Experience is Cuomo’s “number one argument,” said Cynthia Nixon, who lost to Cuomo in the 2018 gubernatorial primary and now backs Mamdani. “It’s one thing if you’ve been in office for a long time and you have a record that you can be proud of. Cuomo has the opposite.”

The race to pick the Democratic nominee for mayor ends Tuesday with primary Election Day — and so far early voting has surged to nearly twice the turnout of four years ago.

Voters in the Democratic mayoral primaries are able to rank their top five candidates, but are not required to fill all five slots. If a candidate gets over 50% first-choice votes, they win. But if not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated as votes are counted in subsequent rounds.