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Only two days before the NYC race for mayor, political analyst Michael Lange issued a bold forecast – going beyond the winner overall, but precinct by precinct. The analyst, an expert in elections born and raised in New York City, has spent more than ten years in left-leaning activism and emerged as something of a well-known figure this year for his thorough analyses into municipal statistics and polling.

He released his extremely precise prediction map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani would win although missing the independent candidate’s strong performance – on his Substack, his platform. He has a flair for clever terms. He highlighted, as an example, the split between the “commie corridor”, running from Park Slope to another area to Astoria, where he forecasted (correctly) that Mamdani would win by huge margins, and the conservative-leaning zone on affluent parts of Manhattan. There, certain media outlets and Wall Street Journal surpass the New York Times” in readership and most voters favored Cuomo, who ran as a conservative-courting independent.

Election Night Patterns and Surprises

How was your election night?

It was necessary because they were adding around 200,000 ballots into the system every few minutes! I was actually somewhat anxious at the beginning: Mamdani led the initial ballots by a dozen percentage points, but came two big batches of votes added after that and the advantage dropped from 12% to 8%. It was concerning.

Understand, it was possible where yesterday went kind of poorly for him, where Cuomo was going to end up essentially doubling his votes from the Democratic primary. But the winner gained 500,000 supporters to his primary coalition, and this was critical why he won. He campaigned and massively expanded his base from the primary.

Expanding Support

Where did the mayor-elect gain additional support from?

He assembled the coalition that progressives long aimed for: diverse racially, it’s young, tenants and it’s people squeezed by affordability. He gained considerably with Black and Hispanic voters, everyday New Yorkers, relative to the primary. Plus he further maximized his core of liberal progressives, young leftists, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without making those significant inroads.

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

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

It’s definitely a real thing, confined to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Voters in immigrant strongholds that supported the former president last year went for the progressive this year. However I wouldn’t say he was gaining white working-class voters and Trump loyalists.

Voter Participation and Effects

One of the big stories of the election was the record participation. Who did that help?

Both sides. Participation was significantly higher than I had expected. I figured it could exceed 2 million, but it reached 2.3M – which is a huge number of participants. Existed a decent opposition group, who were motivated, but the Mamdani base was also motivated, and that was enough to win.

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

Currently it appears he’s likely to surpass 50%. He’s at just over 50% but remain probably 200K ballots left to report at that time. Thus I don’t think it’s definitive, but I believe it’s likely, and I wish he achieves it because afterwards no one can say the Republican was a spoiler.

GOP Decline

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

He lost any district in any borough. Including one neighborhood in Staten Island, similar to an 88% Trump area. That truly surprised me. Cuomo kept Caucasian districts, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and plus gained many conservatives on Staten Island who had a strong turnout. I think there was significant strategic balloting by GOP voters. They were doing it before the former president tweeted his support for Cuomo, but that definitely helped. It could have even turned the tide if the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

The “Commie Corridor”

Regarding your often-discussed left-wing base – did backing for Mamdani dominant in those areas of Brooklyn and Queens?

In my view there was a little dilution of the commie corridor in certain places like Astoria or Greenpoint that have more older white ethnic folks. In Astoria, instance, the Greek landlords and residents supported the independent. Thus there existed some opposition. However no, mostly the leftist base is a key factor why Mamdani won – he scored between 77% and 83% in specific neighborhoods.

Jewish Voters

Prior to the election there was coverage on whether Mamdani was making inroads with Jewish New Yorkers. Is there any suggestion that he did?

There are areas with many secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – like Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he performed strongly. However in the affluent districts such as the Upper East Side, his Middle East stance definitely mattered in those places. Likewise in the more middle-class Jewish areas including Queens neighborhoods, or Bronx areas – they all leaned the independent. And also, there are newcomers from the former Soviet Union in the borough, who were pretty staunchly supportive. So I don’t know if existed crazy narrative-busters here, but Mamdani retained left-leaning areas and even parts of the another locale with large leads.

Political Impact

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

Absolutely, it’s not accidental that some of the biggest figures from the left hail from a few areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I’m sure that we’ll see more of that – candidates will emerge from these areas to be elevated nationally.

However I believe that each urban center in America could develop similar progressive hubs. Cities are the centers of leftwing power in the nation – since they’re young, tenancy is common and they are places where individuals struggle by the disparities we face.