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New Yorkers have surged to polling booths, as early voting opened over the weekend in the city’s upcoming mayoral election.
Figures shows that, during the first two days of early voting, five times more people voted than in the last election.
As The New York Post reports, “A total of 164,190 voters checked in Saturday and Sunday in the five boroughs, a massive increase over the 31,176 who cast ballots in the first two days of early voting in 2021, when eventual winner Eric Adams faced off against Republican Curtis Sliwa, according to Board of Elections data.”
There are 5.2 million registered voters in the city.
“New Yorkers are showing up for early voting and in strong numbers,” said Vincent Ignizio, deputy executive director at the Board of Elections.
“Nearly 165,000 voters have already cast their ballots at 156 sites this weekend. Every vote counts — check your early voting site and hours at vote.nyc. Early voting continues daily through next Sunday, November 2.”
In-person voting will begin on 4 November.
The current frontrunner is Democrat candidate Zohran Mamdani, who has promised a program of radical changes to the way the city is governed.
According to new polling, a quarter of all New Yorkers are considering fleeing the city if he wins.
A Mamdani victory “could reshape the city for years to come,” the polling from Victory Insights reveals.
A little over a quarter, or 26.5%, of respondents answered “yes” when asked, “Would you consider moving out of New York City if Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor?”
A further 5.2% were undecided.
Mamdani is currently way out ahead in polls to be the city’s next mayor.
In a three-way race, he beats ex-state governor Andrew Cuomo by almost 20 points, 46.7% to 28.6%, with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa a distant third, on 16.2%.
Around 8% have not yet made up their mind.
Nearly 40% of voters believe Mamdani will be a threat to New York City’s future, include a third of Democrats.
“It would come as a major surprise if anyone other than Mamdani is elected mayor of New York City,” the polling outfit said.
“However, many voters are extremely concerned about that outcome. Thirty-nine percent of voters believe Mamdani is a threat to the future of the city. Cuomo and Sliwa voters are widely considering fleeing the city if he’s elected. New York City seems to be nearing an inflection point, one that could reshape the city for years to come.”
The poll was conducted between 22 October and 24 October, with 500 respondents.
Mamdani was engulfed in a media storm a week ago when he was seen campaigning with a Muslim imam linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people, including a pregnant woman.
Mamdani was seen with Imam Siraj Wahhaj at his Bedford-Stuyvesant mosque, a day after the first mayoral debate saw Mamdani go head to head with Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa.
Wahhaj was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, when Ramzi Yousef and other men detonated a van bomb underneath the North Tower. The intention was to make the North Tower collapse into the South Tower, killing thousands of people.
Although the attack failed to achieve its aim, six people were killed, including a pregnant woman, and more than a thousand people were injured.
In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing. In November 1997, two more were convicted for their role.
Wahhaj is also famous for urging New York’s Muslim population to go on “jihad” and “march through the city of New York.”
“I pray one day Allah will bless us to raise an army, and I’m serious about this,” he said during a sermon in the early 2000s.
He went on to say he had an intention to raise “an army of 10,000 men” who would “go to fight in the way of subhanahu wa ta’ala,” a phrase meaning “glory be to Allah.”
Wahhaj said one of the main goals of the jihad was to raise money and provide weapons for Muslims in Bosnia and Somalia.
Mamdani has also faced serious scrutiny after it was revealed he had received $13,000 in illegal foreign donations.
