Tony Simone, Thomas Duane, Latest Dems to Jump on Mamdani Bandwagon
Mamdani was holding steady in the latest polls of likely voters even before he picked up endorsements from two prominent West Side politicians. Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo was in second but support was slipping slightly.
| 28 Aug 2025 | 06:54
Zohran Mamdani gives speech denouncing corruption in city government after an aide to Eric Adams was said to have given a potato chip bag stuffed with money to a reporter. (
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Mayor Eric Adams, speaking to ABC News on Aug. 26, is running as an independent candidate, and polls show him in fourth place, trailing the frontrunner, Democratic nominee and Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, as well as independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. (
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Two prominent Chelsea/Hell’s Kitchen politicians, State Assembly Member Tony Simone and former NYS Senator Thomas Duane, have become the latest Democrats to jump on the bandwagon and endorse Democratic mayoral front runner Zohran Mamdani, the Assembly member from Queens.
East Side City Council Member Keith Powers, who lost in the race for Manhattan borough president to Brad Hoylman-Sigal, and comptroller Brad Lander, who lost out in the Dem primary for mayor, were early endorsers of Mamdani, post-primary win. Lander’s communications director, Dora Pekec, is joining the Mamdani campaign as press secretary, according to Politico. Hoylman-Sigal, whose husband is Jewish, also endorsed Mamdani shortly after the June 24 primary wrapped up. So too did Manhattan’s two Congressmen, Representatives Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman.
The rent freeze that Mamdani continues to campaign on played a big role. Andrew Cuomo, the independent candidate who is running second in the latest poll, said that he prefers a means test for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments, noting that Mamdani lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria.
About one million New Yorkers live in rent-stabilized apartments, and Chelsea is estimated to have a particularly large percentage, with about 35 percent of residents in Simone’s district living in rent-stabilized apartments.
“While rising costs and an urgent housing crisis drive New Yorkers in my district out of the neighborhood they love, Zohran Mamdani has built a movement laser-focused on these exact issues,” Simone said in a statement. “That is why I am excited to endorse him to be our next mayor. We need a leader who will stand up to Trump, get corruption out of City Hall, and deliver a city New Yorkers can afford.”
Former NYS Senator Duane, who last represented the West Side in 2012 but who has been active in LBGTQ+ causes, also endorsed Mamdani and noted his strong opposition to the policies of Donald Trump. “Zohran is a strong, unwavering ally of the LGBTQIA+ (queer) community, is unwavering in his support for strong rent regulation, which empowers and protects tenants, and also, and this is crucial, he will be a strong voice in opposition to the horrible Trump administration and its policies.”
Eric Adams, who declined to run in the Democratic primary and is trailing in polls in his longshot bid for reelection, had generally avoided criticizing Trump after the president’s Department of Justice quashed a five-count federal criminal indictment against him.
Adams has recently said he would not want Trump to send National Guard troops to patrol the streets of New York City. “Placing federal troops here in New York, I don’t see the need for it at all. We are doing an amazing job,” Adams said in an interview on ABC7 News on Aug. 26. But when asked what he would do if Trump sought to place troops on NYC streets, he was fairly muted in his response. “Now, can he physically do it or not? Those [questions] are for the legal experts. My job is to keep the city safe, and that’s what we’re doing,” Adams said.
In one of the most recent polls released by American Pulse Research & Polling on Aug. 21, Mamdani’s lead inched up by 1.7 percentage points since the previous poll was released in July to 36.9 percent while the No. 2 contender, Cuomo, dropped 4.4 percentage points to 24.6 percent.
Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa eked out a tiny 0.7 percentage-point gain to 16.8 percent while incumbent Mayor Adams trailed in fourth place with 11.4 percent of the vote, down 2.4 percentage points from the July poll.
The poll was released before the two latest incidents to rock the Adams campaign: Former deputy mayor Ingrid Lewis-Martin was indicted on five more bribery and influence-peddling charges and a former top adviser on Chinese and Asian affairs, Winnie Greco, gave reporter Katie Honan from THE CITY news organization, money stuffed in a bag of potato chips. Honan reported the incident and that drew the attention of the NYC attorney general.
Cuomo seems to be trying to carve a path for Republican voters who fear Mamdani and should therefore vote for him over Sliwa. And while not embracing Trump, he’s not putting all that much distance between himself and the president.
“Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani,” he was quoted as saying at a fundraiser over the weekend, according to audio obtained by Politico’s New York Playbook. “And you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa. So I feel good about that.”
“Zohran Mamdani remains the candidate to beat,” said Dustin Olson, lead pollster and managing partner at American Pulse Research & Polling. “However, this new survey also indicates that he can still be beaten.”
And while rent has been a major part of Mamdani’s appeal, the poll said that 85 percent of New Yorkers polled identified public safety as the No. 1 issue.
The poll of 638 registered voters was conducted in mid-August through Aug. 19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points, the pollster said.
