Morning Digest: Can Mamdani stop Cuomo?
The assemblyman's been surging, but he's faced a massive ad onslaught
Leading Off
New York, NY Mayor
On the eve of New York's Democratic primary for mayor, an independent poll shows Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani winning after ranked choice tabulations—the first (and last) survey to do so.
But while a victory for Mamdani against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo would represent a massive upset over the longtime frontrunner, the pair might find themselves facing off again in the November general election.
Emerson College, polling on behalf of PIX11 and The Hill, initially finds Cuomo edging out Mamdani 36-34 in the first round of voting, with City Comptroller Brad Lander a distant third at 13%. But while Cuomo maintains a tiny advantage through the next six rounds of tabulations, that changes after Lander is eliminated from contention.
Lander and Mamdani endorsed each other's campaigns earlier this month, and Emerson shows that Lander's supporters are heeding his call to rank the assemblyman to stop Cuomo. The school finds Mamdani surging ahead to a 52-48 victory in the eighth and final round, a big shift from the 54-46 Cuomo lead Emerson found last month.
Cuomo's side was quick to respond with more favorable numbers. HarrisX, polling on behalf of the pro-Cuomo super PAC Fix The City, shows him beating Mamdani 52-28 in the seventh and final round of tabulations, with City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams at 20%.
Every other public poll simulating the ranked-choice process has also found Cuomo beating Mamdani, though there's no consensus on how secure his advantage is. The only other recent independent survey was a Marist University poll conducted nearly two weeks ago that found Cuomo ahead 55-45.
Despite the uncertainty, everyone agrees that Mamdani, a self-identified democratic socialist who began the year with little name recognition, is the only candidate in a position to thwart Cuomo's comeback. However, the assemblyman still has many obstacles in his path.
Cuomo has enjoyed a massive spending edge throughout the race, and that hasn't changed even as Mamdani has surged. New data from AdImpact shows that Cuomo's backers are responsible for $20 million of the $36 million spent on ads during this campaign. Mamdani, a distant second with $6 million, has received no major outside support.
Cuomo also picked up an endorsement on Sunday from former President Bill Clinton, who remains one of the most prominent Democrats in the nation. Clinton, who lives north of the city in Westchester County, highlighted Cuomo's service as his secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1997 to 2001. (Cuomo was registered to vote in Westchester until last year.)
We likely won't know for at least a week whether Cuomo hangs on, or whether Mamdani, who has positioned himself as a break with traditional city politics, has beaten the odds. The Board of Elections says it won't redistribute second-through-fifth-choice votes until July 1, a week after the election. Prior to that date, only totals for first-choice votes will be released.
Cuomo and Mamdani could also face off again in the fall, no matter which of them comes out on top in the primary. The general election will not use ranked-choice voting, though, so whoever wins a plurality will become the next mayor of America's largest city.
To that end, Cuomo announced last month that he was forming a new party, which he called "Fight and Deliver," to ensure he has a spot on the November ballot.
He was able to do so because in New York, a candidate appears on the general election ballot under the column of every party that's nominated them—or, in local parlance, gives them their ballot line, a system known as fusion voting.
As a result, contenders are often listed multiple times, but all votes for each candidate—regardless of which line they're cast on—are "fused" into a single total to determine the winner.
Progressives opposed to Cuomo, though, could ensure he has a liberal foe in the general election even if he emerges as the Democratic nominee. While the labor-backed Working Families Party usually cross-endorses Democrats, one of its leaders said in April that when it comes to Cuomo, the "likelihood he earns the Party's support is close to none."
The WFP is trying to avoid that problem by urging Democratic voters to rank Mamdani first on Tuesday. The WFP has yet to award its ballot line for the general election, so if Cuomo wins, it could offer it to Mamdani or another alternative. But even if it does give its line to someone other than Cuomo, that wouldn't necessarily herald a concerted effort by the party to beat him in the fall.
Three candidates are already running in the general election. The most notable is Mayor Eric Adams, who bolted the Democratic Party in April and announced he'd run as an independent. Adams, who has been one of Donald Trump's most ardent defenders, was already unpopular before the Trump administration stopped prosecuting him over corruption allegations.
The contest also includes Republican Curtis Sliwa, who overwhelmingly lost to Adams in 2021 when the latter was still a Democrat. The final candidate in this potential five-way race is attorney Jim Walden, who is campaigning as a centrist independent.
David Nir here, publisher of The Downballot! If you’re ready to support us by upgrading to a paid subscription, we’d be incredibly grateful.
Election Night
Buffalo, NY Mayor
Acting Buffalo Mayor Christopher Scanlon and state Sen. Sean Ryan are the two main candidates in Tuesday's five-person Democratic primary in New York's second-largest city.
Unlike in New York City, it only takes a simple plurality to claim the Democratic nomination in Buffalo. Winning that nod here is also usually tantamount to election in this dark blue community, but just like in the Big Apple, that may not be the case this year.
Last month, Scanlon filed paperwork to form a new party, and he later told Buffalo Toronto Public Media he believed he had to "see this through to November." Reporter Geoff Kelly also notes in the Investigative Post that Scanlon is leaving much of his campaign funds available for the general election rather than spending everything he can to win on Tuesday
Ryan is sending opposite signals. While the legislator has the Working Families Party's ballot line, he informed BTPM he doesn't "plan on staying in this race" if he loses the primary. Kelly writes that, unlike Scanlon, Ryan has emptied most of his war chest ahead of Tuesday's election.
Ryan has reason to hope that he can unseat Scanlon, who became acting mayor last October when longtime incumbent Byron Brown resigned to lead western New York's state-run gambling agency. Most notably, Ryan has the support of both the Erie County Democratic Committee and Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, as well as the WFP.
The Democratic primary also includes two other notable candidates: Buffalo Common Council Member Rasheed Wyatt and former city Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield. Anthony Tyson-Thompson, a former aide in the state legislature, rounds out the field.
Wyatt and Whitfield, however, have struggled to raise money to compete against the frontrunners, while Tyson-Thompson hasn't reported spending anything. Whitfield, however, has pledged to keep running in the general election.
Special Elections
After a week off, special elections resume with a pair of contests in two very different districts on Tuesday night.
One will take place in New Hampshire, whose 400-member House, as the largest state legislative chamber in the country, often has vacancies to fill. In Strafford County in the southeastern corner of the state, a seat in the four-member 12th District has been empty since December, when Democrat Dawn Evans moved out of the district before even getting sworn in.
Vying to replace her are Democrat Billie Butler, a performing artist and gig worker, and Republican Ken Hilton, who owns a plumbing company. Butler, a trans woman, has been targeted by GOP attacks claiming she supports "allowing men into your daughter's locker room and bathrooms." But Butler said the assault, which included a website seeking to brand her as a "radical," boomeranged on Republicans.
"Haters will hate," she told Foster's Daily Democrat. "In the end, it only helped my campaign. All my signs are paid for, and I have received money for the campaign, as well as a lot of support from people. It served to make me more visible to people who didn't know me before."
Kamala Harris carried the district by a 55-44 margin last year, according to calculations from The Downballot, and its three other representatives are all Democrats. Republicans currently hold a 218-177 majority in the chamber, with two seats represented by independents and two others (both held by the GOP) also vacant.
Tuesday's other special is in Alabama's 5th Senate District, ruby-red rural turf north of Tuscaloosa and west of Birmingham that became vacant last year when President Pro Tempore Greg Reed resigned to accept a job with Gov. Kay Ivey's administration.
On the ballot are Republican state Rep. Matt Woods and Democrat Ryan Cagle, a community organizer. This is the first time a Democrat has competed in this district—which voted for Donald Trump by a lopsided 86-13 margin—since 2010. Republicans have a 26-8 supermajority in the Senate, with only this seat vacant.
Senate
MI-Sen, MI-Gov
Despite attempts by fellow Republicans in D.C. to keep him out of the race, Rep. Bill Huizenga "has indicated he plans to launch a Senate bid next month," reports the Detroit News. (The powers that be prefer that former Rep. Mike Rogers have the primary to himself.)
At the same time, conservative media personality Tudor Dixon tells the paper that "she'll likely decide in a couple of weeks" whether she'll run for Senate or for governor. Dixon says either race remains a possibility, though in April, the News reported that she was "leaning in favor" of a gubernatorial bid.
TX-Sen
Texas Sen. John Cornyn said over the weekend that he was open to abandoning his reelection campaign if he believed doing so would prevent Attorney General Ken Paxton from winning the GOP primary—comments that came one day before Democrats landed their first major candidate for this seat.
Retired NASA astronaut Terry Virts used his campaign kickoff on Monday to talk about how "MAGA wants corrupt Ken Paxton in the Senate" and did not mention Cornyn, who badly trails Paxton in the polls.
Even the four-term senator now sounds doubtful that he'll be the nominee. But in telling the Wall Street Journal that he might step aside, however, Cornyn did not say if he had any such savior candidate in mind even as he railed against Paxton.
"I refuse to let someone of his character—or lack of character—represent Texas in the Senate," he said.
One person the senator does not have faith in is Rep. Wesley Hunt. While the congressman has talked about running, Cornyn told the Journal he was skeptical Hunt could beat Paxton. The paper noted that Hunt, who represents just one of the giant state's 38 House districts, would begin a Senate race with little name recognition.
The incumbent, however, hasn't given up hope that he can win renomination next year. Cornyn said he plans to focus on the many corruption allegations that have long dogged Paxton, saying, "He just operates as though the rules don't apply to him."
Virts, for his part, used his launch video to remind the audience that the state House impeached Paxton in 2023 for allegedly abusing his office. (The state Senate later acquitted him.) Most of the Democrat's opening message, though, focuses on his career in the Air Force and NASA while distancing himself from the national party.
"You learn fast that chaos is lethal," Virts tells the audience as footage shows him working in zero gravity. "So you adapt. You solve problems, and you lead because your lives depend on it."
The candidate goes on to tell the audience that back on Earth, "Trump's chaos must be stopped," but that Democratic leaders like Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are "MIA."
"This moment demands something different," he continues. "Honesty, courage, and a clean break from the past."
Virts currently has the primary to himself, but several other Lone Star Democrats are eyeing the race.
Former Reps. Beto O'Rourke and Colin Allred have both talked about waging second Senate campaigns. O'Rourke lost to Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2018 race for the state's other seat, while Allred was Cruz's opponent last year. State Rep. James Talarico is also interested, while Politico reported this month that Rep. Joaquin Castro is privately considering.
Texas requires candidates to file by Dec. 8—one of the earliest filing deadlines in the nation—so Cornyn and his would-be successors have a little less than six months to decide whether they're running.
David Nir here, publisher of The Downballot! If you’re ready to support us by upgrading to a paid subscription, we’d be incredibly grateful.
Governors
AR-Gov
Democratic state Sen. Fred Love announced on Monday that he'd seek to challenge Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders next year. Huckabee Sanders earned her first term in 2022 in a 63-35 landslide. Democrats last won the governorship in Arkansas in 2010, when Mike Beebe cruised to reelection.
NM-Gov
Former Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, who left office in 2019 after getting termed out, might want her old job back, reports the Santa Fe New Mexican.
The paper describes the possibility as "a rumor that has been circulating within political circles for months." That rumor, though, has now burst into the open because an LGBTQ rights organization issued a press release attacking Martinez for headlining a bus tour promoting the exclusion of trans women from women's sports.
"Multiple sources confirm she is planning a run for Governor," said the Santa Fe Human Rights Alliance in its statement. "Her participation in this tour makes it clear she's trying to relaunch her political career by vilifying vulnerable children — a cynical strategy as transparent as it is harmful."
The paper says that it was unable to reach Martinez for comment. So far, only one notable Republican, Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull, is running in the race to succeed Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
SC-Gov
State Sen. Josh Kimbrell announced a bid for South Carolina's open governorship on Monday, just hours before state Attorney General Alan Wilson was set to do so—a move that made him the first Republican to enter the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Henry McMaster. Wilson followed through with his planned kickoff later in the evening.
Kimbrell is a hardcore social conservative who previously hosted a Christian radio show and has been a prominent advocate for anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ legislation.
In 2014, he was arrested and charged with criminal sexual conduct for allegedly fondling his three-year-old son. Prosecutors dropped the case the following year, saying that there was "insufficient evidence to prove the elements of this crime beyond a reasonable doubt."
Quite a few other Republicans are still looking at the contest, though, and one appears to be getting closer to going for it. Rep. Ralph Norman, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, now reportedly has an announcement set for July 27.
House
CO-08
Both the Colorado Education Association and the National Education Association have endorsed Amie Baca-Oehlert as she seeks the Democratic nod in Colorado's 8th District. Baca-Oehlert, who is one of several Democrats hoping to take on Republican Rep. Gabe Evans, ran the CEA until last year.
IA-01
Just days after Democrat Christina Bohannan launched her third bid for Congress, a new poll finds her leading Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa's 1st District.
The survey, conducted by Public Policy Polling for the House Majority PAC, gives Bohannan a 43-39 edge, with 18% undecided. The incumbent sports an underwater 32-46 favorability rating while her opponent is even at 33-33. Donald Trump's favorables, meanwhile, sit at 46-47, even though he carried the district by a 54-45 margin last year.
Miller-Meeks defeated Bohannan by just 799 votes in 2024, the narrowest victory by a House Republican anywhere in the nation.
IL-09
Attorney Howard Rosenblum, a former CEO of the National Association of the Deaf, has joined the extremely busy Democratic primary for Illinois' 9th Congressional District, which is open following Rep. Jan Schakowsky's decision to retire after 14 terms in the House.
At least five other notable Democrats are seeking the nod for this solidly blue Chicago-area district, which voted for Kamala Harris by a 68-32 margin last year.
KY-04
Donald Trump and his cadres remain determined to deny renomination to Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who is often the lone House Republican to oppose the administration's priorities. However, they're still searching for a candidate who can fulfill Trump's demand (as he put it Monday) to "GET THIS 'BUM' OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!"
The Washington Post's Patrick Svitek writes that there's talk that state Sen. Aaron Reed could step up, even though the legislator sounded uninterested the last time he was mentioned.
"Fake news," Reed tweeted last month when Axios' Alex Isenstadt mentioned him as a possible candidate. Svitek, however, writes that Reed's "plans remain a source of speculation," and says he did not respond to inquiries.
That earlier piece from Isenstadt also mentioned state Rep. Kimberly Moser as a potential Massie foe. Mosar, however, doesn't appear to have said anything publicly about such an undertaking.
MAGAworld, though, wants any potential Massie rivals to know they'll have backup if they run for the 4th District, a safely Republican seat in the northern part of the state.
Isenstadt reported Sunday that two of Trump's top aides have formed a super PAC they say will spend "whatever it takes" to end the incumbent's career. It remains to be seen, though, if Trump's backers will make good on this threat in a cycle where they'll need all the money they can to defend their narrow majority in the House.
Massie, a libertarian in the Ron Paul mold who has denounced both the Trump administration's strike on Iran and its "Big Beautiful Bill," remained as stubborn as ever in an interview with Isenstadt.
"If somebody got in this race and they were a reasonable person, not crazy to run against me, I would call them up and say: 'You know what you should do before you dedicate the next year and a half of your life to getting your ass kicked?'" His answer: "You should do a poll."
NJ-01
Democratic Rep. Donald Norcross, who has been absent from Congress since early April due to a serious health scare, returned to work on Monday, reports the New Jersey Globe.
Norcross, 66, had what the Globe describes as a "near-death experience" that was "caused by a gallbladder infection that progressed to sepsis." He did, however, make it back to Capitol Hill last month in the midst of his recovery to cast a vote against the GOP's budget bill.
The congressman has yet to say whether he'll seek a seventh term representing South Jersey's blue-leaning 1st District next year, though he seemed disdainful of the burgeoning movement among many Democrats aimed at electing younger politicians.
"There was a movie, Soylent Green, that came out years ago," Norcross told the Globe. "That immediately comes to mind. 'Oh gee, you've hit that magic age, go to the processing plant.' I think we're well beyond that. … You look at the individual. Are they doing the job? Are they relevant? Do they have the experience? Just like we do every two years."
NJ-02
Democrat Bayly Winder, a former official with the United States Agency for International Development, just launched a bid against Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew in New Jersey's conservative-leaning 2nd District. Donald Trump carried this constituency 56-43 last year.
Van Drew first won an open seat in 2018 as a Democrat, but he switched parties the following year and has since secured reelection three times as a Republican, including by a 58-41 margin last year. Garden State Democrats were also happy to make the South Jersey-based 2nd slightly redder in the most recent round of redistricting to help turn the neighboring 3rd District bluer.
OH-09
Former state Rep. Derek Merrin, who narrowly lost to Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur last year, kicked off a bid for a rematch on Monday, but he already doesn’t have the GOP primary to himself.
State Rep. Josh Williams announced his own campaign hours later, and he appears to have some powerful friends. The National Journal said ahead of his launch that he was "considered a top recruit among Beltway Republicans." Williams,.who serves as the chamber’s majority whip, would be the first Black Republican to represent Ohio in Congress.
Air Force veteran Alea Nadeem previously entered the race in April, while fellow Air Force veteran Wayne Kinsel filed with the FEC last week.
Following the 2020 census, Ohio Republicans imposed an extreme gerrymander on the Toledo-based 9th District, with the goal of ousting the long-tenured Kaptur. But the party nominated a trainwreck of a candidate named J.R. Majewski, whom it wound up abandoning as the congresswoman cruised to a 57-43 blowout.
The next cycle, Merrin came much closer, falling fewer than 2,400 votes short of Kaptur. However, he ran well behind the top of the ticket and watched as Donald Trump carried the district by a 53-46 margin.
Merrin and Williams launched their campaigns at a time when no one knows exactly what the 9th District will look like. The district could change if Ohio Republicans seek to pass a new congressional map this summer, when state law requires them to implement new lines.
PA-03
Local Democrats are starting to eye the House seat held by Rep. Dwight Evans, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer, even as the 71-year-old congressman insists he intends to seek another term.
The most notable name belongs to state Sen. Sharif Street, 51, who also chairs the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and says he's considering a primary challenge against the incumbent.
"I'm weighing my options but I have a tremendous amount of respect for the congressman," Street told the paper, while noting that Evans "has had some real health challenges that everyone knows about."
Last year, Evan suffered a stroke that precluded him from casting votes for more than half a year. He's since returned but has missed more votes than most members.
Like Street, state Rep. Morgan Cephas says she's also interested and is "assessing all situations, all circumstances, with whomever is in the race." State Rep. Chris Rabb is likewise not ruling out the idea.
Evans has not firmly stated what he'll do next year. In March, he declined to directly address a reporter's questions about whether he'd run for a sixth term, but in a new statement to the Inquirer, a spokesperson said that "at this time the Congressman is still planning to run for reelection."
The Philadelphia-based 3rd District is the bluest House district in the nation, so whoever wins the primary is all but assured of winning the general election.
TX Redistricting
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has called a special session of the Texas legislature to address half a dozen bills that he just vetoed, potentially opening the door to a GOP effort to further gerrymander the state's congressional map.
Whether lawmakers have the chance to revisit the map, however, still depends on Abbott, since they can only consider matters that he places on the agenda. The governor, who described his list of topics as "initial," can continue to add new items for the session, which is set to begin on July 21 and can run a maximum of 30 days.
David Nir here, publisher of The Downballot! If you’re ready to support us by upgrading to a paid subscription, we’d be incredibly grateful.
Attorneys General
TX-AG
State Sen. Joan Huffman announced on Monday she was joining the Republican primary for attorney general, which is one of the most powerful posts in Texas.
Huffman, who has represented the Houston area since 2008, highlighted her previous career as a prosecutor and on the bench as she launched her bid to replace Attorney General Ken Paxton.
"You want an experienced attorney," she argued, "not someone who's never seen the inside of a courtroom or is simply a young politician climbing the political ladder."
One of Huffman's two primary foes was quick to take exception to that jab, though. Former Department of Justice official Aaron Reitz, a 38-year-old with extensive connections in MAGAworld, argued in response that he was hardly "young." He also went on the attack by saying that "the liberals now have their candidate" with Huffman in the race.
The GOP field also includes state Sen. Mayes Middleton, an oil businessman who says he's already self-funded $10 million. Democrats are awaiting their first major candidate.
Amid calls to choose someone younger and more assertive, House Democrats today chose a replacement for the late Gerald Connolly as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. After Jasmine Crockett, 44, and Kweisi Mfume, 76, dropped out, Robert Garcia, 47, and Stephen Lynch, 70, remained in contention. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) was chosen to lead Democrats on the Oversight Committee.
I wish Brad Lander had a chance. He seems like the best option.