By Vashti Smith
HAMPTON, Va. (HUNS) – As New York City’s mayoral race enters its final hours, candidates Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa are running to replace Mayor Eric Adams.
Hampton University students from New York are exercising their right to vote.
Earllissia Perry, a sophomore elementary education major from the Bronx, is voting because she feels it will make a difference in her family and community. “My parents never voted for any of the past mayors,” Perry said, “and I want a change to be made in New York.”
She believes Cuomo did nothing for New York as a former governor and didn’t adequately recent or past issues in the debate with Mamdani. Cuomo seems “more worried about his political status and being in Trump’s pocket” than about helping New Yorkers, she said.
Perry supports Mamdani’s goals. “He is what New Yorkers need, such as making the bus fares free,” she said. “He doesn’t care to be in Trump’s pocket because he wants New Yorkers to have a better chance than what has gone wrong before, and he is trying to fix it.”
“I think that Mamdani is going to win the election, because he’s actually trying to help fix New York as a whole,” she added.
Meanwhile Hampton student, Zharia Batson, a sophomore pre-nursing major from Queens, is voting because she believes that every election is important to the future and that New Yorkers need good representation.
“Every vote counts towards something, even if the person doesn’t win,” she said.
Batson has no opinions about the candidates, but said she has heard rumors about the former governor. “I’ve definitely heard bad things about Andrew Cuomo,” she said. “People have complained about him for years, but apparently Trump is scared of him and won’t touch New York.”
Batson was not sure who her vote will go. “Everyone who runs for anything, there’s always some kind of dirt found on them to make them look worse than they actually are.”
Despite her uncertainty, Batson believes Mamdini will win.
Vashti Smith is a student in the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University. Smith wrote this article as part of partnership with HUNewsService.com.
