State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani is on the cusp of victory as New York City's mayoral race enters its final day before Election Day.
The 33-year-old democratic socialist has shaken up traditional politics with his distinctive social media outreach and promises to address New Yorkers’ economic challenges.
Mamdani — who serves as the three-term representative for Assembly District 36 in the New York State Assembly — will enter Election Day on November 4 as the frontrunner, leading in the majority of race surveys.
The Democratic nominee had been leading independent candidate Andrew M Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa throughout the voting, which began on October 25.
A fresh Quinnipiac University poll, conducted from October 23 to 27, gave Mamdani 43% of the vote, followed by Cuomo on 33% and Sliwa on 14%, as per a report by AFP.
While Mamdani's opponents have repeatedly targeted him with racist and Islamophobic slurs, he has kept his campaign focused on New York's issues.
The harshest criticism has come from US President Donald Trump, who labelled Mamdani a "communist" and threatened to withhold federal funds from the city if he were elected to the seat.
However, the 33-year-old democratic socialist has maintained that he was "fighting for the very working people" who were "betrayed" by Trump after his election as the US president.
The New York mayoral race has centred on the cost of living, crime and how each candidate would handle Trump.
"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."
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 ended on November 2.
Mamdani's ascent has highlighted the gulf between the left and centre-right of the Democratic Party.
New York's state governor, Kathy Hochul, a centrist, appeared at a Mamdani rally on October 26 but was drowned out by "tax the rich" chants, an AFP correspondent saw.
Hochul has been critical of Mamdani's proposals to impose a 2% income tax on New Yorkers making more than $1 million.
Mamdani's unlikely ascent has been fueled by young New Yorkers canvassing for him, with his campaign claiming 90,000 people have volunteered.
"It really comes back to people speaking to other New Yorkers about the city that we all love," Mamdani told The Daily Show.
Teenager Abid Mahdi, a Queens native who leads canvases for Mamdani, told AFP that "when I think of Zohran, I think of what Bernie Sanders was to many Americans in 2016 and 2020. He is my Bernie Sanders in a lot of ways."
Mamdani appeared with leftist standard-bearer Senator Bernie Sanders at a Queens rally on October 26.
"I'm 15 right now, I'll be an adult and paying taxes at 18, right? The majority of laws will apply to me in about three years. So, why should I start caring then?" added Mahdi.
Underscoring the importance of older voters who typically turn out in greater numbers than youngsters, Mamdani attended a "paint and pour" session at an elder care home in Brooklyn on Thursday.
Torrential rain at the end of the week slowed canvassing, with the three leading candidates touring TV studios in a final push to woo wavering voters.
Ahead of the vote, Sliwa appeared in a surreal conservative rap video wearing a suit and his signature red beret.
Cuomo, 67, sought on Thursday to court Black and Muslim voters, campaigning in Harlem with current mayor Eric Adams, a corruption-accused Democrat who bowed out, eventually endorsing his former foe Cuomo.
There was a stir in the week when a British newspaper published what claimed to be an interview with former mayor and Mamdani backer Bill de Blasio in which he appeared to question the affordability of the Democratic socialist´s spending plans.
But the article was removed after the former mayor denied speaking to the journalist.