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Only 48 hours before the New York mayoral election, political analyst Michael Lange made a significant electoral prediction – not just who would win citywide, but precinct by precinct. The analyst, an expert in elections born and raised in New York City, has spent more than ten years in progressive politics and emerged as a kind of local celebrity this year for his thorough analyses into city data and voter surveys.

He published his highly detailed prediction map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani would win while failed to predict Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his Substack, the Narrative War. He possesses a talent for clever terms. He pointed out, as an example, the divide between the progressive stronghold, running from Park Slope to another area to Astoria, where he forecasted (correctly) that Mamdani would win by huge margins, and the “capitalist corridor” on affluent parts of Manhattan. In those areas, certain media outlets and financial newspapers outrank the New York Times” in readership and most voters favored Cuomo, who ran as a conservative-courting independent.

Voting Day Patterns and Unexpected Results

How was your night?

I had to do that because they were dropping around 200,000 ballots into the system frequently! 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 later and his lead went from 12% to 8%. I was worried.

Understand, there was a world where yesterday went kind of poorly for Mamdani, where the opponent was going to end up basically doubling his votes from the Democratic primary. But the winner added 500,000 votes to his primary coalition, and this was critical 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 built the alliance that progressives always wanted to build: diverse racially, it’s young, it’s renters and individuals facing cost pressures. He gained considerably with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the earlier election. Plus he boosted his core of left-leaning activists, youthful radicals, and Muslims and south Asians. Victory required without expanding his appeal.

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

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

It’s definitely a genuine phenomenon, confined to working-class Latinos, Asian communities and Islamic voters. Voters in ethnic enclaves that went for Trump last year went for the progressive now. But I wouldn’t say he was winning over Caucasian laborers and Maga voters.

Turnout and Effects

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

Each candidate. Turnout was significantly higher than I had expected. I thought it could exceed 2 million, but it’s closer to 2.3M – which is a huge number of participants. There was a substantial anti-Mamdani block, energized, but the Mamdani base was also motivated, and that sufficed to secure victory.

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

Right now it appears he’s favored to surpass 50%. He has just over 50% but there’s still around 200,000 votes left to report at that time. Thus it’s not it’s definitive, but I believe probable, and I hope he does so then none can claim Sliwa was a disruptor.

Republican Collapse

The GOP candidate, the conservative contender, is the other big story. His vote completely collapsed.

He didn’t win a single precinct in any area. Not even one neighborhood in Staten Island, similar to an 88% Trump neighborhood. That really surprised me. Cuomo held Caucasian districts, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and plus gained all of these Republicans on the island who had a strong turnout. I believe there was a lot of strategic balloting by the Republicans. This happened before Trump tweeted his support for the candidate, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome if the winning alliance failed to expand.

Progressive Strongholds

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

I think there was some weakening of the progressive zone in certain places like Astoria or Greenpoint that have older Caucasian residents. There, instance, the property owners and homeowners all went for Cuomo. Thus there was a little resistance. However overall, largely the leftist base is a key factor why Mamdani prevailed – he was polling between high percentages in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bushwick.

Community Support

In the lead-up to the election we reported on if the candidate was making inroads with the community. Is there any suggestion that he succeeded?

There are areas with many non-religious and left-inclined voters – like specific locales – where he performed strongly. However in the wealthy Jewish communities such as the Upper East Side, his position on Israel was influential in those places. Likewise in the more middle-class Jewish areas like Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they favored Cuomo. And also, you have newcomers from Eastern Europe in southern Brooklyn, who were pretty staunchly supportive. So it’s unclear if there were crazy narrative-busters on this one, but he retained more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and even parts of the Upper West Side with large leads.

Political Impact

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

Absolutely, it’s not accidental that key political leaders from progressives hail from a handful of neighborhoods in the boroughs. I believe that we’ll see more of that – people will emerge from these neighborhoods to be promoted to higher office.

However I believe that every city in America can have their own commie corridor. Urban places are the centers of progressive influence in the nation – because youth reside there, people rent and they represent locales where individuals struggle by the disparities exist.