“You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try.” - Homer Simpson (1994)
In the final season of Succession, Roman Roy, holding his phone after the news of his media mogul father CEO’s passing had gone public, notes a visual drop in the company’s stock price. “There he is. That… is dad.”
Last week the then 1st-place Mets were swept by their publicly traded rivals, the Atlanta Braves. The Braves holding stock (BATRA) increased 9.0% after the series. There it is. That… is the Mets.
As you flip between the Mets attempt to avenge their losses against the Braves and NY1 election coverage tonight, here are some last nuggets of 2xParked wisdom:
Tonight’s leading candidate will not necessarily be the winning candidate. Assuming we get a fairly high tally by the time we go to bed, I estimate an 82% chance that tonight’s leading candidate will be the eventual winner. Although being in the driver’s seat is an optimal position, it is by no means a guaranteed winning position. This is essentially the same odds of needing a 1-5 on a 6-sided dice to win. You like your chances, but you also have rolled a lot of 6’s in your life.
We likely will not find out the winner until early July. I estimate that there is a 9% chance that the election gets called tonight. A candidate will likely need to exceed 43% of the vote in the first round to have the AP call the election before all votes are counted.
If no candidate gets over 50% of the vote — a 99% chance of that happening — then we will have to wait until all ballots are in to begin the ranked choice voting count. That will not start until July 1.Tonight’s winner is not receiving the golden key to Gracie Mansion. Unlike the last few primary elections where it was a forgone conclusion that the democratic primary winner would win the election, that is not the case in 2025.
It is fair to assume that likely-GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa will not win the general election, but November’s election could be a tight competition between the elected Dem nominee, the incumbent mayor, and, potentially, a former governor. Sliwa, serving as a de facto 3rd (or 4th) party candidate, could really throw a wrench into things as well.
Final Pre-Election MayorModel
A new Emerson poll was released yesterday with Mamdani on top of Cuomo. This is the first real poll with Mamdani projected to win.
If you are pro-Mamdani: The most interesting aspect of this poll is that it is also the first one to have a low undecided rate (4%). We have seen in past polls where there can be wild shifts in polling with high undecided rates. As I have said before, high undecided rate means high variance in results. Low means the results will likely be more stable.
If you are pro-Cuomo: This poll only includes voters who (1) have already voted and (2) are “very likely” to vote. The data does not include voters who are “somewhat likely” to vote or “not likely.” Standard practice is to model out who will actually vote (usually > 0). In the last Emerson poll, roughly 14% of voters were included in these buckets. This means that this poll is likely biased towards partisan and early voters, which might be a reason for the low undecided rate and the high Mamdani rate.
If you want the final pre-election MayorModel: Of course, this is not accounting for the heat tomorrow and any polls released after 10PM (I have a bed time). You can use your only mental math to see how that might impact things.
Final Thoughts
If you have not voted yet, go vote. Stay cool tomorrow. Bring a few bottles of water, sunscreen, and an umbrella for shade to your voting station.
If you need to catch up on where we stand, check out the past couple weeks of pre-election coverage at 2xParked:
And remember, let’s go Mets tonight!