yorker campaigning together.”
Working Families Party leaders also joined Mamdani and Lander, who make up half of their endorsed slate. Co-Executive Director Ana Maria Archíla said that while she’s confident one of their candidates will win, she said the party has nonetheless considered the fate of their line in the general election should they lose the primary. But one thing is for certain: “It is safe to say we will never give it to Andrew Cuomo,” Archila said. “Don’t rank Cuomo!” – Rebecca C. Lewis
10 a.m. – City Council Member Shahana Hanif greets voters
City Council Member Shahana Hanif began the day greeting voters at PS 58 in Carroll Gardens, later heading to Bishop Ford High School in Windsor Terrace. “I feel energized,” said Hanif, the first Muslim woman elected to the City Council, before asking a constituent for their vote.
She praised fellow progressive Zohran Mamdani: “What he did to get normal people tuned in is fascinating. It’s going to change New York City politics forever.”
Hanif’s race against Maya Kornberg has been shaped by broader issues, including the war in Gaza and rising concerns about antisemitism. Hanif said those narratives were pushed by opponents trying to unseat her. “The issues around hate and bias were certainly there, but the topic I heard most in conversations was housing affordability.” She defended her record on fighting hate and antisemitism. – Steve Kastenbaum
6 a.m. – Polls open
When the doors opened at the polling station at P.S. 282 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, there were already 10 people lined up outside, waiting to get in to vote. “We’ve never had that before,” said Brigitte Oliveira, a poll worker at the site. Those first few voters were a sign of things to come. A constant stream of people filed into this and other polling sites across this part of Brooklyn as the temperature quickly rose into the 90s. “I thought maybe people wouldn’t want to brave the heat and we’d have less people today, but it’s been non-stop,” Oliveira said.
City council candidate Maya Kornberg voted here at 7 a.m.. “I’m proud of everything we’ve built and happy to be at the finish line.” She’s trying to unseat Councilmember Shahana Hanif in a local race that was overshadowed by geopolitics. “I’m not running for the State Department, I’m running for the City Council,” Kornberg said. – Steve Kastenbaum