Midday News: Early Voting Wraps in NYC , SNAP Delays Continue, and NYC’s Mayoral Race Enters Final Stretch

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Speaker 1: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City, from WNYC. It's Monday, November 3rd. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: Polls are closed now after a record-breaking nine day stretch of early voting in New York City. Five times as many voters cast ballots this year compared to four years ago. Lorrie Hutchinson was among the voters waiting more than half an hour to get cast a ballot at the Flatbush YMCA yesterday.

Lorrie Hutchinson: The mayor of New York City is also a leader amongst mayors across the country. People are looking at our policies and how we choose to take care of this very complex society in much less complex communities.

Michael Hill: The 56-year-old Department of Education employee declined to say who was getting her vote. She was waiting in line with her husband and was supporting Mamdani. Polls reopen tomorrow morning at six o'clock. Check out our voter guide at our news site Gothamist, and stay with WNYC for all our coverage of the elections. It's day 34 of the federal government shutdown, and people in our region already are feeling a delay in food assistance. SNAP benefits help feed more than 40 million Americans, but the program is now in limbo. Mark Dinglasan is the executive director of the New Jersey Office of the Food Security Advocate. He says the impact may be felt across the state.

Mark Dinglasan: It's not in one centralized location. We're looking north, west, south, east. There are going to be hotspots for us where we predict, according to the data, there's going to be a rise in need.

Michael Hill: New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has declared a state of emergency which triggers a coordinated statewide response to help vulnerable residents. In New York, Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams have released tens of millions of dollars to help fill the gaps. 57 and cloudy, slim chance of late afternoon rain today. Mostly cloudy, near 60 with a calm wind.

Speaker 1: Stay close. There's more after the break.

Michael Hill: Election day is tomorrow. New Yorkers will elect a new mayor. Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani is running against independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. The New York City Board of Elections says already some 735,000 New Yorkers have voted early. WNYC's Elizabeth Kim joins us now. She's live at City Hall to talk about the final stretch of this race. Liz, Zohran Mamdani just delivered a closing message in front of City Hall. Tell us, what did he say?

Elizabeth Kim: This was a speech that was very reminiscent of one that he gave on primary day. Now, he's the front runner because his message about affordability has really resonated with New Yorkers, and this morning, he repeated some of the promises that got him to this point. Here's some of what he said.

Zohran Mamdani: Let them feel the light of City Hall when their late night bus home is faster and freer and safer too. Let them feel the light of City Hall when the clock strikes midnight to mark the first day of a new month, and the rent payment that looms doesn't make them feel a pit in their stomach. Let them feel the light of a City Hall when a baby's cries wake them in the middle of the night and they know that they have high quality childcare waiting for them in the morning.

Elizabeth Kim: There you hear him talking about three of his signature proposals. Free buses, freezing the rent on rent-stabilized apartments, and universal childcare. Now, Michael, it's worth noting that this morning's speech is really a display of how this race has represented a generational shift. At 34 years old, Mamdani has been crisscrossing the city. Prior to making that speech, he walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Over the weekend, he was at the halfway point of the marathon and he hit some clubs. He was at a Knicks game last night. He's definitely sticking to his message, but he definitely has the energy of a 34-year-old.

Michael Hill: Where were Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa campaigning? How are they courting voters in these last few days, last few hours?

Elizabeth Kim: Andrew Cuomo has been focusing on conservative and Republican voters. Now, Andrew Cuomo, of course, is a Democrat. He and his father is synonymous with that party in New York state politics, but, like you said at the top, he's running as an independent. His main argument is that Mamdani is too inexperienced and radical to run the city, and he's been doing the rounds on Fox News and conservative radio. Last Friday, he hit Staten Island, which is really Curtis Sliwa country. It shows you that he really does need Republicans to win, but he's also been focused on getting out Black voters, and over the weekend he was in Southeast Queens with Mayor Eric Adams and former Governor David Paterson where he was portraying the election as a referendum over the future of the Democratic Party. Here's what he said.

Andrew Cuomo: The Democratic Party is having a civil war. You don't hear it, you don't see it, but it's going on in this election, and it's two sides that are fighting. You have a far left extremist group that call themselves socialists. Socialist sounds nice, utopia. Socialism hasn't worked anywhere.

Elizabeth Kim: Now, Curtis Sliwa is polling in a distant third place, but he's been very active on the campaign trail, and he has really honed his message as a Republican populist. Here's what Sliwa said in Staten Island over the weekend.

Curtis Sliwa: This is an election that will not be determined by billionaires, influences, or insiders, but you, the people, the blue-collar working class, that are not represented not by Zohran, not by Andrew and his influences and billionaire friends, but by the son of blue-collar, working-class parents like all of you.

Elizabeth Kim: Now, what's notable about Sliwa's remarks is that you can see that even in the final stretch, he is not backing down from criticizing Cuomo, and he could very well be a spoiler in this race because as we said, Michael, Cuomo needs some Republican voters to win.

Michael Hill: We've seen several polls come out that have widely different margins between Mamdani and Cuomo. Would you break them down, Liz?

Elizabeth Kim: Yes. All the polls are showing Mamdani as winning, but the margins have been all over the map. An Atlas poll that dropped over the weekend showed Mamdani with a seven-point lead over Cuomo. That's the narrowest margin we've seen so far between these two candidates in the general election. There was a Quinnipiac poll last week that showed Cuomo within 10 points, also suggesting that Cuomo has momentum. Then there was an Emerson poll that showed Mamdani with a 26-point lead, and that's actually-

Michael Hill: Wow.

Elizabeth Kim: -11 points more than an Emerson poll had in September.

Michael Hill: Why the disparity?

Elizabeth Kim: Polling depends on a lot of factors, and it's better to look at polling as a snapshot. It's a snapshot of a particular time period. It's also a snapshot of a particular group. It depends on who the pollster is talking to. It also depends on the number of people they're talking to. If you remember, most of the polls right before the primary also misunderestimated the outcome. They all had Cuomo winning.

Michael Hill: Sure did.

Elizabeth Kim: Now, Emerson came the closest. That poll showed Mamdani and Cuomo neck and neck in the first round of ranked choice, and then Mamdani overtaking Cuomo in the end. [crosstalk]

Michael Hill: There are some ballot proposals that--

Elizabeth Kim: Go ahead, Michael. Sorry.

Michael Hill: There are some ballot proposals that would fast track the approval of housing by reducing the City Council's input on land use decisions. Now, one of Mamdani's core issues is affordable housing, but he declined during the debate, I recall, to take a position. Has he weighed in yet?

Elizabeth Kim: No, Michael, and he was asked just an hour ago, "Where are you on the ballot proposals?" and he declined to answer. It's important to note that anyone in this city who votes, including Mamdani himself, will be turning over their ballot and being asked to weigh in on these proposals, and Mamdani's opponents have both already offered their positions. Cuomo has said he is in favor, Sliwa is against. Now, the theory on why Mamdani is holding back is he just doesn't want to take a position that might offend a portion of his base. There are pro-housing folks, so-called YIMBYs, who are strongly in support of these housing proposals, but these proposals are opposed by the City Council and also unions, two groups that Mamdani will need to govern effectively.

Michael Hill: Liz, we have 20 seconds left. Endorsements, last-minute endorsements played a factor in this race?

Elizabeth Kim: I don't think any of these are going to be considered game-changing endorsements. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg did endorse Cuomo again after endorsing him in the primary. Former Governor David Paterson, he had switched from Cuomo to Adams and now he's back to Cuomo. House leader Hakeem Jeffries, he did endorse the Friday before early voting began.

Michael Hill: Liz, I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there. That's WNYC's Liz Kim at City Hall. Liz, thank you. Be sure to check out our voter guide on our news site Gothamist and stay with WNYC for all our coverage.

Elizabeth Kim: Thank you, Michael.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.

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