Early voting for local elections is underway, and turnout appears to already have doubled that of the mayoral primary four years ago. Epicenter NYC reporters fanned out across four boroughs this week– from a few blocks from the Yankees game to a “No Kings” rally in Forest Hills–and talked to the voters behind the upsurge. Notably, they didn’t describe themselves as enthused as much as fed up.
Neighbors aren’t tuning out. They’re frustrated with lapses in city services, feeling unsafe in the streets and subways and at home, and unsure if voting is actually going to change anything.
The complaint from Queens: Can the city get services right?
For the first time in his life, Robert Bass, a lifelong New Yorker and senior from St. Albans, Queens, is undecided about his vote. He’s ambivalent about whether the next mayor or comptroller will ensure city services run right and hold agencies accountable. Bass says he has dealt with identity theft, a break-in involving a gun, and party noise that goes well into the early morning. “I told [the police] how to follow up,” he said. “They never followed up.”
In St. Albans, he sees homes originally built for one family being turned into two- and three-family dwellings, often without the community’s input.
“They tear down a house, leave three walls, call it a renovation, and rebuild as a two-family,” Bass says. That means more cars on the street, more people sharing the same aging sewer system, and more pressure on sagging infrastructure. “It only happens in neighborhoods where the ethnic population is different,” he said.
Bass doesn’t hear much in the news or from politicians about homeowners like him. “There’s always an emphasis on rent relief. But what about homeowners?” His water bill is wrong, he says; he was charged for water he couldn’t have possibly used the last time he was out of town. But no one from the city will fix it.
He’s not alone in feeling like the system is broken.
The view from the once-Jewel of Harlem
For Esplanade Gardens native Allan Bolden, 42, environmental health is one of his most motivating issues. Esplanade Gardens was once called the “Jewel of Harlem,” celebrated for helping Black New Yorkers attain home ownership. For decades, it’s fallen into disrepair. Bolden says the city needs to start inspecting buildings harder for mold and asbestos. Bolden cites mold inhalation as a root of chronic health problems in parts of Harlem and the Bronx.
“A lot of the sickness we’re going through is coming from slumlords within the five boroughs,” says Bolden. “On top of that, it puts everyone, even visitors, in danger.”
In his neighborhood, Bolden plays the role of civics educator—but has concerns that too many options in the mayoral race can lead to information paralysis and decision fatigue. He says the amount of Googling required to really know what each candidate stands for is mind-boggling.
To learn more about Ranked Choice Voting, visit nycvotes.org, where you can even practice ranking your favorites.
In the Bronx, all politics is local
At the BX41 bus stop across the street from the Bronx Supreme Court, an early voting site, Franklin (who did not want to provide his last name) said the issue isn’t just broken promises. “They say what they’re gonna do,” he said. “But it’s not up to them. It’s zoning laws. It’s economics.”
Despite the mayor not having complete control over the system, Rasheen Brantley, 50, a Bronxite who was near an early polling site in the Lower East Side, says he wishes more neighbors would be half as tuned into local politics as they are to the Trump administration.
“[The president] doesn’t govern my state … So they’re more important to me, the mayor and the governor, as far as New York is concerned,” Brantley says.
Housing concerns > Cuomo concerns
Some voters are clear about who they’re supporting and ruling out, like Luis Laguer in Forest Hills. His top choice for mayor? Andrew Cuomo. “Compared to all the candidates, he was already governor,” he said. “So he knows how the state runs. He knows what works, what he can do, what he cannot do.”
Laguer doesn’t think Cuomo’s past controversies are disqualifying. “Cuomo didn’t have a reputation problem like Trump,” he said. “I’m looking at what he will do for the city.” He remembers Cuomo’s leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic, and thinks his understanding of the state budget and infrastructure would matter in the mayor’s office.
Other voters we spoke with during and after the No Kings Rally in Kew Gardens and Forest Hills also vouched for Cuomo based on him “getting [us] through Covid.” Some shrugged at the charges against him for sexual harassment and mishandling funds. “Nobody’s perfect,” said one voter, a 72-year-old retired public school teacher from Forest Hills.
For Laguer, affordable housing is the top priority. “A studio apartment costs $1,000 to $2,000. It’s ridiculous,” he said. “Housing is something people can’t afford.” Eric Adams’s promises to fix it? “It’s great if it happens,” Laguer said. “How long will it take?”
Laguer plans to rank multiple candidates: Cuomo first, followed by Brad Lander. But he admits he’s not watching campaign ads or debates. “He handled the statewide budget, knows the mechanism, who to talk to. He has connections,” he said.
Still, Sunnyside neighbor Julio Ruiz, for whom rent affordability is also a key issue, doesn’t think Cuomo is the solution. “He’s Trump-adjacent,” he said.
How immigration policy plays into choices
Laguer’s partner—who doesn’t vote in NYC but follows politics closely—is skeptical of Eric Adams too, especially when it comes to immigration and how the city handled its sanctuary status. “I wouldn’t vote for [Eric] Adams because of his corruption and the issue with ICE and immigrants,” says the woman who declined to give her name, holding a sign that reads “No Crown / No Throne / No Kings / Only Taco.”
Other voters we spoke with after the No Kings rally in Queens similarly pledged to vote based on the candidates less likely to support the federal crackdown on immigration.
“The policies Donald Trump has introduced are different, and things could get bad here,” says David De la Rosa, a Bronx neighbor who can’t yet vote but is following politics, especially around immigration policy, as he did in his Dominican homeland. “Look at what happened in Los Angeles.”
Speaking in Spanish, De la Rosa cites concerns over media literacy and neighbors unaware of being fed political misinformation. He also sees racial bias among his Spanish-speaking neighbors: “This is a majority-Latino area, and the Latino vote tends to favor white candidates, not Black ones; it’s a trend,” he says. “People talk about Cuomo—some like him—but you have to look at the candidates’ history.”
In the Lower East Side, Taijah, who declined to share her last name, says the unfolding of the federal immigration crisis requires that voters look beyond their pet issues.
“The same way a lot of Hispanic immigrants voted for Trump for their reasons and now you see that same man deporting those same people who voted for him…people should consider everybody and not just themselves, not just their demographic or their nationality,” Taijah says. “People wish they could take certain things back and you can’t.”
Mixed feelings on Ranked Choice Voting (RCV)
Others feel less sure about their choice in mayoral candidates, but don’t necessarily think having more options in the primaries makes it better.
“It feels dumb to me because there’s nothing for the runner-up,” said Tyler Agota, 22, a voter we spoke with at Port Richmond High School, an early voting site in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood in Staten Island. “If you’re second place, that’s it … it’s whoever wins and that’s it.”
Brantley likened it to an All-Star game: “My guy might not get as many votes and this guy can get as many fifth place votes and still become the mayor. So I don´t really like that.”
A few voters at Queens Borough Hall, another early voting site, were also wary of ranked choice. Catherine Jarrat, a public school teacher, concerned about President Trump’s attacks on rights such as transgender expression, blamed ranked choice for helping elect our current mayor, whose independence from Trump she sees as compromised. Mayor Adams had been indicted on accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions–only to have the Trump administration dismiss federal corruption charges. There have been implications this was a political maneuver and might influence Adams’ stance toward and cooperation with the president.
SG, a city worker in the North Bronx who only agreed to be identified by her initials, says she’s wary of ranked choice voting when the race seems close between candidates like Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani.
“My main concern is fairness,” she said. “I don’t want to hear some, ‘oh the polls got hijacked, oh this, oh something didn’t go correctly.’”
Still, most voters we spoke with liked the idea of ranking their choices. They see it as another chance to elect candidates with whom they have fewer qualms.
The rent is too damn high
Many of the Bronxites we spoke with want someone who understands their lived experience. “Two grand [in rent] is relatable, y’all,” SG said. That’s what she wants to hear a candidate talk about: the kind of rent that eats your entire check. By contrast, Cuomo’s nearly $10K rent (he’s given three answers on what he pays) makes him unrelatable to people like SG.
“That’s a huge red flag,” SG said. “Why is it the other candidates live here on rent assistance or subsidized housing or something along those lines or at least pay two grand?”
It’s a disconnect she says might have real consequences this time around: “A lot of his main supporters were here in the Bronx, but a lot of [them] are turning against him,” SG says.
She has seen the effects of this disconnect firsthand, in Cuomo’s decision as governor to cut funding for school buses: “My mom was affected -– and as a child, seeing that, seeing my mom have to go to strike and she’s here crying, worrying about rent,” SG says, sticks with her.
Other issues SG cares about: homelessness and safer parks. She wants a mayor who will tackle drug rehabilitation, especially among New Yorkers who are homeless. And feeling safe, like she used to.
“I used to be here in this park by myself with my iPod, … the park over here, and over there when this used to be a park, not a stadium,” SG said, pointing in the direction of the Yankees game. “I would love for other children out here to… have the same experience like I grew up with.”
But any relatability that helped Eric Adams in the last election– being part of the New York police department and a graduate of City Tech (like SG) — won’t work this time around, she says: “I don’t give a [expletive] how much we relate. Are you corrupt or are you good? Eric Adams, you did one term and you [screwed] up so bad that you’re going to court now.”
Her point is well taken, even in a small sample size: None of the dozens of voters we spoke with in the Bronx, Queens, Lower East Side or Staten Island said they would vote for Eric Adams.
Israel-Iran conflict on their mind
SG’s partner, Andrew, who declined to give his last name, appreciates socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani for seeming real, “sassy” in his publicized clapbacks to Cuomo, and “for the people.” He says Mamdani also isn’t part of the “hivemind.”
Andrew pointed to a portion of a recent debate he caught on social media. Mayoral candidates were asked which country they would want to travel to: “They were just like drones; they said, ‘Israel,’” Andrew said. Mamdani was an exception. “He was like, ‘well, I’m staying here. I’m focusing on people in New York.’”
The Port Richmond voter, Agota, thinks along the same lines: “I think Zohran is right for the city — he’s a real New Yorker and we need that,” he says. “We need someone who actually represents us in our values. Cuomo doesn’t even [expletive] live here … then [Eric] Adams lives in [expletive] Jersey.”
While his parents voted for Cuomo — a trend Agota thinks is more common among older voters — he says voting for candidates based on their political legacy and name recognition has “gotten us nowhere.”
And the everyday issues on their mind
While Andrew is too late to register to vote this year, SG says other young voters like her who didn’t vote in the last mayoral election are paying more attention.
“People are tired; Eric Adams did so much bullshit, too,” she says. “We do not want our New York money, tax dollars, to go to people that are not New Yorkers.”
SG points to policies like city lotteries that allow non-New Yorkers to apply for subsidized housing. As a born and raised New Yorker, that stings.
“New Yorkers should be first on the list because why do we have New Yorkers homeless? Why is that even a thing?” she says. “Why can’t people from West Mother [expletive], that’s not even from the state, be able to get chosen to get Section 8 housing?”
For De la Rosa, it’s these everyday issues that motivate his neighbors to vote, like “ ‘Who will guarantee my weekly paycheck?’ ” he says. In his six years in New York, he sees voters are driven almost entirely by job security, benefits, and economic survival. He wishes more New Yorkers would look at the bigger picture too, including corruption and threats to democracy: “Many people live in a bubble, even with all the technology and knowledge we have,” he says.
Yet for Brantley, the onus is on local politicians to do a better job at meeting people where they are. For instance, many voters don’t know what a comptroller does, including their role in safeguarding unclaimed funds. “Most people are ignorant to that and don’t know all it’s doing is being absorbed into another budget that they get to control, says Brantley.”
City officials need to create programs that uplift people, something Brantley, who works in a shelter, considers a glaring gap: “I don’t see these people really helping anybody get on their feet and become self-made people,” he says. “A lot of these people are being pacified to … continue to live this life because someone else is footing the bill.”
Brantley says New Yorkers, including young people, want to “skip steps.” While some rely on “handouts,” critical issues like crime, education cuts, and the high cost of living that contributes to this dependency in the first place — go unaddressed.
Politicians also need to do this education with more heart: “Just because you had authority on me, you [don’t] have to be a robot,” he says. “You can always be a human and let people know that you see them. Because that’s all we’re trying to do is be seen. Everybody wants to be acknowledged.”
