New Yorkers seem to still like Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and new polling data exclusively shared with Heard Around Town confirms it. 

Pollster Bradley Honan (a proud subscriber to this newsletter) surveyed 416 likely Democratic voters in NYC and found that 64% of them held a favorable view of Mamdani, with only 32% having an unfavorable view. Those voters are even happier with how he’s handled his first six months in office, with 74% approving of the job he’s doing as mayor. (The poll has a margin of error of 4.6 points, which makes little difference when the numbers are this good for Mamdani.) The mayor’s impressive popularity seems to have rubbed off on NYC-DSA, his political home, with 54% of Democratic voters in NYC holding a favorable opinion of the Democratic Socialists of America and just 21% holding an unfavorable opinion of the socialist group.

The big question tonight is whether all those Democrats who love the mayor will come out and vote for his endorsed candidates. Mamdani endorsed three congressional candidates (Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Brad Lander), along with six state legislative candidates running in open seats (Aber Kawas, Diana Moreno, Samantha Kattan, Brian Romero, Illapa Sairitupac and Eli Northrup).

For Mamdani, the most important race is probably the NY-7 primary, where Valdez is running to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez – against Velázquez’s preferred successor Antonio Reynoso. The primary will be a direct test of Mamdani and NYC-DSA’s power and influence in a district that is almost tailor-made for the socialist group. NY-7 encompasses much of the so-called “Commie Corridor” full of young, left-leaning renters and counts more than 2,600 NYC-DSA members in good standing – the most of any congressional district in NYC. 

Valdez has the mayor, the socialist left and UAW (which in NYC largely represents lefty workers at universities and public defender offices) on her side, while Reynoso has almost all of the institutional progressive left: the WFP, most unions, grassroots nonprofit groups and non-socialist progressive electeds like Jumaane Williams and Letitia James.

The difference between Valdez and Reynoso isn’t policy but political temperament: Reynoso is a typical progressive, but Valdez is a DSA member through and through who wants to work closely with the socialist group to build DSA’s power in Congress. If Mamdani and DSA can power her to Congress, it will cement his and DSA’s status as the leaders of NYC’s progressive movement – at the expense of the WFP – and start to nationalize the movement he’s already building in the city. If Reynoso wins, it’s a sign that the mayor and the socialists aren’t as powerful as they think and the institutional left still runs the show in NYC.

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Ahead of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s new moratorium on hyperscale data centers, polling in New York City found likely voters were wary of the energy-intensive projects and favored additional regulations.

Pollster Bradley Honan surveyed 617 likely voters in the five boroughs between June 12 and 17. Results showed that 35% of them supported tighter restrictions on data centers and other artificial intelligence infrastructure. That’s far more than the 24% of respondents who said the state should make it easier to build. However, a plurality of 36% of likely voters polled said they didn’t know or had no opinion – so Hochul may have the chance to get more voters on her side. The governor has been doing the media rounds celebrating the first-in-the-nation order earlier this week.

Despite somewhat split thoughts about restrictions, a slight 52% majority of people polled said the state should not welcome more data centers into the state. The question framed the positives as bringing jobs and tax revenue, and negatives as high water usage and strain on the energy grid.

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Skift Take
The Republican mid-term convention in Dallas may not be a one-off. With coordination limits gone, expect political parties to detach from the presidential cycle — meaning convention centers and host cities need to start planning for political business in off-years, not just election years.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission eliminates federal limits on coordinated spending between political parties and federal candidates. This gives national and state parties greater flexibility to fund campaign operations, voter outreach, advertising, and events.

Bradley Honan, CEO and president of Honan Strategy Group, a political strategist and pollster, expects the ruling to lead to more political gatherings.

“We will see a significant uptick in the number of political events held, including conventions, mini-conventions, and get-togethers. More groups will be brought together, and there will be an acceleration in spending,” said Honan. “The smartest candidates and campaigns convene people. They bring them together.”

Honan said campaigns increasingly recognize the value of bringing supporters together in person. “People want to get off their phones, and they want to get together,” said Honan. “Trump is acutely aware of that. He has his finger on the pulse of this, and that is why he is having an off-year convention. This has never happened before.”

Although Trump’s Republican midterm convention was announced before the Supreme Court’s decision, it illustrates political parties’ willingness to invest in large-scale events outside traditional presidential election cycles.

While national party conventions traditionally occur every four years during presidential elections, Republicans are planning a two-day national gathering in Dallas on September 9–10 at the American Airlines Center. President Trump has described the event as a celebration of the party’s agenda featuring elected officials, business leaders, entrepreneurs, first responders, and entertainment.

Political Meetings Expected to Increase

Honan believes there will be more campaign meetings, volunteer training sessions, donor gatherings, and strategy events, particularly in competitive states. He expects battleground states, including Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, and Wisconsin, to see increased campaign activity as parties invest more heavily in closely watched races.

Political events are often booked on short notice and require heightened security, credentialing, media facilities, flexible contracting, rapid logistics, and contingency planning. Those demands can create opportunities for hotels, convention centers, and suppliers experienced in managing high-profile events.

“These days, increased amounts of campaign funding are spent on advertising on social media such as YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat, and other ways to influence people who don’t normally pay attention to conventional news sources,” said Grimes.  “This doesn’t mean that in-person political events will not continue, as they have in the past. But they will not increase proportionately with any increased spending.”

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Put simply, New York City does not resemble the rest of the United States.

Public school children here speak 176 different languages. There is no functional Republican Party in most races. We use ranked-choice voting for mayoral and city council contests, but not for governor, State Senate or State Assembly. Our media market is the most expensive in the country. And 73 percent of Manhattan apartments advertised on StreetEasy mention having a doorman, meaning canvassers can’t even get into the building to knock on doors.

The city’s Democratic Party is composed of younger progressive upstarts and aging traditional liberals. Paradoxes abound: The third-wealthiest congressional district in the country, New York’s 12th District, sits a few subway stops from the poorest, New York’s 15th District.

The post Campaigns & Elections Op Ed: What New York’s Primary Revolt Means for Democrats in 2026 (and 2028) appeared first on Honan Strategy Group.

The Big Apple bleeds red, white and blue.

An overwhelming majority of city residents are proud to be an American, a new poll found as the nation celebrates its 250th birthday.

While the Empire State has long been regarded by some as one of the least patriotic states, the Honan Strategy Group poll revealed that 68% of Big Apple respondents said they are proud to call the United States their home.

Just 21% expressed anti-American sentiments.

Though a majority of those polled love the USA, many also fear it’s in trouble.

Of the city dwellers surveyed, 43% percent think the country is in a “serious decline” and 62% are pessimistic about its future over the next 10 years.

Thirty percent said America has dire issues but they can be fixed, according to the poll.

Only 19% of respondents believe the United States is the greatest nation in the world — even though 55% said they were thrilled for the America 250 celebrations in New York City.

“New Yorkers aren’t anti-American. They’re alarmed about America. That’s a very different thing and it’s the mood heading into July 4,” Bradley Honan, the group’s CEO, told The Post.

New York’s complicated relationship with patriotism is nothing new.

The state is the second-least-patriotic state in the country, according to a WalletHub survey from June.

Arkansas residents are the least proud to be American, while people in Virginia are the most patriotic among all 50 states, that survey found.

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Some 72% of Jewish voters hold unfavorable views of the democratic socialist mayor, compared with 67% of non-Jewish voters who approve of his performance

New polling data shows that a sizable majority of Jewish voters disapprove of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s job performance and fear he is pushing the Democratic Party too far to the left, in contrast with non-Jewish voters who hold a largely favorable view of the outspoken democratic socialist.

The gap between Jewish and non-Jewish survey respondents underscores the degree to which Jewish Democrats in New York and across the country increasingly feel out of place in their party amid a rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment on the far left, which has gained traction in recent state and congressional elections.

The poll, shared exclusively with Jewish Insider, showed that 72% of Jewish voters hold unfavorable views of Mamdani’s performance six months into his tenure, with 28% approving. Non-Jewish voters were more positive about the mayor — with 67% approving and 28% disapproving of Mamdani’s actions.

Meanwhile, nearly three in four Jewish voters said that they believed Mamdani’s views were outside the Democratic mainstream in New York City, compared with 52% of non-Jewish respondents who shared the same assessment.

And well over half of Jewish voters, 61%, said the Democratic Party under Mamdani was moving too far to the left, with 36% of non-Jewish voters feeling similarly. Non-Jewish respondents were, at 26%, also nearly twice as likely to say they felt the party had not moved enough to the left amid Mamdani’s mayorship — relative to 16% of Jewish voters, the poll revealed.

The poll was fielded days before Mamdani, a vocal critic of Israel, had helped elevate a trio of far-left candidates, including two Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidates with extreme records on Israel and antisemitism, to the nomination in New York’s congressional primaries last month, unseating a pair of pro-Israel House incumbents. The wins established Mamdani as a veritable kingmaker in New York City politics, amid a broader rise of democratic socialism now shaping the midterms.

“Taken together, the data reveals a significant fault line within New York City’s Democratic coalition,” a polling memo by Honan Strategy Group shared with JI notes, “one that cuts along religious lines and will bear watching as Mamdani’s mayoralty takes shape.”

The poll, conducted by Honan Strategy Group, surveyed 614 likely general election voters in New York between June 12-17. Most of the respondents, 515, were not Jewish, while 99 were Jewish. Nearly three-quarters of respondents were Democrats, with 16% identifying as Republican. The rest identified as independent or as unaffiliated, according to Bradley Honan, who conducted the survey. The poll’s overall margin of error was around 4%.

The results echo a separate survey released in April and sponsored by The Jewish Majority, a pro-Israel research group based in Washington, D.C. The poll of 665 Jewish voters in New York City showed that most respondents, 40%, believed that Mamdani was doing a “poor” job as mayor.

The poll also found that 82% of Jewish voters — including most of those who voted for Mamdani — were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the rise in antisemitism, which more than half, 58%, said was linked to the normalization of anti-Zionism espoused by the mayor and his allies on the far left.

Mamdani’s refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada,” 61% of Jewish voters agreed in the survey, also helped to embolden pro-Hamas protestors who have targeted synagogues in New York in his tenure.

More recently, Mamdani has faced blowback for his comments at a political rally last month in which he attacked the pro-Israel group AIPAC as “monsters” who “move millions in dark money,” which Jewish leaders said had evoked classic antisemitic tropes.

The mayor has defended his rhetoric, saying he was borrowing from a phrase used by the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci — though Mamdani quoted from a widely attributed mistranslation of his work.

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New Yorkers’ electric bills are shocking!

Only about half of New York City voters said they can run air conditioning without financial worry amid the heatwave, while nearly the other half must ration use or don’t have AC at all, a new survey claims.

The Honan Strategy Group 5 Borough Barometer poll found that just 47% of Big Apple voters say they have air conditioning and can afford to run it comfortably.

A nearly equal share — 44% — say they have AC but limit its use to keep their electric bills down.

The remaining 9% have no AC or gave no opinion.

“That is the quiet crisis hiding inside a seemingly routine question about summer plans,” said pollster Bradley Honan, president and CEO of the Honan Strategy Group.

“In a city where summer temperatures now routinely exceed 90 degrees, that means the majority of voters are making daily tradeoffs between their health and their utility bills.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani got roasted online for telling New Yorkers to set their air conditioners to a balmy 78 degrees as the Big Apple gets baked by the heat wave outside, with temperatures soaring to 100 degrees for the first time since 2012.

Meanwhile, New York’s sky-high electric bills have become a burning election year issue.

Property taxes and other levies imposed by New York lawmakers make up a substantial chunk of electric and gas bills paid to Con Edison and National Grid.

“I can cut your electric bill in half, day one, when I become governor,” said Nassau County Executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, who complained New York’s utility bills are 70% above the national average.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat seeking re-election to a second, four-year term, set aside $1 billion in the state budget approved last month to provide one-time energy rebate checks of up to $200 to more than 8 million New Yorkers to lessen the load.

The Honan Strategy group interviewed 614 voters via text from June 12-17. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.96 percentage points.

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist cronies who swept last week’s Democratic primaries boasted about an affordability message — but critics say it was anti-Israel furor that is fueling the party’s swing to the left.

State Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs admitted voters’ feelings on Israel helped propel Mamdani buddies to three House primary victories, including firebrand Darializa Avila Chevalier and former city Comptroller Brad Lander, who upset incumbent Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman, respectively.

Both Espaillat and Goldman backed the Jewish state — which may have motivated young activist liberals with pro-Palestinian views who have staunchly opposed Israeli military action in Gaza.

“Yes. I do think the Israel-Palestinian issue had an impact in the election,” Jacobs told The Post on Sunday. “It hurt establishment Democrats.

“There are people who may have voted against Espaillat and Goldman because of it,” he added. “It was important to the activists who came out and voted.”

The pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel campaign was a “more important issue for those who came out and voted” in low-turnout primary elections that saw only about 17% of party voters citywide participate, Jacobs said.

The national civil rights group the Anti-Defamation League blasted the insurgency for riding a wave of antisemitic sentiment to wins in the Big Apple, the city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel.

“On Tuesday night in New York City, a movement built on antisemitic rhetoric won three congressional primaries,” the ADL said in a statement on X.

The statement noted that as Mamdani moved through the jubilant crowd at a DSA victory party on the night of the primaries, attendees chanted, “From the river to the sea,” a phrase viewed as a call to wipe out Israel.

“We’re witnessing candidates succeed not in spite of their demonizing rhetoric against the Jewish community and the Jewish state, but because of it,” the ADL said.

“When leaders cheer slogans that dehumanize Jews, it does not stay at a victory party. It bleeds into schools, neighborhoods and daily life, putting Jewish families, children and communities at risk.”

The Mamdani-backed House candidates were part of a push to the left of the party that came alongside wins by legislature candidates handpicked by the Democratic Socialists of America.

The results were compared to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory in the 2018 elections and insiders and experts already say they could shift power in the state Democratic Party and reshape policy priorities for years to come.

Chevalier came under intense scrutiny during the campaign but still defeated five-term incumbent Espaillat in a close contest in the 13th House District, which covers Harlem/Washington Heights and parts of the Bronx.

She had attended an anti-Israeli rally in Times Square one day after Hamas’ horrific terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. At the rally, demonstrators torched the Israeli flag and flashed swastikas.

Chevalier centered her platform on halting US military aid to Israel and pushing for full divestment from the Jewish state.

DSA candidate Claire Valdez, who is now a state Assembly member, won an open seat in Brooklyn-Queens House District 7 by defeating Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, the favored candidate of retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez.

Meanwhile, Lander — who is Jewish and a former DSA member, claimed Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, He easily defeated two-term incumbent Goldman in a landslide.

Pollsters have noted a dramatic shift in the Democratic Party against Israel after the Gaza war.

“The voters who turned out were anti-Israel. The people who were fired up were anti-Israel and there was no counter to that,” said pollster Bradley Honan of the Honan Strategy Group.

A Gallup poll released in February found that more than half of Democrats in the US are anti-Israel — the first time a majority of members of a major political party had a negative opinion of the Jewish state. The question has been asked by the poll since 1989.

Only 33% of Dems surveyed by Gallup said they had a favorable view of Israel, while a whopping 60% viewed the Jewish State unfavorably and 4% had no opinion.

Jacobs acknowledged that support of Israel is a divisive issue within the party, but it has also become more so in the Republican Party.

He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct during the war in Gaza has galvanized the anti-Israel movement.

Jacobs, who is pro-Israel, believes the criticism is warranted nut he also said the pro-Palestinian, Israel haters are spreading falsehoods that need to be challenged.

“Saying Israel is committing genocide is wrong. It’s war,” Jacobs said.

He also said Israel is not an “apartheid” country as critics claim, saying minority Arab residents have rights like other citizens.

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The New York and Washington Democratic political class was in stunned disbelief last week, scrambling to interpret Tuesday’s primary results, and the unprecedented electoral successes of the Democratic Socialists at the ballot box.

The truth is, the signs of this so-called political “earthquake” were hiding in plain sight for anyone willing to delve into the data, rather than rely on conventional wisdom.

Last winter, before launching a series of public polls on the 2025 Democratic primary race for mayor of New York, our firm conducted an exhaustive analysis of the NYC Board of Elections voter file, examining primary turnout trends across multiple years under different political scenarios.

What we found was clear and unambiguous: a Republican president creates a surge in political engagement, and ultimately turnout, among Democratic primary voters. And when the White House is occupied by a Republican president named Donald Trump, who fuels unprecedented rage among Democrats, that upward turnout trend line is put on steroids.

This is not a new pattern. Barack Obama’s presidency helped give rise to the Tea Party on the political right, just as Trump’s presidency is today putting wind into the sails of the Democratic Socialists.

But critically, it’s not just the size of the Democratic primary electorate that changes during Republican presidencies — the composition changes too, in terms of demographics, or as we say, the “face” of the electorate.

The face of the anti-Trump “surge Democratic voter” who turned out last June and again this past Tuesday is more likely a younger, white, female, college- and graduate-school-educated, progressive voter, who is more affluent than the average city resident. Many appear to be transplants, who were not born in New York City.

A large number of these voters are likely burdened by student loan debt and are struggling to achieve an increasingly elusive American Dream and they are absolutely repulsed by everything Trump says and does. In short, they are tailor-made to receive the DSA’s pitch that the political and economic system isn’t working.

By polling a larger pool of these anti-Trump “surge voters” starting in early 2025, our firm identified Zohran Mamdani’s share of the vote in the mayoral race as being three times what other public polls had found, and led us to write an op-ed in Crain’s last February, saying Mamdani’s support was “surging” at a moment when most voters had never heard his name.

With Trump still in the White House, that same anti-Trump fever was again not surprisingly driving the composition and outlook of last week’s Democratic primary electorate, just as it did in June 2025.

Despite many bemoaning the supposedly light turnout this past Tuesday, NYC voter turnout actually surged 17% higher than four years ago — which is the most relevant recent point of comparison — a sign of the Trump turnout effect — even given the absence of a top-of-the-ticket race like governor on the ballot to drive turnout.

Make no mistake: this turnout trend will continue to shape Democratic primaries across the country until a Democrat retakes the White House. Whichever party holds the White House, the opposing party’s base gets energized — and in deep blue cities like New York, that energy shows up first and loudest in Democratic primaries, with those voters tilting well left of center.

Electoral volatility in the Age of Trump, like we saw last week, is only a surprise to people who weren’t paying attention.

None of this math works in favor of the DSA and against incumbents without a basic message from a candidate that lands, and here, too, the answer was hiding in plain sight. New Yorkers have been telling pollsters for nearly two years that affordability and cost of living are their top concerns. It was never a mystery.

What voters wanted alongside it was a bold, aggressive response — in Albany and in Washington — not another round of incremental tinkering.

Our most recent citywide 5 Borough Barometer survey found Democratic voters were deeply disenchanted with the Democratic Party: 78% said the party was doing only a fair or poor job advocating for working people, and 74% said it was falling short of standing up to the Trump presidency.

Half of Democratic voters (50%) said electing a new generation of younger, more progressive members who will challenge the party establishment should be the higher priority in this year’s congressional primaries, compared to 41% who prioritized protecting experienced incumbents who can block Trump’s agenda.

The DSA understood this sentiment and built a brand around clear, easy-to-articulate positions — “freeze the rent” being the obvious example. By contrast, mainstream Democrats struggled to communicate anything nearly as crisp.

One example of this messaging disconnect played out on the Upper West Side, in the Democratic primary for the 69th Assembly District. Mamdani backed Eli Northrup, who ran as a bold progressive, arguing that politics as usual was broken and that he’d fight in Albany for affordable housing.

His opponent, Stephanie Ruskay, struggled to articulate a clear rationale for her candidacy — one week running as a mom, the next as a rabbi. She largely avoided in-person campaigning, letting Northrup dominate the neighborhood with street-sign visibility and presence at community meetings.

Her closing argument gestured broadly toward supporting public education, tenants, and quality of life, without specifics that voters could hold onto. If elections are about voters making choices, Ruskay never made clear why she was different from Northrup.

Primary result: Northrup 60%, Ruskay 39%. Nobody should be surprised.

Message discipline is only half the equation — tone matters just as much, and the left and DSA got this right, too. In the Brooklyn/Manhattan 10th Congressional District, Brad Lander campaigned with the energy of someone building a bold progressive movement, while Congressman Dan Goldman spoke far too much like a prosecutor conducting a deposition. Democratic primary voters right now aren’t looking for a careful litigator — they’re looking for a fighter with fire in their belly.

Candidates who sound like they’re building a court case may be technically correct but still lose, because voters aren’t evaluating evidence — they’re looking for someone who shares their urgency and is ready to fight.

Primary result: Lander 66%, Goldman 34%.  Again, no surprises here.

Putting all these pieces together, none of what happened on Tuesday’s primary should have been a shock to the party establishment or incumbents running for reelection. The anti-Trump rage, the surge of younger, more educated progressive voters, the hunger for someone willing to fight on affordability with policy, message, and tone, in Albany and Washington — all of it was hiding in plain sight for anyone looking at the data rather than the tired, old playbook. This phenomenon isn’t going away, and it will keep influencing primary after primary until Democrats retake the White House.

Candidates and consultants who treat last week as an aberration, rather than a preview, will be caught flat-footed again. Back in December 2024, the voter file told us this trend was coming, and today it’s telling us now that it isn’t finished — and won’t be for a while.

Honan and Zeche are partners in the Democratic polling and data analytics firm of Honan Strategy Group. Honan is the co-president of the New York Metro Chapter of the American Association of Political Consultants.

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Gov. Kathy Hochul often says that New Yorkers care more about a good budget than an on-time one, but new polling from Honan Strategy Group shared exclusively with Heard Around Town suggests that’s not necessarily the case.

The survey of 614 NYC voters conducted between June 12 and 17 found that 33% of people polled were “very concerned” about the state’s inability to pass its over $270 billion budget on time, and another 28% said they were “somewhat concerned” about the budget’s tardiness.

Voters were also lukewarm on the final product, with 32% of respondents saying the budget got some things right, but fell short in others. Only 15% said it addressed the most important issues facing the state, while a combined 42% agreed the budget either missed too many important issues, or was overall a missed opportunity for the state.

One of the governor’s biggest priorities – delaying portions of the state’s climate law – didn’t land well with voters in the five boroughs, with 42% of respondents saying they “strongly disagreed” with the governor’s action and another 13% saying they “somewhat disagreed.”

At least the budget’s new immigrant protections were popular, with 52% of voters polled saying they “strongly agreed” with a measure limiting police cooperation with ICE.

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