NYC Mayor Odds: Mamdani Was 3.6% on Polymarket in May 2025. He Won

Zohran Mamdani began 2025 as an outsider in Polymarket's markets. On 1 January 2025 he was 2.0% to win the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York. On 24 May, in the market on the mayoralty itself, he was 3.6% and Andrew Cuomo 86.5%.

Mamdani won the primary on 24 June 2025 and the general election on 4 November, with 50.4% of the vote to Cuomo's 41.6% as an independent and Curtis Sliwa's 7.1%. Turnout passed 2 million, the highest since 1969.

Both nights were short in the market. Mamdani passed 90% in the primary market at 9:28 p.m. Eastern on 24 June, 28 minutes after the polls closed. On 4 November he passed 99% at 9:06 p.m., about 28 minutes before the Associated Press called the race. This page reads the public price record; it is not a forecast.

Polymarket's market on the Democratic nomination opened at the end of December 2024. Cuomo, who had not yet entered the race, led it from early January and rose to 92.5% on 22 May 2025. Mamdani never rose above 14.8% before June.

The turn came in June. Mamdani was 17.1% on 3 June, 28.3% on 17 June and 47.6% on the morning of the primary, 24 June.

Polls closed at 9 p.m. Eastern. Within three minutes Mamdani's price passed 50%, at 9:03 p.m. Eastern; it passed 90% at 9:28 p.m. Eastern. Cuomo conceded later that night, less than two hours after the polls closed. The full ranked-choice count came later; the market had settled the question within the hour.

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Polymarket's mayoral market opened on 22 April 2025 and traded about 429.6 million dollars, 143 million of it on Mamdani. Cuomo led it on 64 days, until two days after the primary; Mamdani led on the other 131.

Cuomo did not fall to zero when he lost the primary: he stayed on the ballot as an independent, and the day after the primary the market still gave him 47.0%. Eric Adams, the sitting mayor running as an independent, peaked at 26.4% on 8 July. By September Mamdani was above 80%, and he went into election day at 91.7%.

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On election day Mamdani's price dipped to 88.2% in the early hours and stood at 95.3% an hour before the polls closed. At 9 p.m. it was 97.6%; at 9:06 p.m. Eastern it passed 99%. The Associated Press called the race at about 9:34 p.m., with Mamdani at 50% of the counted vote.

The market's speed is not a prediction made in advance: by 9 p.m. it was reading the same early returns and exit information as everyone else, and pricing them faster than a desk that waits for enough counted votes to call.

This page publishes the day after the 2026 midterm elections, when the same question comes up race by race: how far ahead of the call the price moves. The 2024 election-night study measured it across states; the midterm scorecard scores the 2026 prices against the results.

Prices are Polymarket's Yes prices from its public price-history API: daily values for the whole campaign and minute values for both election nights. A candidate leads on a day when it has the highest price; the first daily readings, which can be listing placeholders, are dropped where they sit 30 points or more from the next reading.

Results, the concession and the AP call time are from published reports. Times are Eastern. This page reads public prices; it is not a forecast by Vultax and not advice to trade.