The quality of life in the City does not bode well for the Mayor's reelection.

0:00 Speaker 1 New York. Are we going to make it more livable? Well with us today on a Sunday morning, we have right Han salam Is, the president of the Manhattan Institute, which is headquartered here in New York and uh righthan, good to talk to you again. Uh tell us what is it going to take for me for Floridians lived

0:24 in New York to move back?

0:26 Speaker 2 And well, that’s the dream, that’s the dream. This is an incredibly important moment in the history of New York City. You now have a president who has its roots in New York, who understands what it’s going to take to turn the city around. Someone is doing a lot about the migrant crisis that has knocked the city on its back.

0:50 And now you have a mayoral race that is very competitive. You’re going to have a gubernatorial race next year that could potentially be very competitive. So this is the moment where we can really turn New York City around. You know, I know you’ve been talking about it all the time on the show that New Yorkers care very deeply about

1:09 safe streets, They care about the quality of life, they care about whether or not they’re going to get traffic under controls. They care about whether or not the city is going to be the beautiful, vibrant place we know it can be. But I have a colleague of mine with me, Jesse arm who runs our external affairs team,

1:27 and he actually just deployed a poll of the leading mayoral candidates, giving us a sense of where they are, who’s up, who’s down, and I thought i’d bring him into the conversation. Jesse, over to.

1:38 Speaker 3 You, John and Raihan, thank you so much for having me. Longtime fan, first time listener. Ryan hits the nail on the head, crime and public safety, and our poll emerges really the dominant concern. It’s roughly forty nine percent of New Yorkers are telling us that that’s their top issue in this race. And the biggest lesson I think we

1:59 learn from this poll is that this is shaping up to be a referendum on really one thing above all else, and that’s name recognition. With former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams topping all progressives running in the race and really looking like the dominant parties.

2:18 Speaker 1 And I’ve seen some polls, lady, with Andrew Cuomo being in the lead, how many candidates you think are going to end up.

2:27 Speaker 3 Running well, we’ll see. We tested in our simulation about I think the seven or eight that are kind of leading names in the race right now. But I think it’s clear that right now Cuomo is so far out ahead.

2:43 These dynamics can obviously shift and change. We’re still very early in this process, but Cuomo is far enough out ahead eliminating his competition when we do a rank choice at vote simulation securing north of fifty percent of the vote only seven rounds in. So it’s almost unclear whether you know, some of these folks in the race currently

3:04 are still at zero percent. It’s not clear that it’s even going to matter once we get too far down the line, Wow, this is.

3:12 Speaker 1 Going to be. Is this going to be ranked choice voting on the primary?

3:18 Speaker 3 It is going to be ranked choice voting in the Democratic primary. We actually tested the concept of ranked choice voting itself in this poll. Support for it remains positive, but very modest. Only fifty two percent are in favor, and there are serious partisan divides. Only forty two percent of Republicans support the concept of ranked choice voting in

3:38 New York City, compared with stronger backing from Democrats.

3:44 Speaker 1 I would say, more than fifty percent probably don’t understand the words ranked choice voting. Is it going to confuse the voters more than going to help them?

3:56 Speaker 3 I think there’s absolutely a fair case to be made about that. When we were testing the concept of ranked choice voting, we use language that sort of explained exactly what it is, saying that it’s a system in which voters ranks the candidates for a given office by preference on their ballots. When we asked questions of voters in

4:14 our poll, we asked for voters first preference, and then their second preference, and then their third preference on through round five to simulate way the actual election and the Democratic primary war work. But no doubt this will leave a number of voters confused, as we’re still piloting a new process in the city.

4:32 Speaker 1 I will say, your first choice versus your second choice? Oh, your third choice? How many choices you get when you vote five? So you can pick your first choice, second choice, third choice for choice fit choice. Yes, Wow, that is a wow, And I you know there’s gonna be a somebody’s going to be ang some with.

5:03 Speaker 2 One really interesting thing about this poll result is that, you know, look at the fact that Cuomo and Adams, or the relative moderates in the race, are just totally dominant, and these very far left candidates are way way behind.

5:18 And this is among Democratic primary voters. So again, Cuomo atoms very far from perfect, but when they’re the only moderate options on the table, they’re the ones that New York Democrats are choosing.

5:32 Speaker 1 You nailed that.

5:33 Speaker 3 If I could just briefly add a staggering seventy one percent of voters view Mayor Adams unfavorably, just twenty five percent see him positively. Cuomo is similarly polarizing, but he remains more competitive. Forty six percent view him favorably, forty nine percent unfavorably. And that’s happening despite the fact that these two are the front runners in the race. It

5:56 goes back to that point I made earlier that this is really shaping up to be about name recognition above all. Else time will tell, but I have a feeling these two are going to stay important forces throughout the state of this race.

6:10 Speaker 1 Well, it’s an important poe. And when is the actual election for the Democratic primary?

6:20 Speaker 3 The Democratic Primary will occur on June twenty fourth.

6:24 Speaker 1 So we’re gonna have to wait till June twenty fourth to find out the winner of the poe of the Who’s he going to be running in the general election?

6:34 Speaker 3 Well, it’s less than five months away, and I really think the incentives are such that Cuomo will probably stay on the outside looking in for a little while. He’s far out ahead in this race, and it’s not clear that jumping in earlier is actually going to provide him much of any boon.

6:52 Speaker 1 Is there a Republican primary separately.

6:56 Speaker 3 Yes, I believe on the same day. Don’t quote me on it, the Republican primary will be held for New York City mayor, but maybe Ryhan can confirm that.

7:04 Speaker 2 Yeah, it’s the same day, June twenty fourth, both of the Democratic and Republican primary is having day, well, right.

7:12 Speaker 1 Han, Thank you, Thank you both for explaining it to the American people, and I’m sure we’re going to have to explain it again real soon. And thank you for the update and looking forward to talking to you when you have some more statistics about the quality of life in New York that you.

7:30 Speaker 3 Guys with the rank choice voting, lots of complications and we’re always happy to come on and explain.

7:35 Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you have a nice weekend. Thanks here, Bye bye,