NEW YORK — Voters were surging to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new mayor of New York as one of the city’s most closely watched elections in recent years draws to a close. By noon, more people had already voted in this race than in the entire last mayor’s race, and polls will remain open until 9 p.m.

The outcome has the potential to reshape the long-standing power structures in the city and to send a message nationally about the direction of the Democratic Party after its disastrous defeat in the presidential election last year. It comes amid a collision of local and national forces, including escalating deportation campaigns, increasing political polarization and economic angst over the cost of living.

The campaign has drawn tremendous interest from around the world, in part because the front-runner in polls, Zohran Mamdani, would be an unexpected choice for a city regarded as the capital of capitalism in the United States. He is a 34-year-old democratic socialist with a thin resume who seeks to tax the wealthy to finance expansive new social programs and who rejects the existence of a Jewish state in Israel. He would also be the first Muslim to hold the office.

In the first six hours of voting Tuesday, about 460,000 New Yorkers cast ballots, the City Board of Elections said. Added to the 735,000 who voted early, nearly 1.2 million votes have now been cast, more than the final turnout of 1.15 million in 2021, when Eric Adams defeated Curtis Sliwa.

At some point after the polls close, a victor will almost certainly emerge from among the top three contenders to succeed Adams, who ended his reelection campaign after a scandal-scarred tenure. The other candidates considered viable are Andrew Cuomo, the 67-year-old former governor running as an independent, and Sliwa, the 71-year-old Republican founder of the Guardian Angels.

In the five months since the Democratic primary in June, the three men have jockeyed for position, but their respective standing in the polls has remained largely static. Mamdani remains in first place, followed by Cuomo and then Sliwa.

Tuesday’s vote will determine whether that dynamic holds or is somehow upended. Turnout expectations are high. More than 735,000 people cast ballots during the early voting period that concluded Sunday evening, more than four times the number who voted early in the 2021 contest.

Here’s What Else to Know:

— Candidates vote: Sliwa voted early. Mamdani voted near his home in Queens on Tuesday morning. Cuomo voted in Manhattan later in the morning. Mamdani said at his polling place that he would vote yes on the housing proposals on the ballot, which fast-track affordable housing projects and shift some power over their approval from the City Council to the mayor’s office. It is a question he had avoided taking a position on. All three will wrap up the evening with election watch parties attended by both die-hard supporters and reporters.

— Trump weighs in: President Donald Trump urged New Yorkers in a social media post to vote for Cuomo and threatened to withhold federal funds from the city if Mamdani is elected. On Tuesday, Trump took his anti-Mamdani rhetoric to a new level, disparaging Jewish New Yorkers who support him. “Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” Trump wrote in a social media post. Mamdani has denied that he is antisemitic, has made outreach to the Jewish community and has pledged to protect Jewish New Yorkers if elected.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Dana Rubinstein and Andy Newman/Amir Hamja
c. 2025 The New York Times Company