Mamdani leads dramatic New York mayoral race

NEW YORK, Nov 02 (AFP): New Yorkers will pick a new mayor on Tuesday after an unpredictable race that has drawn attention from far beyond the largest city in the United States, with President Donald Trump branding frontrunner Zohran Mamdani "a communist."

Breakout Democratic Party candidate Mamdani, a naturalized Muslim American who represents Queens in the state legislature, leads former governor and sex assault-accused Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent after losing his party's primary contest to Mamdani.

The Republican party candidate polling in third place is Curtis Sliwa, 71, who has a colorful past as founder of the Guardian Angels vigilante group, a prolific broadcaster and cat lover.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll conducted October 23 to 27 gives Mamdani 43 percent of the vote, followed by Cuomo on 33 percent and Sliwa on 14 percent.

The race has centered on cost of living, crime and how each candidate would handle Trump, who has threatened to withhold federal funds from the city.

"Mamdani is an unusual political figure and really captures the spirit of the moment. This is a moment where a loud anti-Trump voice in America's biggest city is going to get news," Lincoln Mitchell, a politics professor at Columbia University, told AFP.

"Frankly, a Muslim candidate for mayor of New York is an enormous story."

Mamdani, 34, has attacked his opponents for Islamophobic rhetoric and smears, calling out both Republicans and Democrats for "anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our city."

NYC Board of Elections data showed 275,006 registered Democrats had cast ballots, as had 46,115 Republicans, along with 42,383 voters unaffiliated with any party in the first five days of early voting, which ends November 02.