Bernie and AOC Can Make Zohran Mayor (If They Want To)

Last week Marist College released a poll showing Andrew Cuomo with a commanding lead in the NYC Mayors Race.

The poll showed Cuomo with 44% first ballot support, with him easily reaching the 50% threshold to win in rank choice voting, even before the final ballot is tallied.

This is inline with previous polls showing similar leads for Cuomo over the field, emphasizing Cuomo is the clear favorite to win the Democratic primary.

However, all while Cuomo has solidified his status as front-runner, Zohran Mamdani has become the clear runner-up in the race, registering 22% support in this same poll.

Back in February, Zohran was polling at 1%(!) according to Emerson, so he's essentially gained 21% in those three months, a monumental achievement.

But monumental achievements alone don't win elections on their own.

While Zohran has been the only candidate to essentially keep pace with Cuomo's rise, he is still 20%+ behind Cuomo in both first and final ballot numbers. This trajectory won't be enough to get him over the finish line to win in June if Cuomo continues to consolidate support like he has since February.

In 2021, I remember the constant lesson the left brought up after Adams won: in 2025, the Left MUST COALESCE EARLIER AND STRONGER than we did in 2021 to defeat whoever is the candidate in 2025.

This is that opportunity, right now: if the left doesn't coalesce around a candidate now, Cuomo will clearly win this race.

And the key to winning this race doesn't lie in the candidates running: it lies in two of the most popular politicians in the entire country: Bernie Sanders and AOC.

Bernie and AOC Are The Perfect Antidote To Cuomo

Cuomo's huge advantage in this race is clear: it's cause everyone knows who he is.

A poll from March found that Cuomo had a 96% name recognition, over double what Zohran measured at the time at 44%. (On another note, this meant Zohran was polling in 2nd place while not even being known by half the voters: that's wild!)

This same poll showed Cuomo's favorability at +12%, which might seem like a good result, but it's actually much weaker than other highly recognized politicians in Democratic primaries.

YouGov recently released a massive poll measuring Democratic political leaders favorability and Cuomo ranked the second worst favorability (only +4%) across Democrat voters. The only politician he was better than? The current mayor of NYC, Eric Adams (at -23%).

Meanwhile, both AOC and Bernie Sanders are massively popular among Democrats at +61% and +75% net favorability, emphasizing that Democrat voters absolutely loooooooooooove them in comparison to Cuomo.

And if you look deeper at the raw data, you can see Cuomo's favorability among Harris voters is even worse at -5% versus AOC's at 62% and Bernie's at +78%.

In total, the data on favorability couldn't be more clear:

• Nearly every Democrat knows who Andrew Cuomo is, but that doesn't mean they like him.
• On the other hand, every Democrat knows who AOC & Bernie are, and they DO like them.

This means that, if Bernie and AOC came to NYC and hammered Cuomo on the campaign trail, they could be extremely effective in taking down this paper tiger of a campaign by turning Cuomo back into the unpopular, corrupt politician he was when he resigned in disgrace.

AOC Has Made An Impact Before (Even When She Was Less Liked)

On June 6th 2021, AOC endorsed Maya Wiley for NYC Mayor.

After the endorsement, Wiley went from polling at 9% to 17% in the span on one poll, and eventually went on to record 29% in the second to last ballot in the election, coming about 12,000 votes shy of second place.

This was after Dianne Morales's support crated from 7% to 2%, meaning Wiley was able to capture that decrease in support right as AOC made her endorsement.

What's also important to note is the change in AOC's favorability between 2021 and now. Back in 2021, AOC had a favorability among Democrats at +48% and +51% among Biden voters, which is 11% - 13% lower than her current favorability.

Bernie, who didn't endorse anyone in the 2021 election, had favorability at 61% among Democrats and 66% among Biden voters at the time, which 12%-14% lower than his current favorability (measured in the same poll from above).

This just emphasizes the significant growth both AOC and Bernie made among Democratic voters since then, meaning their endorsement now would be even more powerful than they would have been in 2021.

Why Bernie/AOC Should Solely Endorse And Campaign For Zohran

Through the campaign at this point, all of the top candidates have not been cross-endorsing, but instead have been promoting the "Don't Rank Cuomo" strategy.

This strategy has been a clear failure, as Cuomo has continued to rise in each poll and become the clear front-runner.

To maximize the chances of winning, Bernie and AOC should focus on raising the profile of ONE candidate because endorsing multiple candidates can muddy the water in amplifying name recognition (similar to the "Don't Rank Cuomo" strategy"

And that candidate should absolutely be Zohran, as he has proven to be the clear candidate to garner more and more support as this campaign has continued.

So here's the bottom line:

• Cuomo is extremely well known but his favorability is weak among Democratic voters.
• Zohran has been gaining support throughout the election and is liked among Democratic voters
• However Zohran still has poor name recognition relative to Cuomo, meaning he has a lot of room to grow still.
• Bernie and AOC are among the most liked Democratic politicians among Democratic voters and have become more liked since the last NYC Mayors election, meaning their endorsement would be more powerful.
• There is evidence that AOC's endorsement helped Wiley's campaign in the 2021 election when she was even less popular among those voters.
• The "Don't Rank Cuomo" strategy has been a failure to this point, as Cuomo has continued to gain support each month.
• Bernie and AOC should look to max out one single candidates name recognition to take on Cuomo, which all signs point to Mamdani given his momentum.

All of this emphasizes that this is the perfect environment for AOC/Bernie to come in and boost Zohran's name recognition among Democratic voters AND attack Cuomo given they are much more liked among Dem voters than him.

Zohran may be able to pull off the unlikely victory in the election on his own, but getting the endorsement of some of the most popular politicians among his primary voters would definitely make his job MUCH EASIER.

Bernie and AOC should endorse Zohran today and start campaigning for him ASAP, time is running out to beat Cuomo. I hope they heed this call.