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      US elections 2025 live: Americans go to the polls, with elections in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California

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      We are restarting our live coverage of US politics.Americans are heading to the polls on Tuesday in a number of elections that will show where support for Donald Trump’s Republicans stands and whether Democrats have cause for hope.Much attention in the US and abroad will be on Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor, who is facing off against former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary against Mamdani earlier this year, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.In California, voters could tear up their congressional maps to turn Republican districts into Democratic ones in an effort to counter gains the GOP is expected to make elsewhere after the party gerrymandered maps in states including Texas and Missouri.Virginia and New Jersey will hold high-stakes gubernatorial and legislative elections that may serve as a proxy for voters’ views on the president.We will bring you the latest news and reactions as election day unfolds.New York City has probably the most high-profile mayor in the country, and in June, Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman and democratic socialist, won the Democratic primary in an upset over former governor Andrew Cuomo.Though Cuomo remains in the race as an independent, polls show Mamdani with a formidable lead, and if he wins, his brand of left-wing politics will be given a prominent platform.On Monday, the candidates for New York City mayor spent a frantic final day campaigning across the city. Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner, whose campaign has been centered on affordability, has maintained a commanding lead, with most polls showing him leading by double digits.The 34-year-old Democratic nominee, a state assembly member from Queens, began his Monday walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise. He was joined by the New York attorney general, Letitia James; the city comptroller, Brad Lander; as well as several city and state lawmakers and throngs of supporters.He finished the walk at city hall, where he told a news conference that “we stand on the verge of ushering in a new day for our city”, and was scheduled to join volunteers before they began a final day of canvassing in Astoria, Queens, later in the day.Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor running as an independent after losing to Mamdani in June’s primary, kicked off the last day of the campaign with an interview on the Spanish-language radio station La Mega before heading to a campaign stop in the Bronx. He reportedly planned to visit all five boroughs on Monday.Running a distant third has been Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate and founder of the Guardian Angels, a non-profit organization dedicated to “unarmed crime prevention”. According to social media, Sliwa spent part of Monday morning at Coney Island and was set to host a tele-rally in the evening.We are restarting our live coverage of US politics.Americans are heading to the polls on Tuesday in a number of elections that will show where support for Donald Trump’s Republicans stands and whether Democrats have cause for hope.Much attention in the US and abroad will be on Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor, who is facing off against former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary against Mamdani earlier this year, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.In California, voters could tear up their congressional maps to turn Republican districts into Democratic ones in an effort to counter gains the GOP is expected to make elsewhere after the party gerrymandered maps in states including Texas and Missouri.Virginia and New Jersey will hold high-stakes gubernatorial and legislative elections that may serve as a proxy for voters’ views on the president.We will bring you the latest news and reactions as election day unfolds. More

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      Trump news at a glance: president endorses and threatens on eve of New York City mayoral election

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      Donald Trump has no qualms weighing in on local elections – especially in his native New York City.And on the eve of the mayoral election between Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, longtime Democrat-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, the US president had a message for Republican New Yorkers.“I would much rather see a Democrat, who has had a Record of Success, WIN, than a Communist with no experience and a Record of COMPLETE AND TOTAL FAILURE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.Before the uncanny endorsement, Trump also renewed threats to punish New Yorkers based on the election outcome, writing on his platform that it was “highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required” if Mamdani wins.Later on Monday, Mamdani responded publicly to Trump’s remarks at a campaign event in Astoria, Queens.“The Maga movement’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo is reflective of Donald Trump’s understanding that this would be the best mayor for him – not the best mayor for New York City, not the best mayor for New Yorkers, but the best mayor for Donald Trump and his administration,” he said, according to the New York Times.Trump threatens to cut funds if Mamdani wins mayoral electionOn the eve of New York’s well-watched mayoral election, Trump issued a threat to its voters: stop Zohran Mamdani or pay.“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “I don’t want to send, as President, good money after bad.”Trump urged NYC Republicans to vote for Cuomo, who has been a lifelong Democrat but ran in this year’s mayoral race as an independent to bypass the Democratic primary.The Trump administration is well on its way toward making good on this threat even before the votes have been counted. The White House began sparring with the state over New York’s plan to enforce congestion pricing for car traffic earlier this year, which Trump revisited in a separate Truth Social post on Monday evening. The White House withheld $18bn for a tunnel project as the government shutdown started. A federal judge ordered the federal government to reverse the rescission about $34m in counterterrorism funding for the New York City, ruling the move as “arbitrary, capricious and a blatant violation of the law”.Read the full storyTrump administration to halve usual funds to Snap recipients this monthAmid mounting uncertainty among the nearly 42 million people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), the Department of Agriculture said it would use contingency funds to keep benefits going, albeit just 50% of the usual funds recipients receive on their cards.The announcement, in a court filing by the government at the US district court in Rhode Island, came after Donald Trump said the administration would comply with a court order to provide emergency funding after previous refusals to do so on purported legal grounds.Read the full storyFederal judge bars national guard troops in Portland, OregonA federal judge in Oregon on Sunday said she “found no credible evidence” that protests in the city grew out of control before the president federalized the troops earlier this fall.US district court judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, barred the administration from deploying the national guard to Portland, Oregon, until at least Friday.It is the latest development in weeks of legal back-and-forth in Portland, Chicago and other US cities as the Trump administration has moved to federalize and deploy the national guard in city streets to quell protests.Read the full storyAmericans ‘dumbfounded by cruelty’ of Trump officials slashing Snap benefitsThe Guardian wanted to know how important Snap was to the approximately 42 million people enrolled in the program. Many of those who responded to our callout were elderly, or out of the workforce because of significant mental of physical health issues, and worried that a cutoff of the benefit would send their lives into a tailspin.Steven of Wisconsin, 59, said he is recovering from surgeries, and has been unable to work for the past year because of his health. “I’ve already reduced my intake since before Snap was cut. Now it means no milk, no eggs, no vegetables, and definitely no meat,” he said, adding:“It’s like the siege of Stalingrad, but from your own government.”Read the full storyCBS News heavily edits Trump 60 Minutes interview, but the transcript reveals allTrump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.During the interview, in a clip that did not air on the broadcast, Trump needled CBS over the settlement and repeated his claims against the network.“Actually, 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not,” Trump said.Read the full storyTrump says he doesn’t know who crypto tycoon is, despite pardoning himThe president was asked in that 60 Minutes interview why he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, for enabling money laundering despite him causing “significant harm to … national security” according to federal prosecutors.“OK, are you ready? I don’t know who he is,” Trump told CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell.In 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to charges that he broke rules designed to stop money laundering – after Binance allegedly failed to report suspicious transactions with organizations including Hamas and al-Qaida.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Why is Donald Trump threatening military intervention in Nigeria? The president’s remarks about alleged persecution of Christians is seemingly in response to pressure from his evangelical base.

      Trump said he feels “very badly” for the British royal family after King Charles stripped his brother, Andrew, of his titles over the former prince’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late, convicted sex offender.

      Throwing a sandwich at a federal agent turned Sean Charles Dunn into a symbol of resistance against Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the country’s capital. This week, federal prosecutors are trying to persuade a jury of fellow Washington DC residents that Dunn simply broke the law.

      The head of the US Food and Drug Administration’s drug center abruptly resigned on Sunday after federal officials began reviewing “serious concerns about his personal conduct”, according to a government spokesperson.

      The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published on Monday on the growing wealth divide.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 2 November. More

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      It’s clear why Zohran Mamdani is leading in the New York mayoral race | Margaret Sullivan

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      For someone who exudes positive energy and seldom stops smiling, Zohran Mamdani certainly does provoke a lot of negative reactions.“He’s not who you think he is,” one TV ad glowered over gloomy images of the 34-year-old state assemblymember who is the clear frontrunner for New York City mayor. The ad doesn’t make clear precisely what the supposed disconnect is, but the tagline clearly is meant to give voters pause.“Never ran anything,” former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo charged, as he dissed his opponent on Fox News. “There’s no time for on-the-job training when any given morning, God forbid, you could have a mass murder or a terrorist attack.” Cuomo’s campaign yanked an ad that went further, using racist stereotypes to depict Mamdani supporters.And the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has been on an anti-Mamdani run for many weeks, churning out opinion pieces like this one from conservative columnist Peggy Noonan: “New York, You’ve Been Warned.” Or this one from Journal editorial board member Joseph Sternberg: “Sorry Republicans, There’s No Silver Lining to a Mamdani Win.”Another Murdoch-controlled newspaper, the New York Post, has not confined its views to the opinion pages but rather shouted them on its tabloid front pages. “SCAMDANI”, read one cover story, with a subheading quoting Mayor Eric Adams calling the state assemblymember a “snake oil salesman”.The pro-Trump billionaire Bill Ackman has warned New Yorkers that Mamdani’s personality is a fraud. “The whole thing is an act,” Ackman posted on X after the mayoral debate last month. “After watching him recreate his fake smile, your skin will start to crawl.” Ackman gave $1m to the anti-Mamdani effort through the Super Pac Defend NYC, while former mayor Mike Bloomberg has contributed more than that to efforts to thwart Mamdani’s rise; Bloomberg gave $1.5m to a pro-Cuomo Super Pac, after spending millions to help Cuomo in June’s primary.But if you ignore the ads, the headlines and the social media posts, another story emerges, as researchers from the Harvard Institute of Politics found when they spoke to young people during the recent early-voting period.“I think my life could really improve if he wins,” enthused one young woman, quoted in an ABC News story about the Harvard focus group. Another respondent compared him in one respect to Donald Trump: “There’s no flip-flopping.”And another approvingly described Mamdani as “badass”.The democratic socialist holds a double-digit lead in the race and right now looks like a shoo-in.It certainly feels that way to this New Yorker. I live on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, an area that split its vote in the Democratic primary between Cuomo and Mamdani, and I also spend a lot of time on a university campus. What I’ve noticed is that Mamdani energizes people and while some of that reaction is skeptical, a lot of the people I encounter – from students to seniors – want to give the newcomer a chance.New York City, after all, is unaffordable for too many, so Mamdani’s relentless focus on the cost of rent and groceries has struck a nerve. Mamdani’s embrace of his Muslim faith, his advocacy for Gaza and his willingness to stand up for immigrants has solidified his appeal.There’s a clarity about it that stands in sharp contrast to most Democratic politicians, noted Astead Herndon, editorial director at Vox who wrote a recent New York Times magazine cover story titled The Improbable, Audacious and (So Far) Unstoppable Rise of Zohran Mamdani.“He works from the premise of his beliefs,” Herndon said on CNN. “A lot of Democrats … have mastered this triangulation dance … where it feels like sometimes, they’re trying to say nothing.” And what’s more, since the primary, his campaign has become more inclusive, as he reaches out to constituencies and powerful figures who have had serious doubts about him. He’s won at least some of them over.Others, of course, will never be won over, but are becoming resigned to the reality of a Mayor Mamdani.Governor Kathy Hochul, whose political instincts are well-honed and practical, endorsed Mamdani in mid-September despite significant policy differences. (At a rally in Queens, chants of “tax the rich” interrupted Hochul’s speech and the Times described the progressive crowd’s response to the centrist governor as “tepid”.)Hochul carried on, though, and got a better reaction when she praised the candidate for refusing to “get down in the gutter” with his many critics, especially those who try to weaponize his faith or ethnicity.Instead, Hochul said: “He rises up with grace and courage and grit.”Hochul is expected to run for re-election next year.She surely has calculated that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have the Democratic mayor of New York City in her corner. And there is little doubt who that will be.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist covering US media, politics and culture. More

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      Democrats should be taking the fight to Trump – the problem is, he’s got them battling each other | Jonathan Freedland

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      Every year is election year in the US, but the contests of 2025, which reach their climax on Tuesday, will be especially revealing. These “off-year” battles – a smattering of governors’ races, statewide referendums and the election of a new mayor in the country’s biggest city – will tell us much about the national mood 12 months after Americans returned Donald Trump to the White House and one year before midterm contests that could reshape the US political landscape. Above all, though, they will reveal the division, the confusion and sheer discombobulation Trump has induced in the US’s party of opposition.The verdict on Trump’s first 10 months in office will be delivered most clearly in the two states set to choose a new governor: New Jersey and Virginia. By rights, these should be relatively easy wins for the Democrats. Both states voted for Kamala Harris a year ago, and the current polls are grim for Trump. This week, an Economist/YouGov survey registered Trump’s lowest rating of his second term – 39% of Americans approve of him, while 58% disapprove – the lowest number they’d recorded for him bar one poll in his first term. Trump’s handling of the economy gets especially low marks, and a plurality of voters blame the continuing government shutdown, now in its second month, on Trump and his party. If an off-year election offers an opportunity to kick an unpopular incumbent, then Tuesday should be plain sailing for Democrats.And yet, the contest in New Jersey, for one, is looking far from comfortable. Democrats there are mindful that a year ago Trump surged in the state: after losing to Biden by a whopping 16 points in 2020, he trailed Harris by just six. Current polls show the Democratic candidate for governor ahead, but only narrowly: one survey put her just one point ahead of her Republican opponent. The party is funnelling serious money into the contest and deploying its biggest guns: Barack Obama will campaign in New Jersey on Saturday.It may work. But the fact that, after all that voters have seen from Trump these past 10 months – the power grabs; the wild on-again, off-again moves on tariffs; the failure to shrink inflation; the indulgence of corruption; the vanity projects, including the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make room for a gilded Trump ballroom – a Republican is even competitive in a state such as New Jersey should be troubling Democrats. And, if my conversations in Washington and New York this week are anything to go by, it is.The problem is that, even after a decade in which Trump has dominated US politics, Democrats are still not sure how to confront him, or even, more fundamentally, what they should really be. Take the mayoral contest in New York City, which is exposing the depth of the divide.The frontrunner is Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old newcomer who came from nowhere to storm his way to the Democratic nomination. Hugely charismatic and a master of social media, he has energised voters who had long regarded the Democrats as stale and tired: in the Democratic primary earlier this year, turnout was highest among those between ages 25 and 35. His chief opponent is the man he beat in that primary, the former Democratic governor of the state and scion of one of the party’s most storied families: Andrew Cuomo.Their clash captures what Cuomo, now running as an independent, calls the “quiet civil war” among Democrats in almost cartoonishly stark terms. Mamdani is a socialist beloved by the young, but feared by the old – and by those alarmed by his refusal to denounce the slogan “globalise the intifada”, a phrase they believe sanctions attacks on Israel-associated, meaning Jewish, targets in the US and elsewhere. Cuomo is 67, previously endorsed by the party establishment and tainted by the bullying and sexual harassment scandal that drove him out of office in 2021.It is a divide that is both ideological and generational. Plenty of younger Democrats see Mamdani as radical and inspiring, drawn to his message of “affordability” of housing and public transport. They see Cuomo as the embodiment of an exhausted, morally compromised centrism that cannot beat Trump. Meanwhile, many older Democrats see Mamdani as radical and untested, carrying too little experience and too much ideological baggage – the same leftist liabilities that the right ruthlessly exploits and ultimately always leads to Democratic defeat. I got a glimpse of that divide when, at a live event in Manhattan for the Unholy podcast, I asked Hillary Clinton whether, if she had a vote in New York City, she would cast it for Mamdani, who is, let’s not forget, the official Democratic nominee for mayor: “You know what? I don’t vote in this city. I’m not involved in it. I have not been at all even asked to be involved in it, and I have not chosen to be involved in it.”If Mamdani wins, and either of the comparatively moderate Democrats running in New Jersey and Virginia loses, then the party’s progressive wing will take that as confirmation that its approach – the path of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders – represents the party’s best hope. But if all three win, and especially if the gubernatorial candidates improve on Harris’s performance in 2024, then the moderate wing will be buoyed, and the argument inside the Democratic party will rage on. In fact, it’s a fair bet it will rage on whatever happens.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd that is because the age of Trump has been utterly confounding for his opponents. How do you play against a player who breaks all the rules of the game? If you stick to the old ways of doing politics, if you obey the traditional proprieties and conventions, you cast yourself as part of the very establishment or deep state or elite that Trump has so profitably railed against for 10 years. But if you don’t, if you disrespect past norms, then you become part of the problem, the danger, Trump represents, weakening the guardrails that keep democracy on track.An example of that dilemma is on display in California. The state’s ambitious governor, Gavin Newsom, has tabled a ballot initiative – a referendum – that would redraw the boundaries of California’s congressional districts to give the party about five more seats in the House of Representatives in time for next year’s midterm elections. It’s retaliation for a Trump-approved gerrymander in Texas that will hand Republicans a similar advantage in that state. Democrats have hailed Newsom’s move as an act of resistance, fighting Trumpian fire with fire. And so it is. But it also burns away one more democratic norm, turning boundary changes into a routinely partisan battleground.Democrats are struggling because there are no good options when fighting a nationalist populist unafraid to wreck democracy. If you stay high while he goes low, you lose – and he is free to wreak further destruction on the democratic system. But if you sink to his level, you risk damaging the very thing you want so desperately to protect. The havoc of Donald Trump is never confined to Trump. It engulfs his opponents too.

      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

      Guardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US? On Wednesday 21 January 2026, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency – and to ask if Britain could be set on the same path. Book tickets here or at guardian.live More

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      Zohran Mamdani represents the future of the Democratic party | Robert Reich

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      The only upside to living through this dark time is it pushes us to rethink and perhaps totally remake things we once thought immutable.Like the Democratic party.In case you hadn’t noticed, the current Democratic party is dysfunctional, if not dead.Better dysfunctional than a fascist cult like Donald Trump’s Republican party. But if there were ever a time when America needed a strong, vibrant Democratic party, it’s now. And we don’t have one.The brightest light in the Democratic party is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old member of the New York state assembly who has a good chance of being elected the next mayor of New York City when New Yorkers go to the polls a week from Tuesday.Mamdani is talking about what matters to most voters: the cost of living. He says New York should be affordable for everyone.He’s addressing the problems New Yorkers discuss at their kitchen tables. He’s not debating “Trumpism” or “capitalism” or “Democratic socialism”. He’s not offering a typical Democratic “10-point plan” with refundable tax credits that no one understands.He’s proposing a few easy-to-understand things: free buses, free childcare, a four-year rent freeze for about 2 million residents, and a $30 minimum wage. He’s aiming to do what Franklin D Roosevelt did in the 1930s: fix it.You may not agree with all his proposals (I don’t), but they are understandable. And if they don’t work, I expect that, like FDR, he will try something else.The clincher for me is that he’s inspiring a new generation of young people. He’s got them excited about politics. (My 17-year-old granddaughter is spending her weekends knocking on doors for him, as are her friends.)You don’t have to reach too far back in history to find Democratic politicians who have inspired young people. Bernie Sanders (technically an independent) and AOC. Barack Obama. (I was inspired in my youth by Bobby Kennedy – the real Bobby Kennedy – and Senator Eugene McCarthy.)And Mamdani.What do all of them have in common? They’re authentic. They’re passionate. They care about real people. They want to make America fairer. They advocate practical solutions that people can understand.View image in fullscreenNonetheless, Mamdani is horrifying the leaders of the Democratic party. Chuck Schumer still hasn’t endorsed him. Bill Clinton has endorsed Andrew Cuomo, who is spending what are probably the last days of his political career indulging in the kind of racist, Islamophobic attacks we’d expect from Trump.Meanwhile, the editorial board of the New York Times counsels “moderation”, urging Democratic candidates to move to the “center”. Tell me: where is the center between democracy and fascism, and why would anyone want to go there?In truth, the Times’s so-called “moderate center” is code for corporate Democrats using gobs of money to pursue culturally conservative “swing” voters – which is what the Democratic party has been doing for decades.This is part of the reason America got Trump. Corporate Democrats took the party away from its real mission: to lift up the working class and lower-middle class and help the poor. Instead, they pushed for globalization, privatization and the deregulation of Wall Street. They became Republican-lite.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn 2016 and again in 2024, working and lower-middle class voters saw this and opted for a squalid real estate developer who at least sounded like he was on their side. He wasn’t and still isn’t – he is on the side of the billionaires to whom he gave two whopping tax cuts. But if the choice is between someone who sounds like he’s on your side and someone who sounds like a traditional politician, guess who wins?Trump also fed voters red-meat cultural populism – blaming their problems on immigrants, Hispanic people, Black people, transgender people, bureaucrats and “coastal elites”. Democrats, meanwhile, gave voters incomprehensible 10-point plans.The Times tries to buttress its argument that Democrats should move to the “center” by citing Democrats who won election last year in places Trump also won.But that argument is bunk. Democrats won in these places by imitating Trump. One mocked the term “Latinx” and was hawkish on immigration. Two wanted to crack down harder on illegal immigration. Two others emphasized crime and public safety. Another bragged about taking on federal bureaucrats.This isn’t the way forward for Democrats. Red-meat cultural populism does not fill hungry bellies or pay medical bills or help with utility bills or pay the rent.Mamdani poses a particular threat to New York’s corporate Democrats because he wants to tax the wealthy to pay for his plan to make New York more affordable to people who aren’t wealthy.He aims to generate $9bn in new tax revenue by raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents and businesses. He’s calling for a 2% tax on incomes more than $1m, which would produce $4bn in tax revenue. He wants to increase the state’s corporate tax rate to 11.5% to match New Jersey’s, generating about $5bn annually.He’s right. The wealthy have never been as wealthy as they are now, while the tax rate they pay hasn’t been as low in living memory.Inequalities of income and wealth are at record levels. A handful of billionaires now control almost every facet of the United States government and economy.Even as the stock market continues to hit new highs, working-class and lower-middle-class families across America are getting shafted. Wages are nearly stagnant, prices are rising. Monopolies control food processing, housing, high-tech, oil and gas.The time is made for the Democrats. If the party stands for anything, it should be the growing needs of the bottom 90% – for affordable groceries, housing and childcare. For higher wages and better working conditions. For paid family leave. For busting up monopolies that keep prices high. For making it easier to form and join labor unions.Pay for this by raising taxes on the wealthy. Get big money out of politics.This dark time should wake us up to the bankruptcy of the corporate Democratic party.It should mark the birth of the people’s Democratic party. Zohran Mamdani and others like him are its future.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now More

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      Early voting starts for New York mayoral and New Jersey gubernatorial races

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      Polling places opened on Saturday for the start of in-person voting for two of the year’s most closely watched elections: the New York City mayor’s race and the contest to pick New Jersey’s next governor.New Yorkers are choosing between Democrat Zohran Mamdani, Republican Curtis Sliwa and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat on the ballot as an independent. The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, is also on the ballot but dropped out of the race last month and recently threw his support behind Cuomo.The New Jersey governor’s race features Republican state assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and Democratic US representative Mikie Sherrill.New York has allowed early voting since 2019, and it has become relatively popular. In June’s mayoral primary, about 35% of the ballots were cast early and in person, according to the city’s campaign finance board.New Jersey adopted early voting in 2021.The off-year elections in neighboring states could be bellwethers for Democratic party leaders as they try to decide what kinds of candidates might be best to lead their resistance to Donald Trump ’s agenda.The races have spotlighted affordability and cost of living issues as well as ongoing divisions within the Democratic party, said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University in New Jersey.“New York City pits the progressive wing against the establishment old guard in Mamdani versus Cuomo, while New Jersey is banking on moderate candidate Mikie Sherrill to appeal to its broad middle,” she said.Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has electrified liberal voters, drawn to his proposals for universal free childcare, free buses and a rent freeze for New Yorkers living in about 1m rent-regulated apartments.Cuomo has portrayed Mamdani’s policies as naive and financially irresponsible. He has appealed to voters to pick him because of his experience as the state’s governor, a position he gave up in 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment.Cuomo has also assailed Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, over his criticism of Israel.Mamdani, who has weathered anti-Muslim rhetoric during the contest, says Israel’s military actions in Gaza have amounted to genocide. Cuomo and Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels public safety patrol group, equate Mamdani’s position with antisemitism.The New Jersey gubernatorial candidates, in their final debate earlier this month, sparred over the federal government shutdown, Sherrill’s military records, Trump’s policies and the high cost of living in the state. The winner would succeed the Democratic incumbent, Phil Murphy, who is term-limited.Early voting is already under way in other states.In Virginia, voters began casting early ballots on 19 September. In that closely watched governor’s race, they’re choosing between former US representative Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, and the Republican lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears.One of those candidates will become Virginia’s first female governor. They clashed over cultural issues such as the rights of transgender children in sports and school bathrooms during their lone debate earlier this month.Early voting runs through 1 November in Virginia and 2 November in New York City and New Jersey. Polling sites in all three states will then open widely for election day on 4 November. More

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      Eric Adams to endorse Andrew Cuomo in New York City mayoral race

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      The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, will endorse Andrew Cuomo in the city’s mayoral race, following months of tension between the two Democrats turned independents.Adams revealed his intention in an interview with the New York Times a month after he ended his own re-election campaign which saw him register poor polling numbers.The race has been dominated so far by the fight between Cuomo, the former New York governor, and the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, whose rise in the polls has created headlines around the world and symbolised hopes for a rejuvenated left wing of the Democrats.Just last month, Adams lashed out at Cuomo, calling him a “snake and a liar”, and accusing him of having “a career of pushing Black candidates out of races”. Despite that, Adams reversed course on Thursday, telling the New York Times that he now plans to campaign alongside Cuomo in neighborhoods where he maintains strong support.“I think that it is imperative to really wake up the Black and brown communities that have suffered from gentrification on how important this race is,” Adams told the newspaper.“They have watched their rents increase in terms of gentrification and they have been disregarded in those neighborhoods, and I’m going to go to those neighborhoods and speak one on one with organizers and groups and I’m going to walk with the governor in those neighborhoods and get them engaged,” he added.At an unrelated press conference later on Thursday, Adams told reporters asking about the endorsement plan: “I’ll be with Andrew later today.”On Thursday afternoon, Adams reiterated his endorsement, telling reporters: “I’m fighting for the family of New York. That’s why I’m here today to endorse Andrew Cuomo: to be part of this fight. And I’m going to give him my all these next few days.”The Guardian has contacted Cuomo’s campaign for comment.Adams’s interview with the Times took place a day after he and Cuomo were seen sitting courtside together at the New York Knicks’ season opener at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday evening. The game occurred right after a heated mayoral debate featuring Cuomo, Mamdani and the Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.During the debate, both Mamdani and Sliwa said they would refuse Adams’s endorsement.Earlier this year, Adams launched his re-election campaign as an independent after being indicted on federal corruption charges which were later dismissed by Donald Trump in exchange for Adams’s cooperation with federal immigration raids across New York City.In response to Adams’s endorsement of Cuomo, Mamdani wrote on X: “The Art of the Deal” – referring to Trump’s 1987 book. More

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      Shouting and ready to ‘bump chests’ with Trump – but nobody moved the needle in the final New York mayoral debate

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      The second and final debate before early voting in New York City’s mayoral race was a bitter affair, with sharp exchanges and few courtesies.Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, worked to defend his polling lead while his chief rival, Andrew Cuomo, sought to puncture his credibility – dismissing the 34-year-old state lawmaker as a “kid” who, he said, Donald Trump would knock on his “tuchus”.Over the course of the hour and a half forum, the deep seated-rivalry between Mamdani and Cuomo – the 67-year-old former governor now running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary – dominated the stage.“Like two kids in a schoolyard,” said the swaggering Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, who has defied pleas by Cuomo, wealthy donors and even his own former employer to drop out of the race.They clashed over education reform, transportation funding, Israel policy and whether to close the notorious prison on Rikers Island. But Wednesday’s showdown offered few breakthroughs that would shift the race’s trajectory.Both Cuomo and Sliwa argued that Mamdani lacked the experience required to lead the nation’s largest city, a familiar charge for the assemblyman, who is roughly half their age.“The issue is your inexperience,” Cuomo said of Mamdani, highlighting his own lengthy service in government at the state and federal level.“The issue,” Mamdani retorted later, “is that we’ve all experienced your experience.”To draw attention to Cuomo’s record as governor, the Mamdani campaign brought several guests to the debate, including Charlotte Bennett, one of the women to publicly accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment. Cuomo resigned during his third term as governor amid the scandal, which he has described as “political”. He has denied the allegations and on Wednesday noted that a portion of Bennett’s lawsuit was dismissed by a judge.Stepping into the fray, Sliwa – whom moderators described as “more of a New York character than a policy expert” – supplied some of the evening’s sharpest zingers: “Zohran, your résumé could fit on a cocktail napkin, and Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library.”Mamdani leads Cuomo in nearly every recent poll by at least a dozen points. Unless Sliwa drops out, Cuomo seems unlikely to close the gap before the 4 November election.Mamdani’s rise has excited progressives across the country, offering a fresh model of leadership at a time when the Democratic party’s old guard is under pressure to exit stage left.Throughout the evening, Mamdani sought to cast himself as the candidate of generational and political change. Cuomo and Sliwa, he said, “speak only in the past because that is all they know”.“I am the sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city,” he continued, harshly denouncing Cuomo as “a desperate man, lashing out because he knows that the one thing he cares about, power, is slipping away from him” and “Donald Trump’s puppet”.Trump has not endorsed a candidate for mayor of his home town, but suggested on Tuesday that he’d prefer Cuomo to Mamdani.“You have never had a job, you’ve never accomplished anything,” Cuomo said, during one heated exchange with Mamdani. “There’s no reason to believe you have any merit or qualification for eight and a half million lives.”Yet the president loomed large over the race, as the candidates each insisted they were best equipped to handle the president.Cuomo, who is courting Republicans and Trump voters, returned repeatedly to his record of confronting the president, invoking the pandemic and their public feuds as proof that he alone has the mettle and experience to stand up to Trump’s threats. A Mamdani win, he warned, would be Trump’s “dream” scenario, arguing that the president would use his opponent’s progressive policies as a pretext for taking over the city.Mamdani pledged to “end the chapter of collaboration between City Hall and the federal government” and said he would oppose federal interventions in the city, calling ICE a “reckless entity that cares little for the law” in response to a question about an immigration enforcement raid that targeted Canal street vendors in Manhattan this week.But to Cuomo’s claims, Mamdani accused the former governor of fear-mongering.“I know what actually keeps you up,” Mamdani said, speaking directly to New Yorkers. “It’s whether or not you can afford to live a safe and dignified life in this city. I have plans for our future. My opponents only have fear.”Sliwa criticized his opponents’ approach, warning against antagonizing the famously mercurial president, whom he said holds “most of the cards”.“My adversaries have decided to bump chests with President Trump to prove who’s more macho,” Sliwa said. “You can’t beat Trump.”The bickering continued until the end, when the candidates were asked to name one thing that New York got right during the pandemic.Sliwa, who before taking the stage said he would rather be impaled Braveheart-style than work for Cuomo, said the former governor got nothing right.Mamdani recalled that it only took him 15 minutes to get his Covid-19 vaccine shot. “That was an efficient experience,” he said.“Thank you for the compliment,” Cuomo said, with a broad smile.Mamdani deadpanned that it was a “city-run vaccine site”.“No, it wasn’t,” Cuomo insisted. More