🔗 Share this article

Only 48 hours before the NYC mayoral election, Michael Lange made a bold forecast – not just who would win overall, but block by block. Lange, an expert in elections who grew up in the city, devoted more than ten years in progressive politics and emerged as a kind of well-known figure recently for his deep dives into city data and voter surveys.

He published his extremely precise forecast map – accurately predicting that the progressive candidate would win while missing Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his newsletter, the Narrative War. Lange has a flair for clever terms. He highlighted, as an example, the split between the “commie corridor”, stretching from one neighborhood to Bushwick to a third locale, where he forecasted (accurately) that Mamdani would win by large leads, and the conservative-leaning zone on Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides. There, certain media outlets and Wall Street Journal surpass the New York Times” in audience and most voters favored the independent, who ran as a moderate alternative.

Election Night Patterns and Unexpected Results

What was your night?

It was necessary because they were adding around 200,000 votes into the system every few minutes! I felt somewhat anxious at the beginning: The candidate led the early vote by a dozen percentage points, but came two big batches of ballots added after that and his lead went from 12% to 8%. I was worried.

You know, there was a world where yesterday went kind of poorly for Mamdani, where Cuomo was going to end up basically increasing his support from the earlier contest. But Mamdani gained 500,000 supporters to his initial base, and this was critical why he won. He went out and massively expanded his base from the first round.

Coalition Building

How did the mayor-elect get additional support from?

He assembled the coalition that progressives long aimed for: diverse racially, youthful, tenants and individuals facing cost pressures. He gained significantly with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, compared to the primary. Plus he further maximized his core of left-leaning activists, youthful radicals, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without making those significant inroads.

He created the coalition that progressives always wanted to build: multiracial, young, renters and people struggling with costs

Additionally, there were a number of Trump/Mamdani voters – is this significant?

It’s definitely a real thing, limited to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Electors in immigrant strongholds that went for Trump last year backed Zohran now. However it’s not that he was winning over Caucasian laborers and Maga voters.

Turnout and Effects

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

Each candidate. Participation was much greater than I had expected. I figured it could go over 2 million, but it’s closer to 2.3 million – that is a huge number of participants. Existed a decent opposition group, who were motivated, but his supporters was equally driven, and that was enough to secure victory.

You predicted he’d get over half the ballots. Is he on course for that?

Currently it appears he’s favored to get over half. He’s at 50.4% but remain around 200K ballots left to report at that time. So it’s not it’s definitive, but I think probable, and I wish he achieves it so afterwards none can claim the Republican was a spoiler.

Republican Collapse

The GOP candidate, the Republican candidate, is the other big story. His support plummeted.

He didn’t win any district in any area. Not even Tottenville in the borough, similar to an 88% Trump area. That truly was unexpected. Cuomo kept very white areas, very wealthy areas and very religiously Jewish areas, and then added all of these Republicans on Staten Island with a strong turnout. I believe occurred a lot of tactical voting by the Republicans. They were doing it before the former president tweeted his support for Cuomo, but it assisted. It might have changed the outcome unless the winning alliance failed to expand.

The “Commie Corridor”

Regarding your much mentioned left-wing base – did backing for Mamdani dominant in those areas of Brooklyn and Queens?

In my view there was a little dilution of the progressive zone in some areas like Astoria or Greenpoint that have more older white ethnic folks. There, for example, the property owners and homeowners all went for the independent. Thus there was a little resistance. But no, largely the leftist base is a key factor why Zohran won – he scored between 77% and 83% in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bushwick.

Jewish Voters

In the lead-up to the election there was coverage on if Mamdani was making inroads with Jewish New Yorkers. Is there any suggestion that he did?

There are neighborhoods with a lot of secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – like Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he did well. However in the wealthy Jewish communities such as the Manhattan area, his position on Israel definitely mattered there. Likewise in the more middle-class Jewish areas like Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they all leaned Cuomo. And also, there are newcomers from Eastern Europe in southern Brooklyn, they were pretty staunchly supportive. So it’s unclear if existed crazy narrative-busters here, but he retained more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and even parts of the Upper West Side with large leads.

Political Impact

Has Mamdani rewritten what New York means politically? Will progressive base become a launch pad for leftwing candidates?

Yes, it’s no coincidence that some of the biggest political leaders from progressives come from a handful of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I believe that there will be additional examples – candidates will come from these neighborhoods to be elevated nationally.

But I think that each urban center in the US could develop similar progressive hubs. Cities are the epicenters of leftwing power in the nation – because youth reside there, tenancy is common and they are places where individuals struggle by the inequalities we face.