🔗 Share this article

Just 48 hours before the New York mayoral election, political analyst Michael Lange made a significant electoral prediction – going beyond the winner overall, but precinct by precinct. The analyst, an expert in elections born and raised in the city, has spent more than ten years in progressive politics and emerged as something of a local celebrity recently for his thorough analyses into municipal statistics and voter surveys.

He released his extremely precise prediction map – which correctly forecast that Zohran Mamdani would win while failed to predict Andrew Cuomo’s solid showing – on his newsletter, his platform. Lange possesses a talent for witty coinages. He highlighted, for instance, the divide between the “commie corridor”, running from one neighborhood to another area to a third locale, where he predicted (correctly) that the left-wing candidate would win by large leads, and the “capitalist corridor” on affluent parts of Manhattan. There, certain media outlets and financial newspapers surpass the mainstream paper” in readership and most voters leaned toward the independent, who ran as a moderate alternative.

Election Night Patterns and Surprises

How was your election night?

I had to do that because they were dropping approximately 200K votes into the system every few minutes! I was actually a little nervous initially: Mamdani was ahead the early vote by a dozen percentage points, but came two big batches of ballots that came in after that and the advantage went from 12 to 8%. I was worried.

You know, there was a world in which election day turned out somewhat badly for him, where Cuomo would have essentially increasing his support from the Democratic primary. However Mamdani gained 500,000 supporters to his initial base, and that’s a huge reason why he succeeded. He campaigned and massively expanded his base from the primary.

Coalition Building

How did the mayor-elect gain additional support from?

He assembled the coalition that progressives always wanted to build: diverse racially, youthful, it’s renters and individuals facing cost pressures. He improved significantly with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the earlier election. Plus he boosted his core of liberal progressives, young leftists, and Muslims and south Asians. Victory required without expanding his appeal.

He created the coalition that progressives always wanted to build: multiracial, youthful, tenants and people squeezed by affordability

There were also a number of supporters of both candidates – is that a big trend?

It is a genuine phenomenon, limited to working-class Latinos, Asian communities and Muslims. Electors in immigrant strongholds that went for Trump last year backed the progressive this year. But it’s not that he was gaining Caucasian laborers and Maga voters.

Turnout and Impact

One of the big stories of the night was the sky-high participation. Who benefited?

Both sides. Participation was significantly higher than I had expected. I thought it could go over two million, but it reached 2.3M – that is a huge number of participants. There was a decent opposition group, who were motivated, but his supporters was equally driven, and that sufficed to secure victory.

You predicted he’d get over 50% of the vote. Is he likely for that?

Currently it appears he’s favored to get over half. He has 50.4% but there’s still around 200,000 votes uncounted at that time. Thus I don’t think it’s definitive, but I believe probable, and I hope he achieves it because then none can claim Sliwa was a spoiler.

Republican Collapse

Curtis Sliwa, the conservative contender, is the other big story. His vote completely collapsed.

He didn’t win a single precinct in any borough. Including Tottenville in the borough, which is like an 88% Trump neighborhood. That truly surprised me. The independent held Caucasian districts, affluent zones and devout communities, and plus gained all of these Republicans on Staten Island who had a strong turnout. I think there was significant strategic balloting by the Republicans. This happened before Trump tweeted his support for Cuomo, but it assisted. It could have even turned the tide unless Mamdani’s coalition failed to expand.

Progressive Strongholds

What about your much mentioned left-wing base – did backing for the candidate overwhelming in those parts of the boroughs?

I think there was some weakening of the commie corridor in certain places like neighborhoods that have older Caucasian residents. In Astoria, for example, the property owners and homeowners supported the independent. Thus there was some opposition. But no, largely the leftist base is a key factor why Mamdani won – he was polling between 77% and 83% in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bushwick.

Jewish Voters

Prior to the vote we reported on whether the candidate was gaining ground with the community. Is there any suggestion that he did?

There are neighborhoods with a lot of non-religious and left-inclined voters – like specific locales – where he did well. However in the affluent districts such as the Manhattan area, his position on Israel was influential there. Similarly in the moderate communities like Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they favored the independent. And also, you have Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in southern Brooklyn, who were strongly supportive. Therefore I don’t know if there were crazy narrative-busters here, but he did hold left-leaning areas and even parts of the Upper West Side by big margins.

Political Impact

Did Mamdani redefine what the city means politically? Will progressive base become a launch pad for leftwing candidates?

Absolutely, it’s no coincidence that some of the biggest figures from progressives come from a handful of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I believe that we’ll see additional examples – candidates will emerge from these neighborhoods to be promoted to higher office.

However I believe that each urban center in the US could develop similar progressive hubs. Cities are the centers of leftwing power in America – since they’re young, tenancy is common and they represent locales where people are crushed by the inequalities we face.