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Only two days prior to the New York race for mayor, Michael Lange made a bold forecast – going beyond the winner citywide, and block by block. The analyst, a political analyst who grew up in the city, devoted over a decade in progressive politics and has become a kind of well-known figure recently for his thorough analyses into city data and polling.

He published his extremely precise prediction map – which correctly forecast that the progressive candidate was victorious although failed to predict Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his Substack, the Narrative War. He has a flair for clever terms. He pointed out, as an example, the split between the progressive stronghold, running from Park Slope to another area to Astoria, where he predicted (correctly) that Mamdani would win by huge margins, and the conservative-leaning zone on Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides. There, “the Free Press and financial newspapers outrank the mainstream paper” in readership and the majority of electors leaned toward the independent, who ran as a moderate alternative.

Voting Day Patterns and Unexpected Results

How was your election night?

I had to do that because they were adding approximately 200K votes into the system frequently! I felt a little nervous 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%. I was worried.

Understand, there was a world where yesterday turned out somewhat badly for him, in which Cuomo would have essentially doubling his votes from the earlier contest. But the winner added 500,000 votes to his primary coalition, and that’s a huge reason why he won. He went out and massively expanded his support from the primary.

Expanding Support

How did the mayor-elect gain those extra votes from?

He built the alliance that the left 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, relative to the primary. Plus he boosted his core of left-leaning activists, youthful radicals, and immigrant groups. He couldn’t have won without making those significant inroads.

He created the alliance that progressives long aimed for: diverse, youthful, renters and residents squeezed by affordability

Additionally, there were some supporters of both candidates – is that a big trend?

It is a genuine phenomenon, confined to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Electors in immigrant strongholds that went for the former president previously backed Zohran this year. However it’s not that he was winning over white working-class voters and Trump loyalists.

Voter Participation and Impact

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

Each candidate. Participation was significantly higher than I had expected. I figured we might go over two million, but it reached 2.3 million – which is a huge number of participants. There was a decent opposition group, energized, but his supporters was equally driven, and that sufficed to secure victory.

You forecasted he’d get over half the ballots. Is he likely for that?

Right now it appears he’s likely to surpass 50%. He’s at just over 50% but there’s still around 200K ballots left to report at that time. Thus it’s not certain, but I believe probable, and I hope he achieves it so then none can claim Sliwa was a disruptor.

GOP Decline

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

He lost any district in any area. Including one neighborhood in Staten Island, which is like an 88% Trump neighborhood. That really was unexpected. Cuomo held Caucasian districts, very wealthy areas and devout communities, and plus gained all of these conservatives on Staten Island with a strong turnout. I think occurred significant tactical voting by GOP voters. This happened prior to the former president endorsed for the candidate, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome unless the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

The “Commie Corridor”

Regarding your much mentioned “commie corridor” – did backing for the candidate dominant in those areas of Brooklyn and Queens?

I think there was a little dilution of the commie corridor in some areas like neighborhoods that have more older white ethnic folks. In Astoria, for example, the Greek landlords and homeowners all went for Cuomo. Thus there existed some opposition. But no, largely the leftist base is another huge reason why Mamdani prevailed – he scored between 77% and 83% in specific neighborhoods.

Jewish Voters

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

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 such as the Manhattan area, his Middle East stance definitely mattered there. Similarly in the moderate communities like Queens neighborhoods, or Bronx areas – they all leaned Cuomo. Plus, you have Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the borough, they were pretty staunchly Cuomo. Therefore it’s unclear if there were crazy narrative-busters here, but Mamdani did hold more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and even parts of the another locale with large leads.

Long-Term Significance

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

Absolutely, it’s no coincidence that key political leaders from the left hail from a few areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I believe that we’ll see more of that – candidates will emerge from these neighborhoods to be promoted to higher office.

But I think that each urban center in America can have similar progressive hubs. Urban places are the epicenters of leftwing power in the nation – since youth reside there, tenancy is common and they are places where people are crushed by the disparities exist.