MAGA Voters for Mamdani and a New Progressive Alliance: The Biggest Surprises from New York’s Mayoral Race

Just 48 hours prior to the NYC race for mayor, political analyst Michael Lange issued a bold electoral prediction – going beyond who would win overall, but precinct by precinct. The analyst, a political analyst who grew up in New York City, has spent over a decade in progressive politics and emerged as a kind of local celebrity this year for his deep dives into municipal statistics and voter surveys.

He published his extremely precise forecast map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani would win while missing the independent candidate’s strong performance – on his Substack, his platform. He has a flair for clever terms. He highlighted, for instance, the split between the progressive stronghold, running from Park Slope to Bushwick to Astoria, where he predicted (accurately) that the left-wing candidate would win by huge margins, and the conservative-leaning zone on Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides. In those areas, “the Free Press and Wall Street Journal outrank the New York Times” in audience and most voters favored the independent, campaigning as a conservative-courting independent.

Election Night Patterns and Unexpected Results

What was your election night?

I had to do that since they were adding around 200,000 votes into the system every few minutes! I felt a little nervous at the beginning: Mamdani led the initial ballots by 12 points, but there were two big batches of votes added after that and the advantage dropped from 12% to 8%. I was worried.

Understand, there was a world in which yesterday turned out kind of poorly for Mamdani, in which Cuomo was going to end up basically increasing his support from the Democratic primary. However Mamdani added half a million supporters to his initial base, and this was critical why he succeeded. He went out and massively expanded his support from the first round.

Coalition Building

How did Mamdani get those extra votes from?

He built the coalition that progressives always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, it’s young, tenants and individuals squeezed by affordability. He improved considerably with Black and Hispanic voters, everyday New Yorkers, compared to the earlier election. Plus he further maximized his base of left-leaning activists, youthful radicals, and immigrant groups. Victory required without making those significant inroads.

He built the coalition that progressives long aimed for: multiracial, young, tenants and residents squeezed by affordability

Additionally, there were a number of Trump/Mamdani voters – is that a big trend?

It’s definitely a genuine phenomenon, confined to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Islamic voters. Electors in immigrant strongholds that went for Trump previously backed Zohran this year. But it’s not that he was gaining Caucasian laborers and Trump loyalists.

Voter Participation and Impact

A major development of the night was the record participation. Who did that help?

Each candidate. Participation was much greater than anticipated. I figured it could exceed two million, but it reached 2.3M – that is a lot of darn voters. There was a decent anti-Mamdani block, energized, but the Mamdani base was equally driven, and that was enough to win.

You forecasted he’d get over 50% of the vote. Is he on course for that?

Currently it appears he’s likely to surpass half. He has 50.4% but there’s still around 200K ballots uncounted as of Wednesday morning. So I don’t think it’s definitive, but I believe it’s likely, and I wish he does so afterwards no one can say Sliwa was a spoiler.

Republican Collapse

The GOP candidate, the Republican candidate, was another surprise. His vote completely collapsed.

He didn’t win any district in any borough. Not even Tottenville in Staten Island, which is like an 88% Trump neighborhood. That truly was unexpected. Cuomo kept very white areas, affluent zones and devout communities, and plus gained many Republicans on Staten Island who had a high participation. I think there was a lot of tactical voting by GOP voters. This happened prior to the former president tweeted his support for the candidate, but it assisted. It might have changed the outcome unless Mamdani’s coalition failed to expand.

The “Commie Corridor”

What about your much mentioned left-wing base – did backing for the candidate dominant in those areas of Brooklyn and Queens?

In my view existed a little dilution of the commie corridor in some areas like Astoria or Greenpoint that have more older white ethnic folks. There, for example, the Greek landlords and residents supported Cuomo. Thus there was some opposition. But overall, mostly the leftist base is another huge reason why Zohran prevailed – he was polling between 77% and 83% in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bushwick.

Jewish Voters

In the lead-up to the election there was coverage on whether the candidate was making inroads with Jewish New Yorkers. Any indication that he succeeded?

Exist areas with a lot of secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – like Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he did well. But in the affluent districts like the Upper East Side, his position on Israel was influential in those places. Similarly in the more middle-class Jewish areas including Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they favored the independent. Plus, you have newcomers from the former Soviet Union in southern Brooklyn, they were strongly Cuomo. So I don’t know if there were major surprises on this one, but he did hold more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and including sections of the Upper West Side by big margins.

Long-Term Significance

Did Mamdani redefine what the city represents in politics? Will commie corridor become a launch pad for progressive contenders?

Absolutely, it’s no coincidence that some of the biggest figures from the left hail from a few areas in the boroughs. I believe that we’ll see more of that – people will emerge from these neighborhoods to be promoted to higher office.

However I think that every city in the US could develop similar progressive hubs. Cities are the centers of progressive influence in America – since youth reside there, people rent and they represent locales where individuals struggle by the inequalities exist.