On November 5th, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and the Asian Americans for Equality (AAF) released the results of an exit poll conducted outside polling stations in New York City on November 4th regarding the city elections. The data showed that nearly half (49.1%) of Asian American voters supported mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, with one-fifth (20%) of Asian American voters who had previously supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election choosing to vote for Mamdani in this year’s mayoral election.
The results also revealed that economic issues were the most important factor for Asian American voters when casting their ballots.
The exit poll was conducted by over 70 volunteers outside polling stations in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, targeting Asian American voters who had just cast their votes. A total of 1,268 Asian American voters were interviewed. In addition to English, the questionnaire was available in 10 Asian languages, including Chinese.
Among the Asian American voters surveyed in the exit poll, approximately half (49.1%) supported Mamdani, while about one-third (33.8%) supported Cuomo. Notably, an overwhelming 87.2% of South Asian voters voted for Mamdani, with only 9.6% supporting Cuomo, making them the group with the highest level of support among all ethnicities.
The respondents’ voting tendencies in the 2024 presidential election were found to be related to their choices in the mayoral election. Nearly three-quarters of voters who supported He Jinping last year voted for Mamdani, while 65% of Trump supporters switched to Cuomo, but 20% of Trump supporters ultimately chose Mamdani.
Additionally, 10% of the surveyed Asian Americans were first-time voters, with this proportion increasing to 20% among respondents aged 18 to 29. AALDEF pointed out that this signifies a more active engagement of the new generation of Asian Americans in political agendas and may have a long-term impact on the political landscape of New York City.
Regarding immigration policy, over half of Asian American voters held opposing views to former President Trump’s policies: 40.4% strongly opposed, 18.1% opposed, with only about a quarter expressing agreement or strong agreement.
The survey also showed that 50.2% of Asian American voters listed “economy/employment” as their top voting priority, far outweighing “public safety” (31.9%) and “democratic system” (28%) as the second and third priorities, respectively. Housing and healthcare were tied as the fourth most important issues (25.2% each).