Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani surged to within single digits of disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary race, according to newly released polling.

According to a PIX 11/Emerson College poll released earlier this week, Mamdani, a 33-year-old Muslim from Queens who is a state assemblyman, trails Cuomo 54.4% to 45.6% after 10 simulated rounds of ranked-choice voting, a notable improvement from late March when Cuomo was ahead 38% to 10%.

“Cuomo has led in the polls since early 2025, but Mamdani has surged, gaining 23 points and winning second-choice votes nearly 2-to-1, cutting Cuomo’s ranked-choice lead from 12 points to 9 points,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “With four weeks to go, the question is whether Cuomo can run out the clock, or if he needs to win over second-choice voters to hold off Mamdani’s momentum.”

Cuomo maintained his strong lead in the early rounds of ranked choice voting in the poll, with Mamdani only closing the gap in later rounds.

In ranked-choice voting, voters rank up to five candidates in order of preference, and if no candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and their votes are redistributed based on voters’ next choices until someone wins a majority.

The ranked-choice voting system appears to be working to Mamdani’s advantage, as, according to the poll, he continues gaining ground by picking up second-choice votes after other candidates are eliminated.

Per the Emerson report, “35% of voters support former Governor Andrew Cuomo on the first round of the ballot, 23% support State Rep. Zohran Mamdani, 11% support Comptroller Brad Lander, 9% former State Rep. Scott Stringer, 8% City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and 5% State Senator Zellnor Myrie.”

“Cuomo’s strongest support comes from black voters (74%), voters over 50 (66%), and women (58% to 42%),” Kimball added. “Mamdani leads among voters under 50 with 61%, and holds an edge among white voters (57% to 43%) and college-educated voters (58% to 42%).”

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Cuomo’s campaign maintains that the Emerson poll is an “outlier,” with campaign spokesman Rich Azzopardi telling the Washington Examiner that the ex-governor “is the consistent and overwhelming frontrunner in this race.”

However, Mamdani has effectively formed strategic alliances with other left-wing candidates in an effort to block the 67-year-old former governor’s political comeback and consolidate his base.

Mamdani called on his supporters to contribute to rival progressive Adrienne Adams’ campaign in order to help her qualify for matching public funds in a slight against Cuomo, aiming to pick up second-choice votes after other candidates are eliminated.

In a hypothetical general election matchup, the poll shows Cuomo performs better against Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, with Cuomo winning 44% support compared to 35% for Mamdani if he were the Democratic nominee. Sliwa is the founder of the Guardian Angels and lost the 2021 mayoral election to current New York Mayor Eric Adams, a registered Democrat running this cycle as an independent, according to Emerson College Polling.

Meanwhile, incumbent Mayor Adams, running as an independent, would receive just 10% support against Cuomo but would climb to 15% against Mamdani.

Mamdani, elected to the State Assembly in 2020, has positioned himself as a leftist alternative to Cuomo’s more moderate brand of Democratic politics, campaigning on free public bus fares, free child care, and city-run grocery stores.

Mandani’s campaign celebrated the results of the poll, stating, “Andrew Cuomo has hit his ceiling, while we’re nowhere near ours,” per The New York Post. Mamdani himself posted on X, “We’re now 8 points away from sending Andrew Cuomo back to the suburbs.”

We’re now 8 points away from sending Andrew Cuomo back to the suburbs. https://t.co/yFfhKZkg3C

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) May 28, 2025

The Post adds that ranked-choice surveys released by other pollsters, including Mamdani’s own polling released on Tuesday, show Cuomo defeating the democratic socialist by significant margins.

The Emerson poll was conducted with 1,000 registered NYC voters with a margin of error of +/- 3%, and the ranked choice voting simulation included 500 Democrats, excluding undecided voters, with a margin of error of +/- 4.3 percentage points.

The primary election is scheduled for June 24, with early voting beginning June 14.

Many people, even the President of the United States, misread Bruce Springsteen’s most iconic tune.

“Born in the U.S.A.” wasn’t a rah-rah anthem but a Vietnam War smackdown.

No one is misreading The Boss’ political leanings today. Springsteen’s European tour finds the rocker trashing President Donald Trump like a Stephen Colbert monologue.

There’s only one problem. Springsteen squandered his moral authority over the past decade, and it’s not coming back. He’s far from alone in hard-rock circles.

Shirlaine Forrest/Getty Images

Springsteen made waves with his recent on-stage Trump tirade, a May 14 rant that swiftly went viral. So much for Norms – bashing America overseas is typically frowned upon.

In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration. Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!

The comments came during the media maelstrom regarding Trump’s predecessor, the 80-something president whose cognitive decline made him woefully unfit for the gig.

Yet Springsteen didn’t say a word, at least publicly, about President Joe Biden’s mental state. The Boss supported Biden’s 2020 presidential run and similarly backed Vice President Kamala Harris last year. The rock icon kept mum about what every fair-thinking American saw over the last four years.

Gaffe after gaffe. Video after video. The sad proof was there before our collective eyes.

Nor did he condemn Harris for hiding Biden’s mental fog. She worked side-by-side with Biden and sang from the “Sharp as a Tack” hymnal, yet Springsteen never pressed her on the matter in song or on a concert stage.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

His silence wasn’t isolated to that terrible issue. Springsteen stayed mum during the Twitter Files scandal, Team Biden’s attempts to curb pandemic critics and Cancel Culture’s impact on the First Amendment.

He didn’t speak up for author Jeanine Cummins, aggressively canceled for writing a book (“American Dirt”) from a different culture than her own. The Boss didn’t rage against sensitivity readers or the scolds who censored books by literary giants like Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie.

You’d think an artist of his caliber would have had their backs, even if they worked in different media. Not Springsteen.

A true blue-collar troubadour wouldn’t let partisanship get in the way of the truth. Heck, the old Springsteen might have penned an ode to Laken Riley, the young woman killed by an illegal immigrant in 2024.

This version? Not a chance.

The New Jersey legend refused to stand up to longtime fans alarmed at his sky-high ticket prices. He put his blue collar bona fides on a shelf and said he was worth the price of admission.

Some Everyman.

Recently, two well-known rockers rode to Springsteen’s defense. Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder has backed The Boss on stage, covering the singer’s “My City of Ruins” and blasting Trump from his concert soap box.

Part of free speech is open discussion, part of democracy is healthy public discourse. The name calling is so beneath us. Bruce has always been a true American with his values of freedom and liberty and his justice has always remained intact…This freedom to speak will still exist in another year or two when we come back to this microphone.

Like Springsteen, Vedder stood down during the relentless attacks on free speech over the past decade. He said nothing about Cancel Culture, of fellow artists forced to grovel for forgiveness for past jokes and comments.

Nothing.

Erika Goldring/Getty Images

That goes double for Tom Morello. The Rage Against the Machine singer joined his fellow, far-Left rockers in blasting Trump and backing The Boss.

Bruce is going after Trump because Bruce, his whole life, he’s been about truth, justice, democracy, equality … And Trump is mad at him because Bruce draws a bigger audience. F— that guy!

And let’s not forget their collective silence on one of the biggest news stories of the past decade. Neither Springsteen, Vedder or Morello publicly spoke out against the Oct. 7 atrocities, the ongoing hostage crisis or the 2023 Nova Music Festival massacre.

The latter should have been a moment for musicians from all genres to sing in one voice against an attack that hit so close to home. U2’s Bono briefly spoke out against the Nova massacre, as did Madonna.

The aforementioned rockers stayed silent.

And where are the pleas for Hamas to release the hostages held captive for more than a year? How hard is it to share that message?

John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting fame has just done that, almost nonstop, since Oct. 7. He’s put politics aside to pen songs tied to the Ukraine War, the Hamas barbarism and more.

His chilling anthem “OK (We Are Not OK),” a reaction to the Oct. 7 atrocities, is a must listen.

We may disagree on the power of celebrity messaging, but Ondrasik’s moral authority remains strong. What a shame Springsteen and friends can’t say the same.

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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.