Political insiders mostly expect Adams will be NYC’s next mayor

Some 61% of City & State readers think Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams will be the next mayor, while 17% think it will be former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia. Just 6% of readers think Maya Wiley, former counsel to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will win, and a measly 3% think entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who previously led most public polls for months, will win. 

That’s according to a City & State and Honan Strategy Group survey of 759 City & State readers, sourced from City & State’s First Read and First Read Tonight emails. The online poll was conducted from June 13 to June 17, a period after Politico New York’s reporting raised questions about Adams’ residency, and after Wiley had consolidated influential progressive leaders and organizations behind her candidacy. The poll isn’t meant to reflect New York City’s electorate as a whole, but rather to get the opinions of City & State’s politically engaged audience, many of whom have been following the Democratic primary for mayor very closely. 

Even if those political and policy insiders think Adams will win, they would prefer Garcia. More than one-third, or 35% of respondents who said they were registered Democrats in New York City, said they planned to rank Garcia first in the primary, or already had. Wiley came in second, with 20%, then Adams with 16% and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer in fourth place with 10%. 

That’s a significant shift from the City & State and Honan Strategy Group survey conducted from March 23-28, when the largest percentage of City & State readers, 18%, said they planned to vote for New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer. Ray McGuire, a former Citibank vice president, came in second then, with 11%, while Adams, Garcia, Wiley and former nonprofit CEO Dianne Morales all tied for third with 10%. And in a City & State and Honan Strategy Group survey conducted from Nov. 4-9, before Yang even entered the race, the largest percentage of readers, 16%, said Stringer would make the best mayor, with Adams coming in second at 12%. Garcia, who readers today seem to trust the most, came in eighth place then, with 5%. 

Readers in November also thought Stringer had the best shot at winning, with Adams coming in a distant second. But by March, Adams had taken a clear lead as the candidate political insiders expected would win – even before a couple of accusations of sexual misconduct against Stringer halted his campaign’s momentum. 

The leading mayoral candidates and their supporters have been criticizing each other more in the past weeks, but Garcia has gotten less heat than Adams, Wiley or Yang. That may be why 43% of those surveyed this month thought that ranked-choice voting will benefit Garcia the most of any candidate. Wiley and Adams were in a distant second and third on that question, with 18% and 16% respectively. 

So who has the momentum? And has the race been driven more by policy or personality? See what City & State readers think by reading the full results.