Youth voters outnumber elder crowds in early voting for NYC mayoral election

Gen Zers and Millennials outnumbered their older counterparts at the polls on the final days of early voting in the Big Apple — as a shocking new mayoral election poll showed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo cut into Zohran Mamdani’s once-commanding lead.

The younger generations, who overwhelmingly backed Mamdani in the primary, dominated New Yorkers over 50 all weekend — but experts told The Post that the results are not all that surprising, or necessarily bad for Cuomo.

From Friday through Sunday, roughly 186,843 people between the ages of 18 and 49 cast their ballots, as opposed to the 148,462 voters over the age of 50, according to city Board of Education data reviewed by The Post.

Mamdani attracted a historic turnout in the primary election that helped him snatch the Democratic nomination away from Cuomo, who never quite regained Gen Z and Millennials’ favor after his disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the various sexual assault allegations levied against him.

But Stephen Graves, an analyst with Gotham Polling, told The Post that despite the larger turnout of younger voters, Election Day will likely attract the older crowds.

“There [are] definitely more people to look out [for] on Election Day, which is pretty common. During the primary, there was a depression of the 50-plus vote, probably because it was hot as hell,” Graves said.

“The younger ones were out there. I think what we are going to see is younger people vote early, so it’s not a big surprise that early voting tends to be younger than those who vote on Election Day. And younger voters obviously benefit Mamdani.”

Mamdani, 34, created a cult following through his campaign crafted around savvy online trends and boots-on-the-ground canvassing in the boroughs.

His campaign spread well beyond the confines of the Big Apple, but he grappled with winning over older audiences who are trepidatious about his liberal policies, including fairytale promises to freeze the rent.

Graves predicted the overall vote could crack 2 million for the first time since 1969, when John Lindsay clinched his contentious reelection despite losing the Republican primary and opting to run as a Liberal.

By the time early voting ended on Sunday night, more than 730,000 New Yorkers had flocked to the polls.

If more than 2 million voters do in fact cast their ballots, it could play to Cuomo’s favor, according to Graves.

“As the turnout gets larger, it leans more moderate and brings in the independents,” the analyst said.

“That benefits Cuomo because he was getting more independent while the vast majority of Mamdani’s voters were Democrats,” Graves explained, before noting that Mamdani could still win off the Democrats alone.

Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies, noted that the younger generations’ vote isn’t the make or break for Mamdani’s campaign anymore.

“The pickup in young voter turnout is definitely good for Zohran, but he’s less reliant on them to win now than he was in the primary. But sustaining the turnout will be decisive in whether he breaks 50% of the vote,” Smith told The Post.

Early voting ended a day after an AtlasIntel poll showed that Mamdani, who has enjoyed longtime double-digit lead, was ahead of Cuomo by just 6.6 points just three days before Election Day.