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Just 48 hours prior to the NYC race for mayor, Michael Lange made a significant electoral prediction – not just who would win overall, and block by block. Lange, a political analyst who grew up in New York City, devoted more than ten years in progressive politics and has become a kind of local celebrity this year for his deep dives into municipal statistics and polling.

He published his extremely precise prediction map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani would win while failed to predict Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his Substack, his platform. Lange possesses a talent for clever terms. He pointed out, for instance, the divide between the progressive stronghold, stretching from Park Slope to another area to a third locale, where he forecasted (correctly) that the left-wing candidate 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 New York Times” in audience and the majority of electors favored Cuomo, campaigning as a moderate alternative.

Voting Day Trends 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 somewhat anxious at the beginning: Mamdani was ahead the initial ballots by a dozen percentage points, but there were large groups of votes added after that and the advantage dropped from 12 to 8%. I was worried.

Understand, it was possible in which election day turned out kind of poorly for Mamdani, in which the opponent would have essentially doubling his votes from the Democratic primary. But the winner gained 500,000 supporters to his primary coalition, and that’s a huge reason why he succeeded. He went out and massively expanded his base from the primary.

Expanding Support

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

He assembled the alliance that progressives always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, youthful, it’s renters and it’s people squeezed by affordability. He improved considerably with minority communities, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the earlier election. Plus he further maximized his base of liberal progressives, young leftists, and Muslims and south Asians. Victory required without making those significant inroads.

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

There were also some Trump/Mamdani voters – is this significant?

It’s definitely a real thing, confined to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Electors in immigrant strongholds that went for Trump last year went for Zohran this year. However I wouldn’t say he was gaining Caucasian laborers and Trump loyalists.

Voter Participation and Impact

One of the big stories of the election was the sky-high participation. Who benefited?

Each candidate. Participation was significantly higher than I had expected. I figured we might exceed 2 million, but it reached 2.3M – which is a huge number of participants. Existed a substantial anti-Mamdani block, energized, but his supporters was also motivated, and that was enough to secure victory.

You predicted he’d exceed 50% of the vote. Is he on course for that?

Currently it appears he’s favored to get over half. He has just over 50% but there’s still around 200K ballots left to report as of Wednesday morning. So it’s not it’s definitive, but I think it’s likely, and I hope he achieves it because afterwards no one can say Sliwa was a disruptor.

Republican Collapse

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, was another surprise. His vote completely collapsed.

He didn’t win any district in any borough. Including one neighborhood in Staten Island, which is like an 88% Trump neighborhood. That truly surprised me. The independent kept very white areas, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and plus gained many conservatives on Staten Island who had a strong turnout. I believe 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 unless the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

Progressive Strongholds

Regarding your often-discussed “commie corridor” – was support for Mamdani overwhelming in those areas of Brooklyn and Queens?

In my view existed some weakening of the progressive zone in some areas like neighborhoods that have more older white ethnic folks. There, for example, the Greek landlords and residents supported the independent. Thus there existed some opposition. But overall, mostly the leftist base is a key factor why Mamdani won – he scored between high percentages in specific neighborhoods.

Jewish Voters

In the lead-up to the vote there was coverage on if Mamdani was gaining ground with Jewish New Yorkers. Is there any suggestion that he did?

Exist areas with many secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – like specific locales – where he performed strongly. But in the wealthy Jewish communities such as the Manhattan area, his Middle East stance was influential in those places. Similarly in the moderate communities including Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they favored Cuomo. Plus, there are newcomers from Eastern Europe in the borough, who were pretty staunchly Cuomo. Therefore I don’t know if existed major surprises here, but Mamdani retained left-leaning areas and including sections of the another locale by big margins.

Long-Term Significance

Did Mamdani redefine what New York means politically? Will progressive base become a launch pad for leftwing candidates?

Yes, it’s not accidental that key figures from progressives hail from a few areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I’m sure that there will be additional examples – people will emerge from these areas to be promoted to higher office.

However I believe that every city in America could develop similar progressive hubs. Urban places are the centers of leftwing power in America – because youth reside there, people rent and they represent locales where people are crushed by the inequalities we face.