Moderate Democrat, independent, and Republican New Yorkers opposed to a Democratic Socialist occupying Gracie Mansion are plotting to winnow the general election field and throw unified support behind Mayor Adams. But is Governor Cuomo a better candidate?  

A new poll released Thursday from Honan Strategy Group shows Mr. Cuomo with the best shot at beating Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in the general election in November. And it finds Mr. Cuomo stands an even better chance if Mr. Adams drops out — an unlikely scenario.

In front of a large crowd at City Hall, Mr. Adams on Thursday morning officially launched his campaign as one of defiance. He declined to run in the Democratic primary after facing federal corruption charges and allegations he made a quid pro quo deal with President Trump. He is instead running on two independent lines he created, “End Antisemitism” and “Safe & Affordable.”

Mr. Adams is pitching himself as the true working-class candidate in the race — a dig at Mr. Mamdani, whom he called a “snake oil salesman” on Wednesday — with a centrist, law-and-order message. Some of his base overlaps with that of Mr. Cuomo and also of the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa.

The strategy of going all-in for Mr. Adams in the general election is being hatched by business leaders and online, but it is largely contingent on Mr. Cuomo declining to run in the general election.

“The horse they’re going to back is Eric Adams,” a grocery store magnate and former Republican candidate for mayor, Jon Catsimatidis, told the Sun.

“You will see a united front to get rid of Mamdani,” the president of Empire State Properties, Suzanne Miller, told the Sun. “I think that all the money is going to start pouring in for Eric Adams.”

But the results of the Honan Strategy poll raise questions about this plan to back for Mr. Adams. The poll shows Messrs. Cuomo and Mamdani tying at 39 percent each in a five-way race. Mr. Adams earns 13 percent and Mr. Sliwa gets 7 percent in this scenario. An independent candidate, attorney Jim Walden, earns zero percent, with 2 percent undecided.

Honan also polled scenarios in which the field is winnowed. If Mr. Adams drops out of the race, Mr. Cuomo wins the general election with 44 percent of the vote to Mr. Mamdani’s 40 percent. Mr. Sliwa earns 11 percent.

Significantly, if Mr. Cuomo decides to quit, Mr. Adams does not win in the poll. Instead, Mr. Mamdani comes out on top with 46 percent of the vote to Mr. Adams’s 31 percent. Mr. Sliwa gets 11 percent.

The poll also finds that only 22 percent of New York voters think Mr. Adams should be re-elected. Between Messrs. Adams, Cuomo, and Mamdani, the poll finds — rather surprisingly — Mr. Cuomo with the highest favorability. The poll was conducted June 25-26, sampling 817 New Yorkers. The margin of error is 3.42 percent.

The question now is whether any of the polls should be believed, as most failed to catch the overwhelming support for Mr. Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary Tuesday night by more than 7 points in the first round of ranked-choice voting. The final results will be released next week and it’s possible Mr. Mamdani’s margin could grow. 

Honan Strategy Group conducted Democratic mayoral primary polls in February and March that were paid for by Tusk Strategies, whose chief executive advised Mr. Cuomo. These polls showed Mr. Cuomo with a significant early lead in the race and helped establish a sense of inevitability to his candidacy.

The Honan poll released Thursday is independently financed, and the chief executive of Honan Strategy Group, Bradley Honan, tells the Sun he did not know of Tusk Strategies’ connection to Mr. Cuomo until after he conducted those polls last winter. He said the voter base for this poll was expanded to include infrequent voters who may show up for a presidential election but not a primary or municipal one — in other words, Mamdani voters.

Mr. Sliwa told the Sun on Wednesday that no one has reached out to him about dropping out of the race. The Guardian Angels founder appeared on Fox News’s “Hannity” on Wednesday night to pitch himself as the best candidate to save New York.

Mr. Cuomo says he is still deciding whether to run as an independent. “We’re going to be looking at the numbers that come in from the primary, and then we have to look at the landscape in the general election, which is a totally different landscape,” he told CBS News.