MAGA Voters for Mamdani and a New Left Coalition: Key Unexpected Outcomes from NYC’s Election

Only two days prior to the NYC mayoral election, Michael Lange issued a bold electoral prediction – not just who would win overall, and precinct by precinct. The analyst, an expert in elections who grew up in the city, devoted more than ten years in progressive politics and emerged as something of a well-known figure recently for his thorough analyses into city data and voter surveys.

He published his extremely precise prediction map – accurately predicting that the progressive candidate was victorious although missing the independent candidate’s strong performance – on his Substack, his platform. Lange has a flair for witty coinages. He pointed out, for instance, the split between the progressive stronghold, stretching from Park Slope to another area to Astoria, where he predicted (accurately) that the left-wing candidate would win by large leads, and the conservative-leaning zone on affluent parts of Manhattan. There, “the Free Press and Wall Street Journal outrank the New York Times” in readership and most voters leaned toward Cuomo, who ran as a conservative-courting independent.

Voting Day Trends and Surprises

How was your election night?

I had to do that because they were adding approximately 200K votes into the tally frequently! I felt a little nervous initially: The candidate was ahead the early vote by 12 points, but came large groups of ballots added after that and the advantage went from 12% to 8%. I was worried.

You know, there was a world where election day turned out somewhat badly for him, where the opponent was going to end up basically doubling his votes from the earlier contest. But the winner added half a million votes to his primary coalition, and this was critical why he succeeded. He went out and greatly broadened his support from the primary.

Coalition Building

Where did Mamdani get additional support from?

He built the alliance that the left long aimed for: diverse racially, it’s young, it’s renters and it’s people squeezed by affordability. He gained significantly with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the earlier election. Plus he boosted his base of liberal progressives, youthful radicals, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without expanding his appeal.

He created the alliance that the left always wanted to build: multiracial, youthful, renters and people struggling with costs

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

It is a real thing, confined to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Electors in immigrant strongholds that supported the former president last year went for the progressive now. However it’s not that he was winning over Caucasian laborers and Trump loyalists.

Turnout and Impact

A major development of the election was the sky-high participation. Who did that help?

Both sides. Participation was significantly higher than anticipated. I thought it could go over two million, but it reached 2.3M – which is a lot of darn voters. There was a decent 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 favored to surpass half. He’s at 50.4% but remain probably 200,000 votes left to report at that time. So it’s not certain, but I believe it’s likely, and I wish he does so afterwards no one can say the Republican was a spoiler.

GOP Decline

Curtis Sliwa, the conservative contender, is the other big story. His support plummeted.

He lost a single precinct in any borough. Not even one neighborhood in the borough, similar to an 88% Trump neighborhood. That truly surprised me. Cuomo held Caucasian districts, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and then added all of these conservatives on the island who had a high participation. I think there was significant 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 hadn’t grown.

Progressive Strongholds

What about your much mentioned “commie corridor” – was support for the candidate dominant in those parts of Brooklyn and Queens?

In my view there was some weakening of the progressive zone in some areas like Astoria or Greenpoint that have older Caucasian residents. There, for example, the Greek landlords and homeowners supported the independent. Thus there was a little resistance. But overall, largely the leftist base is another huge reason why Zohran won – he was polling between 77% and 83% in specific neighborhoods.

Jewish Voters

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

Exist neighborhoods with many non-religious and left-inclined voters – such as Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he performed strongly. But in the affluent districts like the Upper East Side, his Middle East stance was influential in those places. Similarly in the moderate communities like Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they favored the independent. And also, there are newcomers from Eastern Europe in the borough, who were strongly Cuomo. So I don’t know if existed crazy narrative-busters here, but Mamdani retained left-leaning areas and even parts of the Upper West Side with large leads.

Long-Term Significance

Has Mamdani rewritten what the city means politically? Will commie corridor serve as a springboard for progressive contenders?

Yes, it’s not accidental that key political leaders from the left come from a handful of neighborhoods in the boroughs. I’m sure that we’ll see more of that – people will emerge from these areas to be elevated nationally.

However I believe that each urban center in America can have similar progressive hubs. Cities are the epicenters of leftwing power in the nation – because they’re young, people rent and they represent locales where individuals struggle by the disparities exist.