Only two days before the NYC race for mayor, political analyst Michael Lange made a significant electoral prediction – going beyond who would win overall, but precinct by precinct. Lange, an expert in elections who grew up in New York City, has spent over a decade in left-leaning activism and has become something of a local celebrity recently for his deep dives into municipal statistics and voter surveys.
He released his highly detailed forecast map – which correctly forecast that the progressive candidate was victorious although missing Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his Substack, the Narrative War. Lange possesses a talent for witty coinages. He highlighted, for instance, the divide between the progressive stronghold, running from one neighborhood to Bushwick to a third locale, where he forecasted (correctly) that the left-wing candidate would triumph by huge margins, and the “capitalist corridor” on affluent parts of Manhattan. There, “the Free Press and financial newspapers surpass the mainstream paper” in readership and the majority of electors favored Cuomo, campaigning as a conservative-courting independent.
What was your night?
I had to do that since they were dropping approximately 200K ballots into the tally every few minutes! I felt somewhat anxious initially: The candidate was ahead the initial ballots by a dozen percentage points, but came large groups of ballots that came in after that and his lead dropped from 12% to 8%. It was concerning.
Understand, it was possible in which yesterday turned out somewhat badly for Mamdani, in which Cuomo was going to end up essentially doubling his votes from the Democratic primary. But Mamdani gained half a million votes to his primary coalition, and that’s a huge reason why he won. He campaigned and massively expanded his base from the primary.
How did Mamdani gain additional support from?
He built the alliance that progressives always wanted to build: diverse racially, youthful, it’s renters and individuals facing cost pressures. He gained considerably with minority communities, everyday New Yorkers, compared to the earlier election. Plus he boosted his base of liberal progressives, youthful radicals, and Muslims and south Asians. Victory required without making those significant inroads.
He built the alliance that progressives always wanted to build: multiracial, young, renters and people struggling with costs
There were also some Trump/Mamdani voters – is this significant?
It is a genuine phenomenon, limited to working-class Latinos, Asian communities and Muslims. Voters in immigrant strongholds that went for the former president last year backed the progressive this year. However I wouldn’t say he was gaining white working-class voters and Trump loyalists.
A major development of the night was the sky-high participation. Who benefited?
Both sides. Participation was significantly higher than I had expected. I thought it could exceed two million, but it’s closer to 2.3 million – which is a huge number of participants. There was a substantial opposition group, energized, but the Mamdani base was also motivated, and that was enough to secure victory.
You predicted he’d get over half the ballots. Is he likely for that?
Right now it appears he’s likely to surpass half. He’s at just over 50% but remain probably 200K ballots left to report as of Wednesday morning. So it’s not it’s definitive, but I think probable, and I wish he achieves it because afterwards none can claim the Republican was a spoiler.
The GOP candidate, the conservative contender, is the other big story. His vote plummeted.
He didn’t win any district in any area. Not even Tottenville in the borough, which is like an highly conservative neighborhood. That truly surprised me. Cuomo kept very white areas, very wealthy areas and devout communities, and then added all of these Republicans on Staten Island with a high participation. I believe occurred a lot of tactical voting by GOP voters. This happened before Trump tweeted his support for the candidate, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome unless Mamdani’s coalition hadn’t grown.
Regarding your often-discussed left-wing base – was support for the candidate overwhelming in those parts of Brooklyn and Queens?
In my view existed some weakening of the progressive zone in some areas like neighborhoods that have older Caucasian residents. There, for example, the property owners and residents all went for the independent. Thus there existed a little resistance. However no, mostly the leftist base is another huge reason why Zohran won – he was polling between 77% and 83% in specific neighborhoods.
Prior to the election we reported on if the candidate was making inroads with the community. Is there any suggestion that he succeeded?
Exist neighborhoods with many secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – like specific locales – where he did well. However in the affluent districts such as the Manhattan area, his position on Israel was influential in those places. Likewise in the moderate communities like Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they favored Cuomo. And also, there are newcomers from Eastern Europe in southern Brooklyn, they were strongly supportive. Therefore it’s unclear if existed crazy narrative-busters on this one, but Mamdani retained left-leaning areas and even parts of the another locale with large leads.
Did Mamdani redefine what New York represents in politics? Will the commie corridor serve as a springboard for leftwing candidates?
Yes, it’s no coincidence that some of the biggest figures from the left come from a handful of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I’m sure that there will be more of that – candidates will come from these neighborhoods to be elevated nationally.
However I believe that each urban center in the US can have their own commie corridor. Cities are the centers of progressive influence in America – since youth reside there, people rent and they represent locales where individuals struggle by the disparities we face.
