Eric Adams has moved ahead of Andrew Yang in a new poll of the mayoral race released Monday, leaving Yang’s consistent front-runner status in question as the first negative ads against him hit the airwaves two weeks before the June 22 primary.
Twenty-two percent of likely Democratic voters said in an Spectrum News NY1/Ipsos poll that they would select Adams as their first choice on their ranked-choice ballot. Yang received 16 percent, followed by Kathryn Garcia with 15 percent, Scott Stringer with 10 percent, and Maya Wiley with 9 percent; 16 percent of the voters polled answered “Don’t Know.”
When polled about their second choice, Stringer received 15 percent followed by Adams at 14 percent, Wiley at 12 percent, Yang at 11 percent, and former HUD secretary Shaun Donovan at 9 percent; 20 percent of voters said they “Don’t Know” who their second choice selection would be.
This marks a significant change from Spectrum News’ April poll, in which Yang led the group with 22 percent with Adams in second place receiving 13 percent. In recent weeks, Adams’s profile has risen, obtaining endorsements from the New York Post and Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who rescinded his previous endorsement of Stringer owing to accusations of sexual assault and harassment.
The shift in polling comes as new negative ads are set to debut against Yang for the first time. Politico New York reports Steve Nislick and Wendy Neu from NYCLASS, an animal-rights organization, are putting $200,000 toward TV and digital ads that question Yang’s history as a businessman and take issue with several positions he has taken as a candidate.
