Nearly 225,000 ballots have already been cast during the first three days of early voting in New York City, with elections officials and candidates noting the high turnout.
While Monday was a bit of a drop in numbers from over the weekend, it still saw about 60,000 voters head to the ballot box. While still exceeding some expectations, it was down from Saturday (84,000) and Sunday (79,000) totals. The Board of Elections said the decline was expected.
Among the five boroughs, Brooklyn had seen the highest turnout, with more than 67,700 people voting so far. That narrowly edged out Manhattan, which also topped 67,000. Queens was third with more than 52,200 votes cast, followed by the Bronx with 19,000 and Staten Island with 17,000.
The high turnout comes amid a hotly contested three-way race for mayor between Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa. The candidates could feel the sense of urgency on Monday, as each said they were not close to being done campaigning yet in the final eight days of the race.
“I will not allow myself to become complacent,” said Mamdani, the Democratic nominee whose campaign sent out an email blast earlier in the day stressing that the “highest number of early voters so far are in age brackets where Cuomo either ties or leads.”
Cuomo, running as an independent, stressed they “need New Yorkers to turn out.”
It comes as a new poll showed the race tightening even more, with Cuomo seemingly cutting into Mamdani’s lead: Mamdani had 44% of the vote, while Cuomo had 34% and Sliwa, the Republican, had 11%.
“We now have eight days left in this campaign. And the people of New York City will be the ones to decide who their next mayor,” Sliwa said Monday.
Early voting will continue in New York City each day through Sunday, Nov. 2. Opening and closing times vary by day.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 4, when polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
