Cuomo Buried in 8th Slot on Ballot Line May Not Get Much Boost From Adams Endorse

New Yorkers have begun to vote for a new mayor but the last minute endorsement by Eric Adams last week for Andrew Cuomo is expected to have a somewhat muted impact.

For one, Cuomo, a Democrat running as an independent is buried in eighth place on the ballot lineup which would hurt even if he was not trailing front runner Zohran Mamdani by double digits. Any last minute speculation that the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa would drop out were finally squashed when the Republican candidate proudly emerged from a polling place on day one of early voting on Oct. 25 told reporters he voted “Sliwa” and denounced both of his opponents.

In the bizzaro political world that is the 2025 mayoral election, Adams was endorsing Cuomo as a “snake and a liar” only a month ago.

But on Oct. 23, after making a joint appearance at the New York Knicks opening night right after the second presidential debate ended on Oct. 22, Adams joined Cuomo at a NYCHA project in East Harlem on Oct. 23 to make the endorsement of a one-time bitter rival official.

“Andrew and I are two kids from New York,” Adams said. “And when you think about it, Andrew’s a brother and I have three of them. And brothers fight.”

Adams had been also been more sharply critical of the Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, who has enjoyed a double digit lead in polls since beating Cuomo in the Democratic party, which Adams had sat out.

“I’m fighting for the families of New York, that’s why I am endorsing Andrew Cuomo,” Adams said, adding: “When families are attacked, brothers come together,” Adams said.

One of the last mayoral poll before early voting started was on Oct 20 from AARP/Gotham Polling & Analytics of 1,040 likely voters and showed Mamdani leading with 43.2 percent of the vote against Cuomo’s 28.9 percent and Sliwa’s 19.4 percent. A head to head contest in the poll had Cuomo closing the gap to within the margin of error, but with Sliwa staying in the race and voting already underway before Nov. 4 election day, it was clearly not happening.

Anther hurdle: Cuomo, as an independent candidate on the Fight and Deliver line, is far down on the ballot with seven candidates listed ahead of him. He’s even behind Adams and independent candidate Jim Tilden even though they both said they were abandoning the race in late September. Dropping out only five weeks before the election meant it was too late to remove the names from ballots printed by the Board of Elections. Tilden immediately urged a “Stop Mamdani” campaign and urged everyone else except Cuomo to drop out. Nobody other than Adams heeded the advice to endorse the number two candidate.

Anyone looking for Cuomo will have to hunt for him in the ballot line on Row “I,” which is slot number eight.

Mamdani’s appears on row A as the Democratic candidate and a second time as the Working Families candidate on Row D. The low profile Conservative party candidate, Irene Estrada, is in the number three spot on Row C. And then comes again Sliwa, on Row B as Republican but on Row E for his second line, Protect Animals, which is in the fifth slot. Then the two non-candidates appear, Walden and Adams. Then finally comes Cuomo in the eighth slot. Only Jim Hernandez on the Quality of Life party (Row G) ranks lower on the ballot lineup.

The independent candidates are picked in random by the Board of Elections when there is no vote tally from past elections. And since the bulk of the independents are essentially little more than vanity vehicles created during the petition process to support single candidates before disappearing after the election, the new entities have no input as to where they end up on the ballot lineup.

But most poll watchers agree that place in the line up could have some influence.

”There’s no doubt ballot placement affects some percentage of the vote but there’s no consensus how much an effect it has,” said veteran strategist Jerry Skurnik of Engage Voters USA. Two mayoral elections ago, down ballot independents drew over five percent which did not matter much that year but if it the race tightens down this year, it could matter. “In 2017, Conservatives endorsed the Republican candidate and there were five independents who received 5.4 percent,” Skurnik said.

“It’s very important for undecided votes,” said Kenneth Frydman, a PR consultant who was press secretary for Rudy Giuliani’s successful run for mayor in 1994 before turning into a relentless critic of the former mayor in recent years. “Voters are not going to go five or six across and two down to find Cuomo,” Frydman ventured.

Manhattan #1 in Early Voting

Another new wrinkle. Early voting on day one, Oct. 25, was five times higher than the last mayoral race in 2021, according to numbers released by the NYC Board of Elections. Unofficial results showed that citywide, 79,409 voted on day one with 24,046–nearly one third of the tally–turning out in Manhattan making it number one. It beat the day one turnout of Brooklyn which had 22,105 and Queens with 19,405.

Four years ago, only 15,418 showed up across all five boroughs to vote early on day one. But many forget that by election day 2021 there was a new variant of COVID circulating again and masks were once again being recommended. That could have spurred mail-in voting but dampened in-person early voting.

Early voting ends on Sunday, Nov. 2. Check your local polling place at Votenyc of by calling 1-866-Vote-NYC because early voting and election day on Nov. 4 are often held at different locations.