🔗 Share this article

Only 48 hours before the NYC mayoral election, political analyst Michael Lange made a bold forecast – going beyond who would win overall, but precinct by precinct. Lange, a political analyst born and raised in New York City, has spent more than ten years in progressive politics and emerged as something of a well-known figure recently for his deep dives into municipal statistics and polling.

He published his highly detailed forecast map – which correctly forecast that Zohran Mamdani was victorious while failed to predict the independent candidate’s solid showing – on his Substack, his platform. He possesses a talent for clever terms. He pointed out, for instance, the split between the “commie corridor”, stretching from Park Slope to Bushwick to Astoria, where he forecasted (correctly) that Mamdani would triumph by huge margins, and the conservative-leaning zone on affluent parts of Manhattan. In those areas, certain media outlets and financial newspapers surpass the mainstream paper” in audience and most voters favored the independent, who ran as a conservative-courting independent.

Election Night Patterns and Surprises

How was your election night?

I had to do that since they were dropping 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 there were two big batches of votes added later and his lead went from 12 to 8%. It was concerning.

You know, it was possible where yesterday turned out somewhat badly for Mamdani, in which the opponent was going to end up basically increasing his support from the earlier contest. But the winner added half a million votes to his initial base, and this was critical why he won. He campaigned and massively expanded his base from the primary.

Expanding Support

How did Mamdani get those extra votes from?

He built the coalition that the left always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, youthful, it’s renters and it’s people facing cost pressures. He improved considerably with minority communities, everyday New Yorkers, relative to the primary. Additionally he further maximized his core of liberal progressives, young leftists, and Muslims and south Asians. Victory required without making those significant inroads.

He built the alliance that the left long aimed for: multiracial, young, tenants and residents struggling with costs

There were also a number of supporters of both candidates – is this significant?

It is a genuine phenomenon, confined to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Voters in immigrant strongholds that went for the former president previously went for Zohran this year. But it’s not that he was winning over Caucasian laborers and Maga voters.

Voter Participation and Effects

One of the big stories of the night was the sky-high turnout. Who did that help?

Each candidate. Participation was significantly higher than I had expected. I figured it could go over 2 million, but it reached 2.3 million – which is a huge number of participants. Existed a decent opposition group, energized, but the Mamdani base was equally driven, and that was enough to win.

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

Right now it appears he’s likely to surpass 50%. He has just over 50% but remain around 200,000 votes uncounted at that time. So I don’t think it’s definitive, but I believe it’s likely, and I hope he does because then no one can say Sliwa was a disruptor.

GOP Decline

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, was another surprise. His support plummeted.

He didn’t win any district in any area. Not even one neighborhood in Staten Island, which is like an highly conservative neighborhood. That really surprised me. Cuomo kept very white areas, affluent zones and devout communities, and then added many conservatives on the island who had a high participation. I think there was a lot of strategic balloting by the Republicans. This happened before Trump endorsed for Cuomo, but it assisted. It might have changed the outcome if Mamdani’s coalition failed to expand.

Progressive Strongholds

What about your often-discussed left-wing base – did backing for Mamdani dominant in those parts of the boroughs?

I think existed a little dilution of the commie corridor in certain places like neighborhoods that have more older white ethnic folks. In Astoria, instance, the Greek landlords and homeowners all went for Cuomo. So there existed a little resistance. But overall, largely the leftist base is another huge reason why Mamdani won – he was polling between 77% and 83% in specific neighborhoods.

Community Support

In the lead-up to the vote we reported on if the candidate was making inroads with Jewish New Yorkers. Any indication that he did?

There are neighborhoods with a lot of secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – such as Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he did well. But in the wealthy Jewish communities such as the Manhattan area, his position on Israel was influential there. Likewise in the moderate communities like Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they all leaned the independent. Plus, there are Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the borough, who were pretty staunchly Cuomo. So I don’t know if there were crazy narrative-busters here, but Mamdani retained more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and including sections of the Upper West Side with large leads.

Political Impact

Did Mamdani redefine what New York means politically? Will commie corridor become a launch pad for progressive contenders?

Yes, it’s no coincidence that some of the biggest political leaders from the left come from a handful of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I believe that we’ll see more of that – people will emerge from these areas to be promoted to higher office.

But I think that each urban center in the US can have their own commie corridor. Cities are the centers of leftwing power in America – because youth reside there, people rent and they are places where individuals struggle by the inequalities we face.