On Sunday, April 12th, Zohran Mamdani took to the stage at Knockdown Center, a former glass factory turned music venue in Maspeth, Queens. The festive evening had the air of one of Mamdani’s former campaign rallies — only now he was the Mayor of New York City, the dream finally realized. Supporters had traded their “Freeze The Rent” and “Fast and Free” signs, the erstwhile markers of ambitious insurgency, for slogan of “Pothole Politics,” a movement maturing for the governance that lies ahead.

Mamdani’s whirlwind campaign — from the viral videos that defined the democratic socialist’s swift rise to the entrenched and bitter opposition of the city’s political class — never truly abated during his first 100 days. Nor will it over the next 45 months.

But a permanent campaign requires more than raucous energy and righteous indignation — it demands a governing vocabulary and theory of change, one that translates movement politics into the unglamorous language of municipal services.

To his credit, Zohran Mamdani recognized this immediately.

The Mayor clearly believes in the power of deliverism, or in this case, sewer socialism: the notion that voters tend to support candidates or parties not just on their promises, but on their track record of delivering on those promises, while providing administrative function and constituent services. Policy implementation, as borne out by the failures of the Biden administration, must be paired with an equally robust communications arm to sell said successes. Hence, Mamdani has placed a high priority on making the nuts and bolts of municipal government visible: paving over a stubborn bump on the Williamsburg Bridge bike path, clearing the streets efficiently during two consecutive snowstorms, while filling 100,000 potholes since the new year. Fittingly, he spent his 100th day in office picking up trash in the Soundview section of the Bronx. His plan for one municipal grocery store per borough is already off the ground, headlined by a flagship store at La Marqueta (a stretch of city-owned land under the Metro North tracks) in working-class East Harlem. These stories and accomplishments, predictably, are told through video, Mamdani’s most potent medium, which often features the Mayor, front-and-center, doing the work: shoveling snow alongside the Satmar, answering 311 calls at the command center, paving potholes on Staten Island’s country roads. This is both the storytelling of sewer socialism and a prime example of how Mamdani, perpetually smiling, has eagerly picked up many of the easy wins his slothful and corrupt predecessors neglected. Your accomplishments are only as good as voters’ ability to recognize them as yours.

Undoubtedly, the elbow grease is paying off. According to polling from Marist College, “74% of New York City residents say Mayor Mamdani is working hard,” including 82% of Democrats, 65% of Independents, and 48% of Republicans. While the numbers validate pothole politics, governing effectively requires not only constituent services, but navigating Albany. Even as a new Mayor, Mamdani has still eagerly extended his political capital to the realm of electoral politics, with one noticeable exception: Governor Kathy Hochul. Mamdani, wary of the pernicious power dynamic that has haunted Mayors past, has been rather deferential to the Governor, despite Hochul’s consistent resistance to raising taxes on the wealthy. The leftist leader, in an attempt to curry favor with Hochul, went so far as to personally (and publicly) quash the flailing bid of her former opponent in the Democratic Primary, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, eliminating one of the increasingly scarce points of leverage for the “Tax The Rich” movement (albeit a weak one at that). Does the ascendant left have second thoughts about the Governor’s race, where the challenger terrain was ceded to Delgado only for him to abandon his bid at the most inopportune time? Absolutely.

Still, the Mamdani–Hochul partnership has not all been for naught; a $4.5B expansion of 2-K childcare, across many of the city’s working-class neighborhoods, was announced to great fanfare within the first week of the new administration. For Mamdani to deliver a piece of this plank, the most ambitious of his agenda, was a tremendous accomplishment and boon to the notion that the socialist Mayor can deliver. Now, with New York City staring down a five billion dollar budget shortfall, Mamdani is holding his tongue, keenly aware of the fruit his more cautious approach has already borne, going so far as to skip a Tax The Rich rally in the Bronx hosted by Bernie Sanders (his political idol, rallying on his platform, in his city). At least for now.

Instead, the Mayor has trained his fire at City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who, with much of the Council behind her (including many of the Mamdani’s progressive allies), has insisted that New York City need not raise taxes on the wealthy nor impose austerity measures to slash five billion dollars from the city budget.

These dubious accounting practices, in part, are what landed the five boroughs in this current budgetary debacle, and Mamdani, whose tenure could stretch to 2033, is wise to not kick the can down the road. The Speaker — Pro-Israel, uber wealthy, ideologically moderate, from Manhattan’s Upper East Side — represents a sharp political contrast to the Mayor. Menin, ambitious and adept at leveraging institutional power, is advantaged in the budget fight, an insider’s game; whereas Mamdani’s greatest strength, shaping the views of voters and the public writ large, has diminished potency behind closed doors, particularly with respect to a two-thirds, term-limited City Council and a Governor unopposed in the Primary. “The ethos of this campaign,” Mamdani’s top political advisor, Morris Katz told Erroll Louis, “was ‘we’re not gonna be like every other politician who might acknowledge an issue but refuses to name the villains responsible for making this an issue. I think you can’t tell someone ‘You’re being screwed’ without telling them who’s screwing them.”

Herein lies the tension inherent to The Permanent Campaign: the base remains energized and engaged, but it requires a degree of antagonism towards the institutions governing alongside you. So far, the “you’re being screwed” rhetoric has been directed solely at Speaker Menin and the City Council. But functionally, the body is just as helpless in solving the matter as the Mayor. Whereas the Governor, on track for a landslide re-election amidst the cresting blue wave of Trump’s second midterm, can. In fact, millionaires across New York State, at the behest of the President’s tax cuts, are saving an estimated twelve billion dollars in federal taxes. Such a detail, when combined with the fact that 69% of Democrats statewide and 64% of New York City voters support a millionaires tax, would be potent in the hands of the best communicator in American politics. On the campaign trail, Mamdani had Andrew Cuomo, a perfectly cast relic of the out-of-touch establishment, as his foe. Now, the Mayor has colleagues he must appease rather than competitors he must crush.

With Cuomo no longer the atrophying avatar of the anti-Mamdani resistance, the opposition has lost its center of gravity. This increasingly diffuse cohort — business-friendly, real estate-aligned, avowedly pro-Israel, homeowner-heavy — is flailing in the wind, less tethered to the oxygen of power than ever before. They have tried to make hay of Mamdani’s missteps (20 snowstorm deaths, old problematic tweets from top aides, budgetary disputes that complicate the narrative), but have struggled to gain traction beyond a single news cycle. Absent The New York Post, they lack the institutional heft to inflict real damage. Cuomo, diminished from the scandals that expelled him from office, was still a multi-decade institution, capable of cohering a loose (but diminished) coalition of older Black and Hispanic voters, ultra-orthodox Jews and hardcore zionists, and Bloomberg Democrats and Trump Republicans locked out of power. The campaign season was conducive to this consolidation, a shotgun marriage of convenience to stop Mamdani. Now, these groups are rudderless. They strive to “organize” against the Mayor, but lack the affirmative vision to do so effectively, defaulting to grievance politics. These alleged movers and shakers are used to throwing money at their problems to make them go away.

But money can’t buy a movement.

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For a Mayor in office for only three months, Zohran Mamdani’s coalition is remarkably baked in — on all sides — the consequence of a polarizing campaign where tens of millions were spent to tarnish the insurgent democratic socialist, and an unprecedented and evolving earned media environment (that insulates Mamdani from the left, and scapegoats him on the right). The Mayor’s base (younger, college-educated socialists and progressives; South Asians, Arabs, and Muslims oft-overlooked by the political class) is, quite literally, growing by the day: a consequence of Trump-era realignment within the Democratic Party and the demographic trends of the five boroughs. Mamdani has close to an iron-clad grip over this constituency, as evidenced by their persistent loyalty (and lack of public outcry) with respect to a handful of potentially fraught decisions: the early retention of Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a billionaire heiress with universal support from the city’s media and business elite, but a noticeably more carceral approach to policing than the Mayor; uneven statements with respect to two separate “officer involved” shootings in January (the latter of which, the shooting of 22 year old Jabez Chakraborty, was condemned by DRUM); and the aforementioned deference to Governor Hochul. Mamdani, dare I say, is incapable of truly alienating his base; for the Mayor is armed with genuine core principles and a coherent, democratic socialist worldview that anchors him through storms. However, as one can glean, the real “risk” lies with disillusionment, which would stem from the perception of indefensible compromise with an untrustworthy establishment. But, as the Mayor’s array of opponents attempt to manufacture controversies, his supporters, steadfastly loyal to the man who sparked hope in their hearts and overcame the odds, rally even closer to his side.

The Mayor’s emphasis on pothole politics has further endeared him to technocratic and affluent liberals, whose greatest electoral reservation about Mamdani concerned his lack of experience. Still, a majority backed the fresh insurgent over the tired establishment last June; and so far, Mamdani is validating their faith. After twelve years of Bill De Blasio and Eric Adams, the new Mayor’s work ethic is a welcome change. Pointedly, in New York’s 12th Congressional District — the city’s wealthiest and well-educated neighborhoods — Democratic voters gave the Mayor robust marks of favorability (+30). And, while The New York Times, the most powerful media organ of these civically-engaged and well-heeled constituents, remains broadly skeptical of Mamdani’s ability to enact his agenda, the Gray Lady is not hostile to him.

Among the bloc-voting Orthodox and Hasidic sects of Brooklyn and Queens, Mamdani enjoys infinitesimal support, and was subjected to an electoral avalanche in both the Democratic Primary and General Election. Still, to the descendants of Abraham horrified by the bloodshed in Gaza and lawless annexation of the West Bank, Mamdani is not only an ally, but a moral leader in a Democratic Party compromised by complicity. And yet, the Mayor’s most enduring challenge will be keeping those in the proverbial middle, liberal zionists who abhor the Netanyahu regime but believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state (the Micah Lashers and Jerry Nadlers of the world), in his corner. While many of these voters have strong feelings with respect to the Middle East, geopolitics did not factor decisively into their choice of a municipal leader. Historically, these voters have oscillated between the city’s progressive-left coalition (John Lindsay, David Dinkins, Bill de Blasio) and the more centrist backlash (Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg). Last November, this heavily-Democratic bloc made up a key piece of Mamdani’s coalition in the General Election: among voters in Jewish surname (10%+) precincts that voted for Kamala Harris (60%+) — i.e. Jewish Democrats — Mamdani ran less than three points behind Cuomo: 47% to 49.5%. Here, Mamdani’s fast and ambitious start will pay its greatest dividends, so long as the budget fight does not prove too fraught. While Mamdani is often criticized by opponents for his lack of Jewish support, this critique fails to grasp that, if the Mayor so much as retains his current level of support from Jewish Democrats, unseating him in 2029 will be almost impossible. Without a doubt, Mamdani has completely re-shaped New York City’s political geography.

Yet, while the city’s Jewish electorate gets considerable media attention, the numerically decisive constituencies lie elsewhere. In the Mamdani era, Black (~21%) and Hispanic (~17%) voters — stratified by generation, lukewarm on Mamdani in the Primary, but more supportive in the General — will be the crucial swing constituencies of Democratic politics in the five boroughs. Mamdani, armed with the attentional hegemony of the mayoralty and a celebrity that feels omnipresent, is viewed rather favorably by working-class Black and Hispanic voters, and now has full access to the institutional elements (churches, senior centers, cookouts, ribbon cuttings, parades) that so often shape the whims of politics at the neighborhood level. This is why Menin, floated as a future challenger to Mamdani, would be a poor choice; sure, she might win Manhattan, but Mamdani would crush her in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Still, the Mayor gave the Speaker (and other foes) fodder when he abruptly threatened to raise property taxes by 9.5% to close the previously mentioned budget deficit, an increase that would be disproportionately painful to cash-strapped (non-white) homeowners in the outer boroughs. Strategically, this was the new Mayor’s most pronounced misstep of his brief tenure; for once, Mamdani lost control of the narrative, as backlash to his proposed hike overwhelmed the other pieces of his argument. Outer boroughs electeds, particularly Black leaders, were incensed; to the point where Mamdani had to gather officials at City Hall to mitigate the damage. Nevermind that Mamdani had no intention of actually raising property taxes (and even if he did, the City Council would soundly reject him), the doomsday scenario for working-class homeowners, blared across local news ad nauseam, was laid at his feet; and the Mayor only had himself to blame. According to monthly polling from Siena College, Mamdani’s favorability among Black voters fell 18 points between late February and late March. And still, his 60% favorability was the highest mark among Black voters of any Democrat in New York State, evidence of Mamdani’s incomparable popularity; (Siena rarely polls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, but routinely gauges the favorability of Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Letitia James, and Kathy Hochul). Such is the Mamdani paradox: even the Mayor’s mistakes reveal the depth of the goodwill he has accumulated, a reservoir that cannot be captured by any single poll, nor depleted by any one controversy.

However, the act of political coalition building is not monitoring numbers on a spreadsheet from one month to the next month, but an intensely active, deeply emotional, and all-consuming endeavor. The rare politician that doubles as a brilliant tactician and creative communicator, Mamdani understands this subtle and beautiful art better than his contemporaries, evidenced by his rise to power over the last year.

Even now, the Mayor treats each interaction as though it is a first impression, because those moments, fleeting anecdotes to Mamdani, are durable memories etched in the minds of individuals. But those finite memories add up, piece by piece, until they build a seemingly infinite mosaic: a gorgeous tapestry known as the five boroughs.

For the first time in decades, New Yorkers, nature’s most prideful creatures, find themselves believing earnestly in something far greater than themselves. New York City not only feels like the center of American politics, it objectively has been during Donald Trump’s second term: a hopeful municipal alternative to federal tyranny. Unlike his predecessors, Mamdani does not mistake hard work for boastful bluster; eschewing the allure of Manhattan’s trendy nightclubs for picking up trash in the South Bronx. For many lifelong New Yorkers, pride in their Mayor, deferred for a generation, has been restored; among the young and disillusioned, an unfamiliar optimism burns inside their beleaguered psyche. Mamdani is both the symbol and engine of this civic revival. And while the Mayor may not be able to deliver every promise, that will not be what most voters ultimately judge him on (despite the protests of the chattering class). The inertia of the mayoralty, the second hardest job in America, is designed to grind even the most earnest reformers into dust. For months on end, eight figure advertisements pilloried Mamdani, castigating him as a dangerous radical that would inevitably return Gotham to the crime-ridden city of yore. The young Mayor has not only withstood such attacks, he endured them; inspiring masses of ordinary people along the way. These emotional undercurrents that underpin Mamdani’s resonance are far more powerful than any sole news cycle.

Zohran Mamdani’s day job may keep him from walking the length of Manhattan, the inspiring closing act to his insurgent campaign. Yet whenever he so chooses, the Mayor can pace the six mile trek home from City Hall to Gracie Mansion. The contours of both journeys, from that humid summer night down the West Side to the recent brisk evening stroll up the East Side, are markedly different, from the surrounding faces of the security detail protecting the Mayor to the staffers flanking their principal. But two things have not changed. The joyous reception that greets Mamdani, from everyday people on the street, themselves also on their way home from work, reflects the same authentic mix of hope and astonishment that has made the Mayor into a political and cultural figure. Nor has the man himself, now blessed with exponentially more fame and power, compelled by circumstance to compromise, departed from the worldview that defined his rise. To his core, the Zohran Mamdani you see — the self-deprecator, earnest hand-shaker, omnipresent innovator, and tireless worker — is the one we have always known. And for most people, that is more than enough.

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Over the past nine months, The Commie Corridor, defined by the author as “the young and hungry leftist base in North Brooklyn and Western Queens reshaping New York City politics,” has taken on a life of its own. Coined prior to Zohran Mamdani’s upset victory in last June’s Democratic Primary, what was once Signal chat shorthand is now the subject of primetime CNN segments and The New York Times articles.

But how was The Commie Corridor created? And what’s stopping a sequel from developing somewhere else? While partially a story of gentrification and demographic transition (an influx of college-educated voters), The Commie Corridor is equally a tale of institutional atrophy (the decline of traditional political machines), movement rebirth (the rise of organized democratic socialism), and the steady left-leaning realignment of younger, urban Democrats since 2016.

For most of the 21st Century, as local and national politics retained some degree of distance, the Democratic “establishment” in most New York City neighborhoods amounted to no more than a handful of local groups (political clubs, homeowners associations, senior centers) that collectively, at best, could marshall a couple dozen volunteers. The bustling storefronts of yore, embedded in the fabric of their respective communities, were gone. Competitive Democratic Primary elections seldom took place, and when they did, voter engagement was startlingly low, significantly declining over the preceding decades. (Some communities, such as the Upper West Side and Southeast Queens, still retained a genuine connection between their civic institutions and the voting public, but they were the exception to the rule). In hindsight, such an arrangement was a house of cards on the verge of collapse, especially if the electorate could be sufficiently expanded to include more renters and young people, untethered to status quo. The rise of Bernie Sanders and the reign of Donald Trump not only created a political vacuum, but the conditions for greater civic consciousness among Democrats, particularly with respect to local politics. This phenomenon proved fatal for incumbents coasting on conditions that had, almost overnight, been swiftly erased.

In less than a decade, South Asian and Hispanic democratic socialists succeeded Italian and Greek moderates at every level of government in Astoria, colloquially known as The People’s Republic. Once an afterthought, younger voters quickly asserted themselves as the dominant Democratic bloc in dozens of neighborhoods in Western Queens and North Brooklyn, hotbeds of relative affordability with transit access to the urban core. Still, their collective influence was underestimated by the political class, who insisted that the Democratic Party shift to the right following the 2024 Presidential Election. Most importantly, these voters organized themselves and built their own institutions rooted in shared class politics, with volunteer armies that doubled as a source of community, and social media savvy that authentically reached their peers. By June 25th, 2025, you could see The Commie Corridor from space.

And, in late October, I attempted to foreshadow where this “next era of progressive and socialist electoral expansion” (Commie Corridor Jr. per se) would be.

The answer, then and now, is Upper Manhattan.

In both the Democratic Primary and the General Election, Zohran Mamdani validated this hypothesis: in June, he won precincts north of 110th Street by 25 points; in November, his prohibitive margin widened to nearly 40 points. These were, after all, the blocks Mamdani trekked during the first two hours of The Walk: the baseball fields of Inwood Hill Park, where Manny Ramirez learned to play; the rush hour crowds pacing Dyckman Street, the famed nightlife corridor; the sloping hills of St. Nicholas Avenue, the heart of rent-stabilization in Manhattan; the bright lights and picturesque sunsets along Broadway in Hamilton Heights, where Mamdani, on the precipice of history, was cheered heroically; and Morningside Heights, a sophisticated enclave nestled atop a plateau, home to both the Mayor’s parents and Columbia University.

Crucially, all of these aforementioned neighborhoods — as well as Harlem, the gentrifying capital of Black America, and (Spanish) East Harlem, lie in New York’s 13th Congressional District, which spans Upper Manhattan and parts of the West Bronx. Mamdani’s dominance across these neighborhoods is no surprise, for NY-13 possesses the dual ingredients of left-leaning electoral success — renters (99th percentile) and millennials (94th percentile) — both fundamental to the sociological and political identity of each neighborhood. In fact, no Congressional District in the United States has a higher percentage of renters (89%) than NY-13.

One might presume that the “organized left”, omnipresent in other corners of the five boroughs, would have a discernible base of allies here. However, most of the elected officials in Upper Manhattan owe their position to some faction of dynastic, ethnic politics (the Harlem Democratic machine, the “Squadriano” of Dominican-Americans, plus a handful of liberal, Upper West Side expats). In fact, each individual neighborhood resembles its own political fiefdom, dividing the proverbial “establishment.” This diffusion, combined with a working-class and increasingly young electorate, engenders vulnerability — and opportunity. Last year, many of these politicians sided with Cuomo, or were coerced into neutrality by the specter of retaliation. And yet, Mamdani crushed the former Governor, a sign of disconnect between rank-and-file voters and the politicians who represent them. Now, the most prominent among them, Congressman Adriano Espaillat, is facing a spirited, underdog challenge from organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier. The race between Espaillat, the first Dominican-American elected to the House of Representatives, and Avila Chevalier, endorsed by both NYC-DSA and Justice Democrats, has pushed many of the latent fault lines in the Democratic coalition to the forefront.

Here, the ingredients of progressive success will collide with the institutions that have upheld the political establishment. Espaillat, a multi-decade fixture of Upper Manhattan politics, uniquely embodies the style of power — inherently local, nakedly transactional, ethnic-oriented, machine-rooted — that now finds itself under siege in an era of sweeping, mass politics. Such a fraught and nuanced contest, decided by one of the most working-class and racially-diverse electorates in the nation, will prove insightful with respect to the Democratic Party’s future. Yet, despite a degree of vulnerability and favorable fundamentals, defeating Espaillat will prove difficult.

For the power broker’s career is defined by an innate ability to outlast his enemies.

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Adriano Espaillat, 71, lacks the national profile afforded to many of his New York colleagues, despite chairing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. As the first Dominican-American and formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress, Espaillat has long been considered a political trailblazer, particularly in the predominantly Dominican communities of Washington Heights and Inwood. For decades, Espaillat has outhustled and strong-armed political rivals across Upper Manhattan, slowly climbing the ladder of public and elected office.

A native of Santiago, the second largest city in the Dominican Republic, Espaillat has politics in his blood, literally. He is the second great-grandson of military hero Pedro Ignacio Espaillat; the great-grandson of former Dominican Senate President Mario Fermín Cabral y Báez; which also makes him a descendant of 19th-century Dominican President Buenaventura Báez. Moving to the United States in 1964, the Espaillats overstayed their tourist visa before eventually becoming green card holders. They raised their son in Washington Heights, part of a wave of Dominican immigrants escaping war and economic strife who settled in Upper Manhattan, aided by the Hart–Celler Act which abolished past Eurocentric immigration quotas. An aspiring politico, Espaillat embedded himself in local institutions: serving on the community board, leading the police precinct council, advising the Governor on Dominican issues, plus a gamut of nonprofit work: legal services, conflict resolution, victim’s services.

His first opportunity came in 1991, amidst a crowded and competitive field for a City Council seat in Washington Heights and Inwood. Espaillat hustled hard, but lost by five points to Guillermo Linares, who became the first Dominican-American elected to office in New York City (let alone one of the first in the nation); an honor the descendant of Caribbean political royalty almost certainly believed should have been his. This would be the beginning of a long and bitter rivalry between Espaillat and Linares for the mantle of leading Dominican power broker in the five boroughs. The former’s breakthrough would come in 1996, as Espaillat challenged sixteen term incumbent John Brian Murtaugh. Murtaugh, the last remaining Celtic pol in the area, had represented Inwood and Washington Heights since they were predominantly Irish and Jewish. However, by the end of the 20th century, Murtaugh’s district had become 80% Hispanic, and majority Dominican. When his insurgent bid ran out of money, Espaillat, sensing this was his last and best chance to ascend, sold his car so he could keep campaigning. His investment proved wise and life-changing, as Espaillat ultimately dethroned Murtaugh by 401 votes; completing an ethnic succession in Upper Manhattan on his way to the State Assembly. He would remain in Albany’s lower chamber for fourteen years, championing issues foreign to many New Yorkers, but near and dear to his community: driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, greater protections for livery cab drivers, health care for low-income daycare workers. Espaillat’s 2010 campaign for State Senate pitted him against Mark Levine, a liberal and Jewish political upstart fluent in Spanish. The campaign was fraught, Levine decried Espaillat as the consummate Albany Insider, even calling on the State Attorney General (then-Andrew Cuomo) to investigate his rival for corruption. The Northern Manhattan Coalition for Economic Development, a nonprofit “largely funded by state grants secured by Espaillat” was “mostly staffed by members of his campaign and inner circle,” according to The New York Post. High-turnout Jewish voters, particularly in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, were a key slice of the electorate. To the surprise of many observers, Espaillat won Riverdale (and the election as a whole), proof that a gentile could defeat a Jew among Abraham’s descendants. Notably, their differences were purely identitarian, rather than substantive; Levine and Espaillat were, and continue to be, strong supporters of the Israeli state. While Espaillat, eager to crush his rivals, traditionally kept former opponents at arm’s length, he embraced Levine as one of his own, gaining a longstanding ally.

Espaillat had barely settled into Albany’s upper chamber before he began plotting his next move: the House of Representatives. New York’s 13th Congressional District, which encompassed all of Upper Manhattan, had been represented by Charlie Rangel for four decades. But Rangel, who had succeeded the increasingly ill and unscrupulous Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1972, began showing similar signs of fatigue and decline. Now in his 80’s, nursing a back injury and a viral infection, Rangel was absent from Washington. After decades of accruing seniority, Rangel no longer held the gavel on the lucrative Ways and Means, having been censured for corruption in 2010. “This is The Harlem Seat,” the Black establishment protested.

But was it still? By 2012, there were twice as many Hispanic residents than Black residents in NY-13. And that gap would only widen in the years to come.

The old and scandal-scarred Rangel had more fight left than Espaillat anticipated. Furthermore, the Dominican power broker, used to the horse-trading of Albany and presiding over his local fiefdom, proved ill-equipped at building broad support beyond his immediate base of Washington Heights and Inwood. In 2005, Espaillat had briefly tried his hand at city politics, running for Manhattan Borough President against eight other candidates. While Espaillat won the 72nd Assembly District, the densest Dominican blocks in Manhattan, he struggled to make inroads elsewhere, earning a meager nine percent of the vote. Now, that similar lack of coalitional appeal threatened to derail his ambitions once again. When the ballots were tallied, Espaillat had lost by only one thousand votes, with a racially polarized result between Black Harlem and Hispanic Washington Heights and Inwood. In the West Bronx (recently drawn into the district) and East Harlem (historically Puerto Rican, with a growing Mexican population), Espaillat left meat on the bone with Hispanic voters. Two years later, he challenged Rangel, then aged eighty-four, again, only to fall short once more by a comparably close margin. Things would soon get dicey, as Espaillat fell victim to New York’s bizarre elections calendar (federal primaries in June, State primaries in September). After every losing Congressional primary, he would have to turn around and defend his State Senate seat a few months later. Those races, too, were bitter and divisive: with Espaillat forced to fend off his old foe, Guillermo Linares (62% to 38%); and then dispatch City Councilmember Robert Jackson (49% to 43%). Each time, his margin of victory decreased. There was not only Adriano Espaillat fatigue, but the Dominican power broker had made some powerful enemies.

Everything built up to the 2016 Democratic Primary, as Espaillat faced promotion or his third consecutive rejection. Rangel had finally retired, and Espaillat was no longer facing an institution. Nevertheless, the Lion of Lenox Avenue endorsed Harlem’s own Keith LT Wright, Espaillat’s former colleague in the state legislature, as his chosen successor. While the race would narrow to Espaillat versus Wright, the field of other candidates arguably determined the outcome: Guillermo Linares, facing Espaillat for the third and final time; Adam Clayton Powell IV, the grandson of the former representative; Clyde Williams, a former Democratic National Committee official endorsed by The New York Times; and Suzan Johnson Cook, the former U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom in the Obama administration. In a battle of turnout between Black and Hispanic voters (with a non-insignificant number of middle-class, professional White voters), the Black candidates (Wright, Williams, Powell IV, Cook) outpaced the Dominican candidates (Espaillat, Linares) 56% to 42%. And yet, Espaillat narrowly prevailed head-to-head against Wright (36.7% to 33.9%). His old foe, Linares, earned a meager five percent, not even enough to be a spoiler.

Of his three consecutive runs for Congress, Espaillat won both his lowest vote share and lowest vote total, in 2016. Not only had he failed to grow his coalition, he watched it diminish. Still, the war of attrition had been won. For the first time in seventy years, Harlem would not have an African American representative in Washington.

Adriano Espaillat’s ascendance is a testament to an era of New York City politics, one of relationships and transactions, that has diminished with time. Yet, the old school power broker remains standing: holding court with mayoral aspirants over coffee in Inwood, directing votes in the invisible race for City Council Speaker, building a bench of loyal (oftentimes Dominican) allies, coined the “Squadriano.” Espaillat lives for the sweltering heat of summer, white shirtsleeves rolled up, charming seniors in Spanish while stumping for votes along Dyckman Street, flanked by his entourage. For real power lies not in the cloakroom, but how many people back home know your name.

Perhaps no politician in the five boroughs is so well acquainted with bitter, closely-contested campaigns; across thirty years, Espaillat has competed in ten primaries decided by less than six points. He knows how to win. Or at least he did.

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Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32, endorsed by both the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and Justice Democrats, erstwhile engines of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman’s upset victories against Congressional incumbents, is hoping for a similar wave of momentum to help her dethrone Adriano Espaillat. But are those campaigns, multiple cycles removed from the present, applicable comparisons? And is Espaillat, the legendary Dominican power broker, as vulnerable to a left-leaning challenge as Joe Crowley and Eliot Engel?

Yes and No. Crowley, an Irishman who never learned to speak Spanish, proved no more than a stranger to his working-class, Hispanic constituents and an insufficient relic of the establishment to college-educated progressives. Engel, a sixteen term incumbent, uttered a damning off-color remark (“if I didn’t have a primary I wouldn’t care”) after the murder of George Floyd, a fatal mistake in a majority-minority district during the protest summer of 2020. By the time of their demise, both Crowley and Engel had largely absconded to suburban Virginia, leaving a political vacuum at home within their respective districts. Neither spent heavily, either through their campaign or allied independent expenditures, against their surging insurgent opponents. Each campaign was defined by unforced errors (Crowley infamously skipped a debate with Ocasio-Cortez, sending a surrogate instead, earning him a rebuke from The New York Times that lent credence to Ocasio-Cortez’s charges of absenteeism).

Has Adriano Espaillat lost a step? Without a doubt.

In my part of the district, Morningside Heights and Manhattan Valley, a vote-rich corridor of No Kings marchers and college students which broke heavily for Mamdani, the Congressman is nowhere to be found, already skipped two candidate forums organized by local clubs (Crowley-esque). In Harlem, long the base of power for Espaillat’s African American rivals, the incumbent will assuredly pick up token endorsements from local elected officials, a gesture of goodwill towards their representative, but few will actually go to bat for him. Working-class East Harlem, an eclectic mix of Puerto Ricans, professionals, and public housing residents, was Espaillat’s worst neighborhood in 2020. And even within his alleged stronghold of Washington Heights and Inwood, upper-middle class white voters (west of Broadway) in park-lined cooperatives have never been enamored with Espaillat, much preferring his progressive rival, Robert Jackson. Sure, Espaillat will likely hold his own in the West Bronx, which includes lower-income Dominican neighborhoods that, while on the other side of the Harlem River, are culturally akin to his core constituencies. But, the Bronx portion of NY-13 totals only 15% of the predicted electorate. Altogether, this is a wholly unimpressive position for a five-term incumbent. And yet, absent a fatal error by Espaillat, it may not be enough for Democrats to expel him from office.

NYC-DSA, despite Mamdani’s incredible triumph, has never won a race in Upper Manhattan. Justice Democrats, once a vaunted stalwart of the national left, fell on hard times during the Biden years. (Avila Chevalier was recruited by Justice Democrats, then endorsed by NYC-DSA). Steadfast allies of the progressive left — The Working Families Party, The United Auto Workers, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice — all of whom have discernible pockets of support in NY-13, have refrained from endorsing Avila Chevalier. Nor is Zohran Mamdani, the most powerful voice on the left, likely to get involved in the race to unseat Espaillat, a featured Speaker at Mamdani’s October 14th rally in Washington Heights. Espaillat’s influence over a handful of lawmakers in Albany and the City Council acts as a bulwark against an intervention from the young Mayor, who has moved with caution his first three months.

Thus, Avila Chevalier will need a wedge issue that makes Espaillat appear out of touch and makes her insurgency attractive to liberal Boomers in Morningside Heights, middle-aged Black voters in Harlem, and Hispanic renters in East Harlem and Washington Heights. For many left-leaning candidates, from the suburbs of New Jersey (Analilia Mejia) to metro Chicago (Daniel Biss, Kat Abughazaleh), that wedge issue has been the abolition of ICE, particularly after the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. Espaillat, a former undocumented immigrant, boasts a respectable record with respect to immigration, forged across several decades.

However, there is one notable blemish on Espaillat’s record, that simultaneously points to the race’s subtle but key fault line: the abduction of Mahmoud Khalil by ICE. Last March, Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University and pro-Palestinian student activist known for his role in the 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment protests, was arrested by ICE agents inside the lobby of his apartment building, before being taken to a detention facility in Louisiana, where he was held for three months (missing the birth of his child), until a federal judge ordered his release. Crucially, Khalil was a constituent of New York’s 13th Congressional District.

Traditionally, members of Congress and their staff would work tirelessly to secure the release of a detained constituent, particularly given the explicitly political nature of Khalil’s abduction. Still, Espaillat could only muster a tepid statement: “I expect the Department of Justice to work within the confines of the law and that due process is guaranteed to him and his family. The rule of law must be respected.”

In fact, the office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez soon took over Khalil’s case, despite the Columbia student not being her constituent. Why? Perhaps because Espaillat’s top donor, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), vehemently objected to Khalil’s rhetoric with respect to the War in Gaza. Avila Chevalier, who cut her teeth as a student organizer at Columbia University alongside Khalil, certainly feels strongly about Espaillat’s mistreatment of her friend and ally.

Nonetheless, will a referendum on AIPAC, increasingly persona non grata among the Democratic mainstream, resonate broadly with one of the nation’s most working-class constituencies? Mamdani proved that moral politics were also winning politics, particularly with younger and disillusioned voters Uptown. Still, the nexus of his Upper Manhattan inroads came from a relentless focus on costs-of-living, which helped the lesser-known democratic socialist earn the trust of middle-aged Black and Hispanic voters, whose orientation to politics is less ideological, and more relational.

The conditions of the 2026 midterm elections, along with the broader social forces of the country — daily chaos emanating from the Trump administration, a vacuum within the Democratic Party, and the salience of progressive messaging (affordability, anti-oligarchy) — are reminiscent of both 2018 and 2020, when the socialist left in New York City enjoyed scores of success. Now, in a post-Zohran world, the conditions today are arguably even more favorable, with anti-incumbent sentiment and voter engagement climbing by the day. Still, attention, in a city filled with candidates pleading for more money and more time, is both thin and finite. There is a reason incumbents win re-election 97% of the time, after all. For Avila Chevalier to prevail, she will have to overcome such inertia in a matter of months.

Mamdani, with his effortless aura, conditioned us to believe that such great feats were not only possible, but probable. Time and again, the struggles of political insurgency have been airbrushed away by the fleeting highs of success. The clasped hands covering up one’s exclamation and astonishment, as a life-changing reality sets in. A songbird perfectly landing on a speaking podium. The triumphant “my friends, we have done it,” addressed to a packed house of supporters on a sticky summer night.

These successes, mere moments, live on for years to come: sustaining the souls of those who have sacrificed; bestowing meaning onto those previously feeling adrift; serving as a reservoir of hope in challenging times; and most importantly, inspiring the next generation to step forward. Whether or not Darializa Avila Chevalier carries the day on June 23rd, there will soon be a new day dawning in Upper Manhattan.

Even The Commie Corridor was not built in a day.

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Ever since Donald Trump returned to power, the Democratic Party, in fervent anticipation of 2028, has anxiously searched for clues as to the mood of its angry, perpetually disappointed base. However, gauging voter sentiment from only a handful of elections — often shaped by hyper-local interests and regional nuances — let alone extrapolating broader implications, is difficult, if not impossible. Nonetheless, in the pre-midterm vacuum, two riveting and high-profile contests have stood out, defined by scores of national attention, record voter turnout, massive campaign spending, expanded electorates, and an incredibly diverse coalition of Democratic voters: the 2025 New York City Mayoral Primary and the 2026 Texas Senate Primary.

Any good argument acknowledges its limitations, and the State of Texas and the City of New York may appear to be an odd match for comparison. After all, New York City is entirely urban (despite pseudo-suburban swaths in Staten Island and Eastern Queens), whereas Texas is defined by increasingly sprawling suburbs and hundred-mile-long rural stretches. Hispanic voters (Mexican or Tejano, not Puerto Rican and Dominican) play a far greater role in Texas (~31% of the electorate), whereas the White (~45%) and Black (~21%) electorate in the five boroughs retains greater influence in shaping Democratic primary elections (although the city is on pace to be plurality Hispanic within a decade). Most notably, only one-third of Texans rent their homes or apartments, whereas close to two-thirds of New Yorkers give, in the words of their new Mayor, “a check to a landlord every month” — by far the highest rate in the nation. Yet, for the purposes of evaluating a primary electorate overwhelmingly indexed to a handful of metro areas, there is much to be gleaned from both the Lone Star State and the Big Apple about the future of the Democratic Party coalition.

In the New York City Mayoral race, the candidates — Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo — were polar opposites in almost every respect. Mamdani, a thirty-three-year-old Muslim democratic socialist, ran a campaign “relentlessly” focused on the cost of living, becoming a viral sensation ubiquitous among younger voters, seldom compromising his avowed left-leaning values (most notably his support for Palestinian human rights). Cuomo, the former three-term Governor, not only supported the pro-business, pro-Israel status quo, but embodied the institutional mindset of the Democratic Party establishment. While the insurgent Mamdani campaigned across the five boroughs, hoping to bring new voters into the process, the scandal-scarred Cuomo hunkered down and avoided public appearances. (Public polls, modeled on past Democratic electorates, showed Cuomo leading comfortably until the very end.) According to exit polling by Data for Progress, among voters who had participated in the previous Mayoral contest, Cuomo defeated Mamdani by 2 points. However, Mamdani won past “non-voters” by 40 points, fueling his dramatic upset.

The Mamdani–Cuomo voter coalitions were prescient in foreshadowing the rift afoot in the Democratic Party. Per the aforementioned polling, Mamdani won younger voters (under-45) by 48 points, college-educated voters by 36 points, and men by 17 points. According to precinct analysis, Mamdani also performed exceptionally well among renters (both market-rate and rent-stabilized) and South Asian voters — pronounced constituencies in New York City, yet seldom appealed to so directly. In contrast, Cuomo won Black voters by 26 points, older voters (over-45) by 21 points, and non-college-educated voters by 17 points. (Hispanic voters, primarily from the Caribbean Islands and South America, were split down the middle, stratified by age.)

In many respects, these outlines resembled the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Except, Zohran Mamdani meaningfully improved upon Sanders’ past urban shortcomings on two crucial fronts: winning over middle-aged, college-educated liberals (mostly Gen X), while inspiring record participation from younger voters. Not only did Mamdani fundamentally reshape the electorate, he held his own in older and more affluent Manhattan and Brooklyn neighborhoods where left-leaning candidates have historically failed to gain traction. Analilia Mejia, the former national political director for Sanders’ second Presidential campaign, proved this was not a distinctly urban phenomenon by winning the Special Election for New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District (which included Essex County, where Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders by 47 points). Mejia, a tried-and-true progressive, won voters with individual incomes between $100,000 and $250,000 — the middle-aged suburban managerial class of homeowners that crushed Sanders in consecutive Presidential elections. Most importantly, in her base precincts, Mejia maximized her support to the fullest extent, just as Mamdani did; in Bloomfield Township, NJ-11’s largest and most racially diverse municipality, Mejia netted more than 1,600 votes above her closest rival, more than double her margin of victory. In both 2016 and 2020, these constituencies proved hostile to Sanders’ anti-establishment, class-based message; the Vermont Independent struggled mightily in middle-aged, well-educated, higher-income suburbia (DuPage County in Illinois, Middlesex County in Massachusetts, Collin County in Texas), which, when combined with his urban shortcomings (Chicago, Boston, Houston), doomed him in a handful of winnable primary states. Six years later, the electoral map may be redrawn entirely.

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The Texas Senate Primary, pitting charismatic State Representative James Talarico against firebrand Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, featured almost none of the sharp ideological contrasts that defined the New York City Mayor’s race. Style — Talarico’s “love thy neighbor” Christian populism versus Crockett’s “take no prisoners” unapologetic resistance — superseded substance in the Lone Star State, where Democrats have not won a statewide election since 1994. Still, there are remarkable similarities in how Talarico and Mamdani ran their underdog campaigns, compared with how Crockett and Cuomo — frontrunners flush with name recognition — failed to capitalize on their pronounced early advantages. These nuances, not explicitly ideological, translated into how their coalitions manifested: Crockett’s base (older, Black) mirrored Cuomo’s, whereas Talarico’s coalition (younger, college-educated, White, Hispanic, lower-propensity) is reminiscent of Mamdani’s.

Mamdani and Talarico combined style and substance. They consistently released algorithm-oriented vertical videos, becoming omnipresent in the feeds of younger voters. (Talarico has credited Mamdani’s “Halalflation” video for inspiring a similar spot on high prices at the Texas State Fair.) Each made a point to campaign seemingly everywhere, while making deliberate and nuanced outreach to lower-propensity voters. Both modeled a positive campaign ethos, rarely going negative on their opponents, while eschewing barn-burning rhetoric for inclusive and direct public addresses — neither ever raises his voice in speeches. Told to downplay their religion, neither Mamdani, a practicing Muslim, nor Talarico, a devout Presbyterian (and seminarian), obeyed such tired orthodoxy. Ahead of the Democratic Primary in June, Mamdani walked the length of Manhattan — a seventeen-mile sojourn — alongside his supporters; when first running to flip a state legislative seat from red to blue, Talarico crisscrossed the entirety of his suburban district on foot. But most importantly, these common aesthetics and values were paired with a unifying, class-based message: Mamdani’s articulation of the affordability crisis has been widely adopted (to varying degrees of success), but Talarico’s “it’s not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom” has emerged as a well-calibrated, swing-state adaptation.

In the words of Mamdani and Talarico, the billionaires and oligarchs are the common enemy. If the lessons of the former are plentiful, the latter has proved a quick study.

And, most important to the Democratic Party, this fusion of style (everyman ethos) and substance (positive populism) produced a remarkably similar voter coalition. The Texas equivalent of the “Commie Corridor” is Travis County (the Austin metro area), flush with college-educated Gen Z renters and higher-income Gen X suburbanites, who mirror the class and educational attainment of Brownstone Brooklyn. Talarico won 76% of the vote in Travis County, eclipsing 90% in precincts adjacent to the University of Texas, while earning more than 80% in tonier Westlake Hills, where the median home price exceeds one million dollars. Given Crockett’s pronounced advantage with Black voters and Talarico’s strength with White voters, the swing demographic in the Texas Senate Primary was Hispanic voters, who are disproportionately young and working-class. And, while Talarico won Hispanic Texans by a greater margin than Mamdani won Hispanic New Yorkers, the symmetry is strengthened by the details: the Hispanic electorate in Texas, particularly in the counties handily won by Talarico (Hidalgo, Webb, Cameron, El Paso), is among the youngest in the United States (99th percentile for Gen-Alpha, 96th percentile for Gen-Z), whereas the age distribution of Hispanic voters in New York City is noticeably broader. (Mamdani won Jackson Heights and Corona, where younger South American immigrants shape the electorate, but lost the South Bronx, where older Puerto Rican and Dominican voters are the majority.) Even South Asian voters — Indian American tech workers in Collin County, Pakistani homeowners in Fort Bend, and working-class Bangladeshis in the Bronx and Queens — heavily favored Talarico and Mamdani.

Nonetheless, absent a pronounced advantage among middle-class White suburbanites, Talarico would not have prevailed. Since 2020, the trend of urban professionals relocating to adjacent suburbs and exurbs has noticeably reshaped the political landscape of several metro areas. Among the towns in New Jersey where Analilia Mejia performed best, and the counties in Texas where James Talarico decisively defeated Jasmine Crockett, the vast majority had high percentages of newer residents, either from out of state or nearby cities. In Texas, such suburban settlement is a consequence of a robust jobs market, particularly in the Dallas–Fort Worth area; whereas in the Tri-State area (NY-NJ-CT), the affordability crisis and post-COVID transition to remote work has fueled these migration patterns, particularly among middle-aged families. In these key counties, the politics of residents have changed along with the composition of the residents.

Call it Realignment and Relocation.

Many political pundits have focused on the individual brilliance of Mamdani and Talarico, routinely at the expense of the voters who came together to support them both. In doing so, they have sorely underestimated the replicability of their respective coalitions elsewhere in the United States.

These currents promise to have profound implications for the upcoming Presidential Primary. For decades — exemplified by Bernie Sanders’ consecutive defeats — consolidating the Black electorate, dominant in the rural South and pronounced in the urban North, was tantamount to guaranteeing the Democratic nomination. Kamala Harris has the inside track to do just that, but will it be enough? The growing decoupling of Black voters (more institution-aligned and broadly moderate) from their White, college-educated (liberal-progressive) and working-class Hispanic (economic populist, culturally moderate) counterparts presents a grave danger to Harris’s prospects, and the Democratic establishment writ large. Harris, who endorsed Crockett last Friday, is far more cautious than her South Dallas ally, yet both suffer politically for a similar reason: the widespread perception of unelectability (Harris infamously lost every swing state; Crockett, in an R+12 state, expressed little desire to appeal to voters beyond her pre-existing base), which breeds scores of negative media coverage that multiplies like wildfire. Nonetheless, for the next Democratic nominee to upend this coalitional dichotomy — regardless of who emerges as the institution-friendly standard-bearer (Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Wes Moore) — he or she will have to earnestly build a Talarico/Mamdani-esque coalition.

Not long ago, this potent cohort was largely confined to young, urban renters; shorthand for college-educated, professional-class (secular) Whites. Now, it includes middle-aged, suburban homeowners and working-class, devoutly religious Hispanic voters. This younger, anti-system coalition — inherently insurgent to the older Democratic Party establishment — uses the power of attention to overcome a deficit of institutional support. Democratic voters crave a more earnest resistance, and an affirmative vision for a post-Trump world. And right now, the populist left is the only faction in the Democratic Party rising to meet the moment.

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Two weeks ago, I served as the moderator for a candidate forum for New York’s 12th Congressional District, a two-hour discussion at Bank Street College.

Forums, hosted in-person by local political clubs, were once a time-tested tradition of the Democratic Party, a synthesis of organizing and community. Now, these erstwhile neighborhood rituals are diminished (or even non-existent) in many corners of the five boroughs, let alone the country. However, in New York’s 12th Congressional District, which contains perhaps the densest concentration of such “clubs” in America, such an ethos remains alive and well. This event was co-hosted by three such clubs: Broadway Democrats, Columbia University Democrats, and Hell’s Kitchen Democrats.

While all of the aforementioned clubs hail from up-and-down the West Side (an important distinction I will discuss later), New York’s 12th Congressional District straddles both sides of Central Park, stretching as far south as 14th Street. Jonathan Chait, a centrist commentator for The Atlantic, wrote that the Manhattan-based district “probably has more Democrats qualified to serve in national leadership than any congressional district in America.” While such a sentiment is rife with elitism, NY-12 is undoubtedly the epicenter of THE ELITE: home to The New York Times headquarters, Billionaire’s Row, and Museum Mile. Of all the 435 Congressional Districts in the United States, New York’s 12th ranks 1st in both individual income and educational attainment. The sheer scale of affluence — eight-figure penthouses, doormen lining avenues and side streets, three-piece suits and SUVs with tinted windows — is both intoxicating and numbing, particularly in such close proximity to the working-class precarity of the South Bronx, less than 15 minutes away by public transit. Wealth breeds health and longevity: not only is the 12th District the healthiest in the nation (dead last in most diseases and disabilities), it ranks in the 95th percentile with respect to its share of residents from the Silent Generation (over 80 years old). The top eight districts for the Silent Generation are all in Florida, so imagine segments of NY-12 as their political kin folk, just those who prefer to spend 183 taxable days in New York City. Unsurprisingly, NY-12 has the lowest percentage of Gen Z residents (14 to 29 years old) in the nation, a consequence of the highest market-rate apartment prices in America, which has proven unattainable to most recent college graduates. Most of the leading candidates in the congressional race are Millennials (30 to 45 years old), who are competing to succeed the 78-year-old retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. Perhaps that is why a Gen Z moderator was recruited…

As someone who was born and raised inside New York’s 12th Congressional District (formerly Roosevelt Hospital, now Mount Sinai West), attended middle and high school there, and still worships within its boundaries (Church of the Blessed Sacrament on West 71st), I want to color in some of the aforementioned statistics. For almost the entirety of my entire life, up until sixteen months ago, I lived in NY-12. In spite of its affluence and education, this is a district that contains nuance too, particularly with respect to class, neighborhood history, and political persuasion. Indeed, for as many second home owners who abscond to the Hamptons come Memorial Day weekend, there are even more seniors on fixed income, Mitchell-Lama tenants, young professionals, and upper middle class families, who collectively relish their public parks and walkable streets. Politically and culturally, the district is anchored by both the Upper West Side and Upper East Side — residential neighborhoods which, for decades, were deliberately placed in separate congressional districts. The West Side, historically Jewish, is decidedly more liberal (and overwhelmingly Democratic). The East Side, historically WASPy and old moneyed (with many ancestral Independents and Republicans) is more moderate; “Oligarch Alley,” my father’s coinage for the uber-wealthy stretch between Park and Fifth Avenue adjacent to Central Park (a naturally occurring retirement community), was once the heart and soul of Silk Stocking Republicanism and Gloria Steinem’s Radical Chic. As time has passed, and the Democratic Party has realigned towards the well-educated and affluent, these subtle distinctions have blurred. Home to more Jews than any other congressional district in the United States, support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime is eroding by the day, but the Jewish State’s right to exist is never questioned. Nonetheless, the divisions between the East Side and West Side are critical to understanding the contours of what will be one of the most consequential contests in the country. During last year’s Democratic primary for mayor, NY-12 was the most divided of any congressional district in New York City, with Zohran Mamdani ultimately prevailing by less than 200 votes (out of more than 155,000 cast in total). Writing about NY-12 is not ideal for Twitter engagement, given the population’s average age, but it is excellent for pageviews and subscribers, because older voters love using their email. (For the most consistent coverage of NY-12, I recommend Eli Miller’s blog).

As I stood behind the podium, the candidates fanned out across the stage and took their seats. This was the first time they would all appear together, as previous forums opted for the more mundane, one-at-a-time approach. Seated left to right were: Jack Schlossberg, a political commentator and grandson of former President John F. Kennedy; George Conway, a media-savvy lawyer and former Republican who was once married to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign manager; Laura Dunn, a civil and victims rights attorney; Micah Lasher, the state Assembly member for the 69th District on the West Side; Nina Schwalbe, a well-respected public health researcher who specializes in vaccines; Micah Bergdale, an entrepreneur with a background in public transit and electric vehicles; Jami Floyd, a legal analyst for ABC News who co-chairs the transportation community on Manhattan Community Board 7; Mathew Shurka, an LGBTQ+ rights activist who has worked to ban conversion therapy in countless states; and Alex Bores, the state Assembly member for the 73rd District on the East Side. Almost all have Wikipedia pages and advanced degrees.

If you’re thinking, “cool story bro, but I haven’t heard of most of these people,” that’s perfectly normal. Before last week, neither had I. The median voter, even in the epicenter of civic engagement, has more present concerns: Trump, ICE, Israel and Palestine, affordability, artificial intelligence. The two-hour forum sought to delve into those concerns and relate them to the district’s future representative. Each candidate began with a two-minute opening statement and ended with a one minute closing statement. In between, the candidates were questioned on a range of issues and given sixty seconds to respond. Some questions were answered by all, while others were only poised to three at a time. (With nine candidates, which is divisible by three, the format was smooth, ensuring equal opportunity and a wider breadth of topics).

For a full recording of the forum, click HERE.

Although the less well-known candidates (those outside of the Lasher, Bores, Schlossberg trio) will be hard pressed to accumulate a critical mass of attention between now and June 23rd, their presence on the stage was a testament to the depth of the 12th Congressional District’s talent. Laura Dunn stood out for her sharp delivery and unapologetic progressivism on a variety of issues, a talented public speaker unafraid to challenge the district’s ideological median. Micah Bergdale was compelling and thoughtful, marrying a compelling backstory with strong policy analysis. Dr. Nina Schwalbe, particularly to those unfamiliar with her campaign, stole the show on multiple answers, offering interesting and nuanced perspectives on public health (a top reporter at a very influential outlet pointedly told me afterwards that Schwalbe was “impressive”). Matthew Sherka, even in a moment of fervent polarization, recounted his successful efforts passing bi-partisan legislation banning conversion therapy. Jami Floyd, the self-styled “radical moderate,” would ultimately drop out of the race days later. In her closing message, she bemoaned “party insiders” and “political celebrities” having the upper hand, an advantage too great for lesser known (and lesser funded) candidates like herself to overcome.

Floyd is not necessarily wrong, either. But not exactly for the reasons she outlined.

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One might think New York’s 12th Congressional District, as a union of the well-educated and wealthy at the heart of the nation’s media capital, is readymade for a political outsider. But the exact opposite is true. Insurgents thrive in places where the establishment is weak and political networks are scarce. But NY-12 is a testament to relationships and institutions; it’s not just what you know, but who you know.

Which bodes poorly for George Conway.

Last Thursday was Conway’s first appearance at any candidate forum, a point of intrigue among the regular attendees as well as the organizers, who prided themselves on securing the former “Never Trump” Republican and Lincoln Project acolyte. At 63, Conway was the oldest person on the stage, having recently moved back to Manhattan to run for Congress. He has pledged to serve no more than two terms, with a laser focus on removing President Trump from office. Little else matters, Conway implies, so long as a fascist remains in the White House. Undoubtedly, almost all aspects of Conway’s life have revolved around Donald Trump for the past decade, for better or worse. His marriage to Kellyanne Conway publicly imploded after she helped guide Trump to victory in 2016. And in 2024, Conway donated more than one million dollars to Kamala Harris’ failed White House bid. During the forum, his anti-Trump experiences came across, but little else did. One could not escape the feeling that, in a room pulsing with Trump 2.0 energy — an angry Democratic Party base eager for an affirmative post-Trump vision — Conway was moored to the substantively shallower “resistance” of Trump 1.0. Even lighthearted lightning round questions (best pizza? favorite subway stop?), appeared to stymie Conway, who defaulting to “Rays” and the #7 train station in Hudson Yards. Laura Dunn turned to him, quipping “spoken like someone from D.C.”

The voters of the 12th Congressional District not only relish scores of substance, they demand it.

Which presents a challenge for Jack Schlossberg, who at age 33 is the youngest candidate in the field. The son of Caroline Kennedy, Schlossberg is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School who served as a Vogue correspondent during the 2024 presidential election after passing the bar exam. A digital native with the most famous family in American politics, Schlossberg has millions of followers across social media. Earlier this month, he was endorsed by House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, a longstanding ally of the Kennedy clan, who lauded Schlossberg as the voice of the next generation. But is Schlossberg’s voice truly in step with his generation?

Consider his response to my question about how he would “curtail illegal settlements in the West Bank that violate international law.” From the outset, Schlossberg appeared nervous, his voice halting: “Any funding the United States is providing Israel, which I don’t think we should abolish entirely, but I think we have to look at it very carefully. As long as [President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu] are in power, I would look very very carefully at the funding and weapons assistance the United States is providing … Israel is a democracy and in a very tough neighborhood.” Over the course of his answer, Schlossberg never mentioned the West Bank, despite the specific prompt. His lackluster response, unsurprisingly, prompted boos from some of the younger attendees. The contrast in quality was magnified by a far sharper answer from Assembly Member Micah Lasher, who asserted he would immediately re-introduce Rep. Jerry Nadler’s bill to sanction West Bank settlers, saying “I believe there is no path to a resolution of this conflict with the size and scope and expansion of settlement activity in the West Bank and the violence being committed against Palestinians there.” Schlossberg, who had failed to mention the Palestinian plight previously, then interjected upon the conclusion of Lasher’s answer to affirm his support for conditioning aid and express horror at the “human atrocities in Palestine.”

No matter where one stands with respect to the war in Gaza, West Bank settlements, and Israel’s right to exist, Schlossberg appeared, at best, unsure of himself on a crucial federal and international matter, and at worst, untethered to principle and attempting to play both sides of a contentious issue. Contrast Schlossberg with another Millennial politician who also came from economic and cultural privilege: Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the son of acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair and respected academic Mahmood Mamdani. Mamdani, a democratic socialist and avowed supporter of Palestinian human rights, is somewhat of a third rail in NY-12; narrowly winning the district in the Democratic Primary but losing the General Election by five points. Though NY-12 has a disproportionately small Millennial population, Mamdani was able to compete throughout the most affluent and educated blocks in the nation because he relentlessly engaged these younger voters — not just with slick slogans and short-form videos, but with genuine substance. If Schlossberg is truly the voice of the next generation as Nancy Pelosi proclaims, he will be able to activate this cohort, as Mamdani did the year prior. Opponents accuse Mamdani of many things, but “playing it safe,” lack of preparedness, and no core ideological foundation are not among them. This explains Mamdani’s success, and Schlossberg’s lack thereof, far better than anything to do with social media.

Jack Schlossberg’s campaign slogan is “BELIEVE IN SOMETHING,” a rallying call to the young and disillusioned. But what, exactly, is President Kennedy’s grandson asking them to believe in, besides his family’s legacy?

Absent “a record of public service or public accomplishment,” which Nadler has asserted Schlossberg “does not have,” the 33-year-old will have to innovate and become a political entrepreneur: someone who can not only ride the crest of the social forces, but turn them in their direction. Once upon a time, the neighborhoods of New York’s 12th Congressional District molded such political pioneers, spawning not only mayors and governors, but national leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Now, the political entrepreneurs come from other places in the five boroughs. They may work in the NY-12, perhaps at a taqueria in Union Square, but they live somewhere else far more affordable, like the Bronx. Even those fortunate enough to grow up here (a certain Bank Street alum raised in Morningside Heights comes to mind), will find their breakthrough opportunities elsewhere, in working- and middle-class neighborhoods like Parkchester, Astoria, and Bay Ridge. What has atrophied and eroded the political entrepreneurship of the 12th Congressional District?

The simple answer is that it’s easier to “make it” literally anywhere else. The competition for political office at the heart of Manhattan is fierce, defined by an abundance of ambition, credentials, and money (even races for Democratic district leader, an unpaid party position, are polarizing and fraught). In other parts of the city, there is often a sole interest group that dominates civic culture that one must appeal to. But in the neighborhoods of the 12th Congressional District, the array of institutions is vast, but – save for The New York Times – none are overwhelming enough to singlehandedly tip the scales. When combined with a relatively homogenous racial and class character, political preference often reverts to the mean of technocratic liberalism. As such, there is less ideological and political differentiation between elected officials across the 12th Congressional District than in any other congressional seat in New York City. One would think such robust competition would breed a plethora of political mavericks, but instead most candidates choose to play it safe and are thus relatively unknown outside of their immediate neighborhood. Even incumbent Rep. Jerry Nadler, a beloved liberal with an impressive and substantive legacy, is not considered a national leader of the Democratic Party.

Alex Bores, for one, is hoping to change that. Bores fits the “ladder climber” archetype that is a pre-requisite for success in the 12th Congressional District. He was a district leader on the Upper East Side, aligned with the influential and progressive-leaning Four Freedoms Democratic Club, before winning a bitterly contested race for an ultra-rare open Assembly seat in 2022. In the State Legislature, Bores represents many of the wealthiest communities in New York City: “Oligarch Alley,” along with tony Sutton Place and quasi-hip (but still expensive) Murray Hill, all on Manhattan’s East Side.

In a contest of this nature — regardless of nuance, qualification, or ideology — political geography often carries the day, pitting the West Side against the East Side. There are more votes to be had on the West Side, and the political institutions on that side of Central Park are more cohesive (i.e. all political clubs and elected officials typically move together). Micah Lasher, homegrown in the neighborhood, is the West Side candidate, blessed by their standard-bearer, Jerry Nadler. And the West Side always beats the East Side. (Just ask Carolyn Maloney, the former East Side congresswoman who lost badly to Nadler in 2022 after the two veteran congressmembers were both drawn into NY-12 during redistricting.)

But what if Bores could transcend geography, or at least mitigate it? He would need a potent wedge issue, a means to distinguish himself from the crowded field. Such a wildcard would have to be universal and existential, while increasingly commanding attention in the psyche of the district’s hyper-engaged electorate. Bores would need to be an expert on this emerging threat, even more than the notoriously wonky Lasher.

The ability of artificial intelligence, and its profound and escalating implications on white-collar employment and mass surveillance, to rupture the historic West-East electoral paradigm is the thesis on which Alex Bores has staked his campaign. And there is a bullish case why that could work. As data centers occupy rural communities and consume natural resources, anxiety increases about what artificial intelligence means for our collective future, particularly amongst the well-educated classes — also known as New York’s 12th Congressional District. Many are even saying “AI Pacs are the new AIPAC.” However, AIPAC’s financial resources, vast and not to be underestimated, are still more finite than that of the sprawling tech oligarchy.

Already, independent expenditures tied to AI behemoths have identified Bores as a target (or potential ally), flooding NY-12 with seven-figure ad buys months before the election. This onslaught has even further raised the salience of AI and placed Bores at the center of the conversation, a potent position in the attentional economy of politics, if harnessed correctly. Bores has parlayed this moment into several primetime hits on cable news and field-leading fundraising, complementing style with substance (his AI regulation plan, announced the morning of the forum, was well received). In making the case to the district’s voters that he is best equipped to be their representative, Bores leaned into the argument that “we will vote the same way 90% of the time,” but that the election is about “bringing a knowledge or experience that is different from what exists in [the Democratic Congressional Caucus].” This is undoubtedly compelling, but is it enough to overcome decades of relationships and institutions in a matter of months? And, even if artificial intelligence swiftly and ruthlessly automates away early career and mid-level white-collar jobs, wouldn’t the residents of NY-12 — older, more affluent, more educated — be among the most insulated from such havoc? Political outcomes, oftentimes reduced to talent and sweeping ideological implications, are shaped by luck and timing as much as anything else. And there’s one variable that weighs on the collective psyche of New York’s 12th Congressional District even more than the rise of artificial intelligence: Donald Trump.

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Bores’s top rival is betting that Democrats in NY-12 will not stray too far from their priors, and that President Trump, and the daily chaos emanating from his administration, will still dominate the zeitgeist of Manhattan voters over the next four months. These anxious and informed liberals, in a moment of peril, will seek continuity from the previous, respected and beloved tenure of Rep. Jerry Nadler, and turn to his well-prepared political protégé. So the thinking goes, at least.

That candidate, Micah Lasher, is no ordinary first-term Assembly member. He boasts an impressive résumé in New York politics spanning two decades, including stints as the policy director to the governor, chief of staff to the state attorney general, and chief Albany negotiator for the mayor. However, Lasher cannot be pigeonholed as a government bureaucrat naive to the dark arts of political power, for the West Side native has steered winning campaigns across New York since he was a freshman in college (even writing a book on magic tricks when he was fifteen). A savvy and sharp political operative, Lasher knows every trick in the proverbial playbook and has some of the most powerful politicians in Manhattan on speed dial. Case in point, during a surprisingly competitive campaign for Assembly in 2024, public defender Eli Northrup appeared to be gaining ground on Lasher, the prohibitive favorite, after the progressive insurgent sent a negative mailer attacking the frontrunner’s past support for charter schools. While the West Side traditionally adheres to a “gentleman’s game,” Lasher hit back, phoning both Rep. Jerry Nadler and former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger (the two also ran for Assembly against one another in 1976), who co-signed a letter admonishing the negative campaigning (“Eli Northrup should be ashamed of his dishonest, meanspirited attacks”), which included an image of a salt shaker (“Democrats should take them with a FULL shaker of salt”). The infamous “salt shaker” mailer immediately stalled Northrup’s momentum, and Lasher coasted to victory. But did he need to pull the Nadler–Messinger card to win?

Of course not. Micah Lasher sent that mailer because he could.

However, the generational opportunity that lays before him today almost never came to fruition. For close to a decade, Lasher’s career was defined by a series of what ifs and near misses: a shoe-in for City Council in the late 2000’s, term limit extensions foiled his plans to run; campaigning for a highly-coveted state Senate seat along the West Side several years later, Lasher fell short by less than 300 votes; a key adviser to both Scott Stringer and Eric Schneiderman, a top position in City Hall or Albany was inevitable, until personal scandal leveled both of their careers. Now, the path is finally clear, with Lasher on the precipice of his political dream. Can he realize it?

So far, Lasher is leaving nothing up to chance. Another West Side candidate, City Council Member Erik Bottcher, was also supposed to run for NY-12. He announced last fall and raised an impressive sum of money, more than three-quarters of a million dollars on the first day. However, over the holidays, Bottcher abruptly dropped out of the Congressional race to run for a vacant state Senate seat on the Upper West Side, formerly held by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. Immediately, Lasher’s longstanding West Side allies, Nadler and Hoylman-Sigal, endorsed Bottcher, which promptly boxed out other potential Senate contenders, such as Assembly Members Linda Rosenthal and Tony Simone. Overnight, Bottcher found a soft place to land and Lasher became the only West Side elected official running for Congress. Another magic trick, perhaps?

But if Lasher is a smooth and well-connected operator, he is an even more prolific legislator. Already, Lasher has sent booklets (“The Fight Back Blueprint”) about his work to “Trump-proof” New York to thousands of households, specifically targeting East Side Democrats who are less familiar with his legislative record. These are not your traditional mailers. Rather, they are multi-part briefings (“Part II: A Roadmap for Congressional Oversight and Investigations” arrived recently), totaling four pages, stapled and double sided. (The specific content of these blueprints can also be found on Lasher’s Substack, fittingly named “Into The Weeds”). Such blueprints are paired with a “Dear Neighbor” letter from a current or former Manhattan borough president (Mark Levine, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Gale Brewer) whom East Side voters would be better acquainted with. This attention to detail has helped Lasher peel off two clubs from the East Side, Eleanor Roosevelt Independent Democrats and Samuel J. Tilden Democratic Club. While the political power of each individual club varies significantly (and, to some extent, is diminished from the halcyon days of local organizing), the early East Side inroads bodes well for the West Side’s favored son.

But every time Micah Lasher looks over his shoulder, he still sees Alex Bores. Barring a minor miracle, the race will come down to these two men. The gloves may not be all the way off yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Already, they have traded multiple barbs in the press, with Lasher highlighting Bores’ past work for Palantir, whose facial recognition software has been controversially used by the Department of Homeland Security and Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (Bores left the company in 2019). Bores countered that Lasher originally hedged when asked whether he would call for the abolition of ICE, a position that is almost uniformly supported by the 12th Congressional District’s Democratic candidates (after the murder of Alex Pretti, Lasher went to Minneapolis for several days). Israel-Palestine, while a fault line and source of sense of tension throughout NY-12, is not widely viewed as a discernible differentiator between Lasher and Bores (both have sworn off contributions from AIPAC-adjacent PACs).

Thursday’s forum was their first moment sharing a stage together. Asked about “one thing they would do differently from Rep. Jerry Nadler,” both showcased their respective strengths: Lasher, despite his close relationship to the incumbent, did not attempt to deflect whatsoever, instead harkening back to the Glass-Steagall legislation of the late 1990s, which deregulated financial markets and contributed to the Great Recession. Bores charmingly quipped “first, I would endorse differently,” which elicited laughs from the audience. As Schlossberg stumbled and Conway choked, Bores and Lasher lived up to their reputations. For close to 90 minutes, the two ambitious frontrunners, representing Manhattan’s Upper West and East Sides, refrained from poking one another. But a climactic confrontation was inevitable.

Questioned on the “costs and benefits of artificial intelligence” and the “steps Congress should take to implement proper safeguards to protect workers and livelihoods,” Lasher began by praising his main opponent: “I was proud to co-sponsor Alex’s very good bill on catastrophic risk, that is something the federal government should take on.” Nonetheless, the good vibes swiftly came to an end. Lasher proudly listed the other artificial intelligence regulation bills he co-sponsored (on issues like employment, lending, displacement), each time repeating, “and I was surprised that Alex was the lone Democratic vote against that bill.” To further twist the proverbial knife, Lasher added that “you’re not gonna see either of the two major AI companies proposing a Super PAC to support my candidacy.” (Through affiliated Super PACs, OpenAI has spent heavily against Bores, while Anthropic has spent in support of him).

The open-endedness of Lasher’s assertion left the audience in limbo, with more questions than answers: Why did Bores vote against those bills if all of his colleagues did not? Does he have something to hide?

Bores, one hand in the air, aware that a blow had been struck, politely asked the moderator for an immediate rebuttal. The moderator smiled, but nonetheless declined: “You’ll get your minute, we’re not NY1.” Had Bores responded immediately, fresh off the personal challenge from his rival, perhaps his answer would have been more hurried or emotional. Instead, as the Q&A made its way from right to left, the East Side Assemblyman was blessed with another 240 seconds to strategize and answer. What came next was not a fiery rebuke, but a measured response. Prior to addressing his opponent, Bores began by touting his own AI regulation plan, released the morning of the forum to rave reviews. Then, he sought to draw a distinction between individual donations from the employees and engineers of AI firms (Bores has raised close to one million dollars in campaign contributions from California) and dark money PACs (whose donations are unlimited and donors are hidden). “I understand Trump megadonors want a say in this race, but I am disappointed that a Democrat would give them more airtime,” he said. In the Upper East Sider’s telling, his Upper West Side rival was not only “ignorant,” but “spreading misinformation.” The bespectacled Lasher, always mild-mannered and reserved (but armed with an occasionally short fuse), did not take kindly to Bores’ charges. Even before Bores finished speaking, Lasher reached for the microphone. “I’ve condemned BOTH of the Super PACs,” Lasher asserted, “and just today, $20 million by the PRO-BORES Super PAC to Senate Republicans,” his voice rising with every syllable. “There are two companies fighting a war, and Alex is right in the middle of it,” he declared. Bores’ chief of staff, sitting in the front row, yelled at Lasher.

A gentleman’s game had become a cage match.

Such an interaction, beyond legislative sponsoring or Super PAC ethics, belied the emotional current pulsing inside both men. Lasher was the guarded favorite, protecting his flank, unwilling to let any encroachment go unchallenged; Bores the persistent underdog, relishing the chance to get under his opponent’s skin.

Next January, the victor will be furnishing their new office on Capitol Hill, carrying bills alongside Senator Jon Ossoff, crafting legislation with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and fielding calls from potential House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Leader Chuck Schumer. For those whose ambitions outstrip our own, entering Congress in 2027, right as Democrats retake Congressional majorities and the Trump regime starts to buckle, is tantamount to political nirvana. Inevitably, the next representative of New York’s 12th Congressional District will be at the center of everything.

The loser will be cleaning out their desk in Albany, bidding farewell to departing staff, and waiting alone on the Amtrak platform, bracing for their final commute home. In these moments of silence, numbed by the unforgiving winter of Upstate New York, their bruised ego and brilliant psyche will regretfully and endlessly replay their fate.

What could I have done differently?

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In a corner of Queens County, bounded by the East River, straddling the Long Island Expressway, with views of the Manhattan skyline, lies the neighborhood of Astoria.

Renamed for John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest man in the United States, class politics have always shaped Astoria. Always a home to immigrants, Astoria was first settled by the Dutch, English, and Germans in the 18th century, followed by the Irish in the 19th century, and Italians and Jews in the early half of the 20th century. Astoria’s modern day culture and demographics, nonetheless, can be traced back to the 1960s, when a large wave of Greek immigrants settled in the neighborhood. The Greeks and Italians soon opened tavernas and trattorias, erected churches, and purchased single family homes, becoming Astoria’s dominant ethnic groups.

For the decades thereafter, the political character of Astoria mirrored that of other outer-borough, white ethnic neighborhoods: erstwhile supporting liberal icons (Jack Kennedy, John Lindsay) before swinging right towards reactionaries (Mario Procaccino) and conservatives (James Buckley). The Democrats who represented Astoria opposed forced busing and abortion, but supported the Vietnam War and the death penalty; all positions that matched their socially-conservative (and often deeply religious) constituents. Archie Bunker, the fictional (and bigoted) father from the 70s sitcom All In The Family, lived in Astoria. In the show, Bunker is an “early supporter of Ronald Reagan and correctly predicts his election in 1980,” all while railing against “commies, women’s libbers, and ‘unpatriotic’ peace protestors.” (Bunker’s prediction was correct, as Reagan won Astoria both times when he ran for President). In political commentary, the Archie Bunker vote became shorthand for the bloc of urban, white, working-class men; and for the latter half of the 20th Century, such shorthand was an apt description of Astoria’s political culture, as voters oscillated between moderate Democrats and right-wing Republicans. By the 2000s, the neighborhood had settled into a familiar pattern: reliably blue at the federal level, with a pinkish hue at the local level. Al Gore and John Kerry comfortably carried Astoria versus George W. Bush, but so did Republican Michael Bloomberg in three consecutive mayoral elections (although by less and less every time). Down the ballot, the neighborhood routinely elected conservative Democrats, often from the Vallone family, a multi-generational staple of the Italian community (Peter Vallone Sr. and Peter Vallone Jr. represented Astoria in the City Council continuously from 1974 to 2013).

In the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, an instructive tilt between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the future president performed well in many of the neighborhoods that would soon become the face of the progressive left. Obama won Greenpoint, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene, and Park Slope, home to the city’s emerging professional class. But in Astoria, Clinton won every block: Greek and Italian homeowners, Hispanic families in Section 8 housing, market rate renters, and public housing residents. Obama, who campaigned on ending the War in Iraq and inspired scores of young people to organize and engage in the political process, was shut out.

Indeed, Astoria would have seemed like an odd place to start a political revolution.

There were few signs (and even fewer elections) to the contrary until 2016, when Clinton returned to once again seek the Democratic nomination for President. Her opponent, Bernie Sanders, an unabashed democratic socialist and longstanding critic of capitalism, was making his metaphorical “last stand” in New York. However, while Sanders won 49 of New York’s 62 counties, Clinton crushed the Vermont Independent in the state’s urban centers, particularly with Black and Latino working-class voters and the affluent liberal intelligentsia of Manhattan. In defeat, Sanders nonetheless cultivated support from younger, college-educated voters in Brooklyn and Queens (in addition to his pronounced rural appeal). The 2016 Democratic presidential primary cohered the first iteration of the “Commie Corridor.”

Clinton, compared to her 2008 performance, regressed considerably in Astoria, more so than any other neighborhood in the five boroughs. After winning every precinct eight years prior, Clinton held onto only a handful: Astoria Houses, the public housing development on the Hallets Point peninsula; Marine Terrace, a longtime Section 8 housing development, where a plurality of residents are Hispanic; Queensview Apartments, a mix of limited equity and open market cooperatives home to older voters; and Astoria Heights, a triangled enclave of Italian and Greek homeowners in the neighborhood’s northeastern corner, a 25-minute walk from the subway. (For decades, Astoria Houses and Marine Terrace were Black and Latino islands of Democratic blue in a neighborhood awash with Republican red).

On blocks where renters were a majority of the electorate, Sanders crushed Clinton. However, few attributed Sanders’ overperformance in Western Queens to a class-based politics that appealed to renters. After all, the Brooklyn native had also outpaced Clinton with (increasingly disaffected) white ethnic Democrats across the city (Sanders won Bay Ridge, Maspeth, Marine Park, and Tottenville). Given Astoria’s historic political and demographic identity as a bastion of white ethnic voters, Sanders’ strong performance did not trigger alarms for longtime Democratic incumbents. Perhaps it should have.

Nonetheless, there were those who sensed opportunity. Millennials were raised in the wake of September 11th, watched in horror as the United States pursued a futile and destructive War in Iraq, and came of age during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Those who believed in electoral politics were left disappointed by Barack Obama’s tenure, and embraced the decidedly left-leaning, class politics of Bernie Sanders. Throughout the 2010’s, many college-educated millennials, priced out of the urban core and confined to the renter class, found themselves in Astoria, a family-friendly neighborhood with a relatively short commute to Manhattan. They entered into a political vacuum, with few local institutions and an electorate amidst dramatic change. The older, more conservative Italian and Greek voters, which once reliably anchored Astoria’s electorate, were aging (and realigning) out of the Democratic base. But Rep. Joe Crowley failed to notice the shifting political tides.

A creature of machine politics, Crowley was hailed as the proverbial “King of Queens,” despite rarely competing in competitive elections (preferring to knock his opponents off the ballot through legal maneuvers). Nonetheless, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old waitress and native of the Parkchester section of the Bronx (who once described a run against Crowley as “literally political suicide”) was undeterred by the incumbent’s reputation. Outspent by a 10:1 margin, the Ocasio-Cortez campaign relentlessly pounded the pavement. Knocking doors, in a dense and residential neighborhood like Astoria, was straightforward, with walkup apartment houses and single-family homes easily accessible. In a single shift, a few dozen volunteers could cover thousands of doors (always leaving a palm card behind), having hundreds of conversations along the way. In a low-turnout Democratic primary, volunteer canvassing proved to be a tremendous competitive advantage. On June 26, 2018, such efforts paid off in the upset of the decade. In Astoria, Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist who called for the abolition of ICE, crushed Crowley, who had endorsements from every local elected official. At the block-level, the carnage was even more pronounced, as Ocasio-Cortez won all but two blocks (Marine Terrace and a sliver of Astoria Heights). On most blocks, she earned more than 75% of the vote.

“We beat a machine with a movement,” she smiled.

If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory was an earthquake, Astoria was the epicenter.

The following year, NYC-DSA, amidst an epic membership revival during the first Trump administration, audaciously endorsed public defender Tiffany Cabán, a de-carceral reformer in the mold of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, for Queens District Attorney. In the wake of Crowley’s stunning defeat, the wounded “Queens Machine” rallied behind Melinda Katz, a former City Council member and sitting borough president. The race mirrored AOC vs. Crowley: an underfunded democratic socialist with robust grassroots support, facing a moderate liberal with near-uniform backing from the political establishment. But the narrative of the favored candidate being “asleep at the wheel” was gone. In a contest that spanned an entire borough, with existential implications for the Democratic machine, the Katz campaign strategically retreated to Southeast Queens, home to the city’s Black middle class, conceding Western Queens to Cabán, a clear indication of the left’s growing political power. Armed with “a large number of young people who, for the right candidate, would be willing to work very hard for free,” Cabán won more than 75% of the vote in Astoria, with the highest voter runout of any neighborhood in Queens County. NYC-DSA wasn’t just winning over new residents and bringing people into the political process, but growing their support among the neighborhood old guard: Cabán won the working-class renters of Marine Terrace and the homeowners of Astoria Heights. In the end, Cabán lost by just 60 votes, less than one-tenth of one percent.

Even in defeat, the People’s Republic of Astoria was born.

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It’s one thing to win a campaign that spans a congressional district or borough, where your opponents may be focused elsewhere, but what about at the neighborhood level? This, in many respects, is the last level of building durable political power.

On a brisk morning in October, the three figures who helped usher in a new political era for Astoria — Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Tiffany Cabán — took the stage at Queensbridge Park. In the crowd was the fourth, Zohran Mamdani.

As Sanders implored the audience, in his trademark Brooklyn accent, to “fight for someone you don’t know,” Mamdani canvassed the crowd, urging the smallest of donations to his own campaign. “I’m running on Bernie’s platform in Astoria,” he said with a smile. Mamdani was running against the incumbent, Aravella Simotas, a lifelong resident of Astoria. Homegrown in the neighborhood’s Greek community and with ties to the Queens Democratic Party, Simotas had a plethora of connections that Mamdani, who moved to the neighborhood the year prior, did not. Establishing a clear contrast with Simotas, an inoffensive left-liberal who had been hailed for her work combating sexual harassment, proved to be a difficult endeavor for Mamdani; City & State even published an article, with the subtitle: “Aravella Simotas and DSA-backed Zohran Mamdani compete over the same platform in Astoria,” underscoring this dynamic. Further complicating life was the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced all campaigning inside. Mamdani’s greatest assets, volunteer door knocking and in-person interaction, were eliminated per public health guidance.

Simotas, given her ties to the community, was a far stronger opponent than Crowley or Katz. She would win Queensview Apartments by 46%, charming left-liberal cooperators who were apprehensive about a socialist incursion, and Marine Terrace by 30%, reminding working-class voters she was a known quantity (unlike her fresh-faced opponent). In Astoria Heights, Simotas crushed Mamdani, as the Greek community rallied to her defense. Blocks that had loudly voted for AOC and Cabán eschewed their comrade, Mamdani. Old Astoria would not go down without a fight.

But Zohran Mamdani was working to expand the electorate. His campaign knocked on the doors of Muslim independent voters in the dead of winter to re-register them as Democrats so they could vote in the primary. During Ramadan, at the height of the pandemic, the campaign distributed six hundred meals every day. “Bringing forth Bernie Sanders’ vision,” Mamdani said, “means not only fighting for a political revolution but transforming the electorate.” Since the 1970s, thousands of Arabs and Muslims had immigrated to Astoria, establishing a commercial corridor along Steinway Street, the same thoroughfare where the NYPD illegally surveilled Muslims on the basis of their faith after September 11th. And, amidst the narrative of a political tug-of-war between the millennial, college-educated renters and their baby boomer, home-owning counterparts, a crucial piece of Astoria’s fabric had been left out.

No longer. Mamdani’s best precinct, which delivered the Muslim socialist more than two-thirds of the vote, included the “Little Egypt” blocks of Steinway Street. When the votes were tallied at Queens Borough Hall, Mamdani prevailed by the slimmest of margins. “423 Astoria Patriots,” in the words of Mamdani’s photographer, Kara McCurdy, “changed the course of history.” The close result was cited as a reason for The Left to not become too bullish, but the opposite was true. Mamdani’s victory was the culmination of a sea change; a democratic socialist political movement had not only arrived, but was there to stay. They too, were now part of the community.

The “Mamdani Coalition” — young people, renters, Muslims, South Asians — that eventually propelled ZOHRAN to City Hall was first built in Astoria.

Five years later, Zohran Mamdani was once again on the ballot in Astoria — along with every other neighborhood in the five boroughs (by then, two more NYC-DSA candidates had won office in Astoria: Tiffany Cabán for City Council, and Kristen Gonzalez for State Senate). Running for mayor, Mamdani re-created his Astoria Coalition across New York City: running up the score with renters (both market rate and rent-stabilized) in places like Upper Manhattan; sweeping the Commie Corridor from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Bushwick; outpacing the competition among college-educated professionals in Fort Greene and Park Slope; while inspiring record turnout from Muslims in Jamaica Hills, South Asians in Kensington, and Arabs in Bay Ridge.

In Astoria, where it all began, the results were profound: 81% of the vote, the highest of any neighborhood in New York City (tied with Bushwick and Ridgewood). Mamdani had not only engaged an impressive number of newer voters (expanding the Astoria electorate by more than 50% compared to four years prior), but worked tirelessly (and successfully) to win over longstanding residents of the neighborhood. In the Primary, he swept the familiar faces of Astoria Heights, Marine Terrace, and Queensview Apartments, the first NYC-DSA candidate ever to do so. In the General, the lone blocks of the neighborhood captured by Andrew Cuomo months earlier — Astoria and Ravenswood Houses, public housing developments home to older, lower-income Black and Latino voters — swung to Mamdani. While still a neighborhood of contradictions and limitless nuance, Astoria was awash in blue.

In many respects, the demographic and cultural changes of Astoria, from a blue-collar community of white ethnic immigrants, to a polyglot of professionals, young families, Muslims, South Asians, and tenants, reflects that of New York City as a whole. The throughline, between the old and new Astoria, is a diverse and nuanced middle-class. Once a political afterthought, let alone an outer borough outlier, Astoria now shapes the whims of discourse and possibility far beyond the five boroughs.

This week, Diana Moreno, another democratic socialist, won the special election to succeed Mamdani in the Assembly. Moreno easily prevailed, netting 74% of the vote, winning every block of Astoria and Long Island City, the latest in a decade-long line of victories for The Left in Western Queens. In the telling of the Queens Eagle, “Moreno’s stiffest competition was herself. Carrying both the Democratic and Working Families ballot line, Moreno, the Democratic nominee, beat out Moreno, the Working Families nominee, by a mere 200 votes.” In 2018, Astoria led the charge against the infamous “Queens Machine,” dethroning their once-vaunted leader; now, the neighborhood is powerful enough that County Chair Greg Meeks (Joe Crowley’s successor) declined to even put up a fight, bending the metaphoric knee by giving Moreno the Democratic line. He knew a democratic socialist victory was inevitable.

Moreno, undoubtedly, has big shoes to fill as Mamdani’s successor; perhaps larger than any other first term legislator in New York history. On Monday, Jacobin published my profile of her, which I encourage all of you to read. I rarely publish magazine-length pieces on state legislature candidates, but I wanted to write something that people, even years from now, could reference to gain a better understanding of who she is. Moreno’s future, and the movement she represents, are undeniably bright.

Ten years ago, Astoria had no democratic socialist elected officials. Now, the People’s Republic is the only neighborhood in the United States with socialist representatives at the city, state, and federal levels of government.

Last June, scores of volunteers fanned out across Astoria, wearing summer shorts and carrying water bottles, braving triple-digit heat to welcome voters at polling sites, hand out literature to commuters, and chalk intersections and street corners. In November, hundreds more reconvened to repeat the routine, armed with jackets and jeans, navigating less daylight and twice the number of voters. This February, as piles of frozen snow lined the sidewalks, and the temperature “peaked” at 30 degrees, many of the same volunteers (new and old) eagerly greeted parents at school dismissal, this time wearing hats and gloves. Such was the case no matter the season nor the campaign. To these committed locals, such acts have become a part of life, at a time when everyday people are drifting further and further apart. They come early and stay late for the beloved face on the palm card, sure, but they return, over and over again, because of one another. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. In the words of Astoria’s newest Assemblywoman, Diana Moreno, “my comrades come from different backgrounds, faiths, and ethnicities, but we find such a healing point of connection in our belief and vision for a world where people have their basic needs met. When you play a role in the movement, you feel alive.”

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There is never a dull moment in New York City politics.

Last week, Rep. Nydia Velázquez, the outgoing member of New York’s 7th Congressional District, fired a warning shot at Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Velázquez and Mamdani found themselves on opposite sides of the upcoming Democratic Primary for the former’s successor: with Velázquez supporting Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, a son of the Southside and longstanding mentee of “La Luchadora”; whereas Mamdani backed one-term Assemblymember Claire Valdez, an organizer with NYC-DSA and UAW, and the first elected official to endorse his campaign for mayor. Velázquez, who has represented various iterations of the 7th District since 1993, did not take kindly to the mayor’s intervention. In an interview with The New York Times, Velázquez excoriated Mamdani, despite their close alliance in the mayoral primary. “Honeymoons are short, and people need to pay attention to the work at hand,” she warned. “Primaries sometimes can be a distraction from the work that you need to do.” In addition to going after Mamdani, Velázquez had harsh words for his “political home,” NYC-DSA, the organization supporting Valdez: “It’s very nice to get to New York for a few years and to have opinions about other elected officials without knowing the history and the struggle and who was there fighting corrupt government. Now, all of the sudden, people want to come in and decide who is the best candidate with total disregard to the history, the background.”

The Socialists vs. The Progressives? More like The Townies vs. The Transplants.

This is, personally, somewhat of a strange column for me to write. I’m not sure anyone in New York City has closer combined ties to Velázquez (my former boss), Mamdani (the subject of my forthcoming book), and Valdez (my fellow DSA member, I’m not the type to say “comrade,” sorry). But this feels like an inflection point: for the political left, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens, and, perhaps, the Democratic Party.

Velázquez’s comments were personal, belying deep-seated resentment that is relational, ideological, and political. If this was the beginning of a Civil War in the Commie Corridor, the well-respected Congresswoman had fired the first shot.

In referencing “history” and “background,” Velázquez bemoaned the demographic and cultural changes that have transformed North Brooklyn and Western Queens over the past three decades. The 7th District (formerly the 12th), was created in 1992 to empower Hispanic voters, most notably Puerto Ricans, who chose one of their own, Nydia Velázquez, to represent them in Congress. Since then, “La Luchadora” (the fighter) has cultivated a bench of local progressive allies, including Reynoso, who collectively wrested power from the machines that once dominated North Brooklyn politics. It seemed inevitable that Velázquez would choose her successor.

However, the past decade has seen pronounced changes to the 7th District’s character. Once plagued by crack vials and crime, NY-7 is now home to more artists than any Congressional District in America. Today, there are more Dominicans in the 7th District than Puerto Ricans, and more white residents than Latinos. Now, political media refers to the 7th District as the heart of the “Commie Corridor,” a phrase first coined on this Substack, the consequence of a 99th percentile concentration of Millennials and renters. And, from Greenpoint, a gentrified neighborhood of young professionals and creatives, to City Line, an enclave of Bangladeshi Muslims, perhaps no district better embodies the breadth of the Mamdani Coalition.

“We don’t need to look outside for leaders. We grow our own right here in Brooklyn,” Velázquez told attendees at a rally over the weekend. But the 7th is a district of “outsiders,” as more than half of residents were born outside of New York state, a figure that ranks in the 78th percentile nationwide. The entire history of New York City politics is one of ethnic and ideological successions — from Greenwich Village bohemians dethroning the Italian and Irish-led Tammany Hall to Afro-Caribbeans and African Americans wrestling for power in Central Brooklyn. These fights, endemic to the five boroughs, are nonetheless painful and fraught. And the race for New York’s 7th Congressional District is shaping up to be the latest chapter in this cycle.

Antonio Reynoso is the homegrown candidate. Reynoso is best described as a progressive reformer, proudly battling political bosses, passing legislation to curtail the NYPD, and voting against the city budget before it was a common protest tactic. A former City Council Member and the current Brooklyn Borough President, his personal and professional network is decades deep, spanning every non-profit and community organization. In politics, relationships are a currency, and Reynoso has relationships. The most important of which is Nydia Velázquez, who blessed the son of the Southside as the candidate best equipped to continue her legacy. Ten years ago, Reynoso would have been a shoe-in to win. Now, he is the underdog.

That’s because of Claire Valdez. A Mexican-American native of Lubbock, Texas (a city of a quarter-million in the Great Plains region), Valdez moved to New York City in 2015. An organizer with both NYC-DSA and the United Auto Workers who was only elected to the State Assembly in 2024, she has become a key figure in the Mamdani era. Her goodwill amongst the democratic socialist rank-and-file, the earnest and dedicated volunteers who knock on thousands of doors apiece, is unrivaled; Valdez won 94% of the internal vote to secure NYC-DSA’s endorsement. Nonetheless, the first-term legislator born outside the five boroughs is already facing headwinds as the candidate not from the community. When asked about Valdez, Velázquez was curt: “she’s been in office for 11 months now. I really don’t know her,” before suggesting the millennial might not know her way around the district. All politics is local, indeed. Nonetheless, Valdez has a powerful relationship of her own: Zohran Mamdani.

On the surface, there are few explicit ideological differences between Antonio Reynoso and Claire Valdez. Both have deemed the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.” Both have called for the abolition of ICE. Both support raising taxes on the wealthy to further fund an expansive social safety net. But there is always room for nuance. At the NYC-DSA endorsement forum, Reynoso “declined to rule out” taking contributions from real estate developers and was “questioned” on his previous reluctance to call Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide,” according to City & State. These are serious enough liabilities, in the nation’s most left-leaning district, that even Velázquez reportedly told Mamdani she was “worried Reynoso wasn’t vocal enough about Gaza and about his ties to real estate developers.” Such underscores the broader dynamic that Reynoso stands to benefit from any widespread perception of ideological symmetry (that the two candidates are the same on every issue), whereas Valdez is relying on soft contrast and savvy communications. This extends to how the candidates talk about their ideology, too: Valdez is a proud democratic socialist, whereas Reynoso agrees with many democratic socialist principles.

Nonetheless, beneath the veneer of relationships and ideology lies a classic (and familiar) struggle for political power between the Socialist and Progressive Left. Allies when the opponent was Andrew Cuomo (or Martin Dilan), these dueling tenants of left-leaning politics in the five boroughs are now on opposite sides. While this battle is confined to a sole Congressional District, the repercussions will stretch far beyond, with potential to dictate who leads the left in New York City for years to come.

The Progressive Left possesses a deeper bench of legislators, with more allies in the media and government class, particularly from the Bill de Blasio era. And before 2018, the Progressive Left was the only game in town — until the nascent Socialist Left, resurrected in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ first Presidential campaign, began exponentially amassing power following Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s upset victory.

Case in point: in 2021, the Socialist Left was little more than a footnote in the mayoral race, sitting out the contest to focus instead on building a bench down the ballot; whereas in 2025, one of their own stunned the political establishment and seized the most powerful bully pulpit in the five boroughs. Are the Socialists and Progressives on a collision course to decide the future of urban political power? Or will this be a respectful political joust that otherwise lacks broader implications?

Nydia Velázquez’s warning that Zohran Mamdani should “pay attention to the work at hand” is a subtle nod to the mayor’s vast influence with the electorate. Indeed, Mamdani annihilated Cuomo in the 7th District, 76% to 24%, amidst the highest voter turnout the district has ever seen (in a Democratic primary). NY-7 was not only Mamdani’s best district in the five boroughs, but is also home to the largest concentration of DSA members in the city. Naturally, Mamdani and NYC-DSA leapt at the chance to field a “cadre” candidate upon Velázquez’s retirement. Of course, the 17-term incumbent was also keen on influencing who would be her successor. However, the two trailblazing allies did not see eye-to-eye. Mamdani, from the onset, expressed enthusiasm about the prospect of Valdez running, to the chagrin of Velázquez, who settled on Reynoso, a longstanding ally. With each power broker committed to a candidate, the race materialized and the rift deepened, before spilling into the public eye last week. Now, the stakes have been raised for all parties.

For Mamdani, the race is an early test of whether his political prowess can translate to other, aligned candidates. Does his movement have coattails, or is it overly reliant on one man’s talent (and the presence of a scandal-scarred and flawed opponent)?

Over the next five months, you will hear me reference “1992” quite a bit. That was the year the modern iteration of (what would eventually become) New York’s 7th Congressional District was created, the result of repeated lawsuits from Puerto Rican communities under the Voting Rights Act. When Velázquez reflects that “we went to court for this district,” she is invoking this history, one held dear to her. In 1992, Velázquez emerged from a crowded field of Hispanic candidates to defeat incumbent Stephen Solarz, a high-ranking member of the Democratic establishment who championed interventionist foreign policy. Solarz, who watched his previous district be torn apart during redistricting, ran in the newly-created “Hispanic opportunity” district against Velázquez, in the hope of keeping his political career alive. Facing a well-funded and opportunistic carpetbagger naive to the lived experiences of low-income Latinos, Velázquez rallied her community. US versus THEM. More than 30 years later, political conditions may have changed, but the mentality has not.

One cannot parse Velázquez’s recent comments without understanding that history. It is possible, even likely, that she views the contest to choose her successor under similar terms. The memory of 1992 looms large over 2026.

Stephen Solarz, who absconded to a “sprawling” estate in suburban Virginia (only keeping a paper address in Brooklyn, his mother-in-law’s condo in Manhattan Beach) really was an outsider, with zero discernible ties to the neighborhoods of North Brooklyn. But Claire Valdez, a sitting elected official thirty-four years later, is not.

By June 2026, upwards of 40% of the Democratic electorate will have been born after Velázquez was first elected in 1992. Nostalgia is not a strategy.

In some ways, Claire Valdez is in a similar position to Nydia Velázquez back in 1992.

Valdez moved to New York City in 2015, and ran for Congress 11 years later; Velázquez settled in New York City in 1981, and ran for Congress 11 years later1.

But the parallels do not end there.

In 1992, Velázquez enjoyed support during her Congressional campaign from Mayor David Dinkins. Both were part of the ascendant “Rainbow Coalition,” a political marriage of the city’s growing Black and Hispanic communities, labor unions and liberals (Velázquez, through Atrévete Con Tu Voto, helped register hundreds of thousands of Latino voters). Velázquez was also supported by Denis Rivera of the influential healthcare workers union, 1199 SEIU, who counted many members amongst the working-class of Brooklyn and Queens. In 2026, Valdez is the one with the backing of recently elected Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, with the two symbolically at the vanguard of Socialist Left, having steadily built power over the past decade. (Dinkins was a paper member of DSA, but the organization was a fraction of its modern self). Alongside Mamdani, Valdez was also endorsed by Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers. (While Fain’s orientation is more national than Denis Rivera’s was, UAW’s political influence in 2026 is comparable to 1199 SEIU’s influence in 1992.) How the candidates were received, too, was eerily similar. Both were derided for a lack of legislative experience: Velázquez only served two years in the City Council, before losing a bitter primary to a challenger supported by the local Democratic machine; Valdez, elected in 2024, only recently completed her first year in the State Assembly. Both were also accused by critics of being insufficiently loyal to the district’s residents: Velázquez was seen as too close to the Puerto Rican government, and preoccupied with the island; Valdez has been mocked as too loyal to NYC-DSA, little more than a pawn in the mayor’s chess game. Now, the arguments once used to discredit Nydia Velázquez are being recycled against Claire Valdez.

Honoring the past, and those that came before us, is fundamental to the ethos of New York City. In this ever-changing municipality, if we were to lose sight of history, the good and the bad, we would be doomed to repeat it. Perhaps we already are.

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It was called “a cartographer’s worst nightmare.”

Rep. Stephen Solarz, one of the most powerful Democrats in the House of Representatives, watched as his district was (metaphorically) blasted apart, the consequence of a bloody redistricting knife fight.

It was 1992, and Solarz, who had painstakingly climbed the ladder of Brooklyn politics, was one of the most powerful Democrats in the House of Representatives, even on the shortlist to be the next Secretary of State. Once a leading critic of the Vietnam War, the highest-ranking Jewish member of the Foreign Affairs Committee had become a leading proponent of the Gulf War. In service of his national ambition, he had traded his modest residence in Kings County for a “sprawling” estate in suburban Virginia, only keeping a paper address in Brooklyn (his mother-in-law’s condo in Manhattan Beach). For years, he had thoroughly overshadowed another colleague from Brooklyn, Chuck Schumer, such that the latter contemplated departing federal politics altogether. But now, with his illustrious career in jeopardy, Stephen Solarz was left with three options: (A) challenge his colleague Ted Weiss, a well-respected liberal from Manhattan’s West Side whose district now snaked into Brooklyn, absorbing old pieces of Jewish neighborhoods once represented by Solarz; (B) run against Bill Green, the liberal Republican congressman from Manhattan’s East Side (the “Silk Stocking” district that had once been represented by John Lindsay and Ed Koch), which also included the Poles of Greenpoint and Greeks of Astoria; or (C) run in the newly-created 12th Congressional District, drawn by mapmakers to maximize the influence of Hispanic voters: from Puerto Ricans in Sunset Park, Bushwick, and “Losaida” to Latin Americans in Jackson Heights and Corona.

The besieged incumbent settled on the final choice: a heavily-gerrymandered, tri-borough district created to empower New York City’s growing Latino population. Flush with more than two million dollars (an incredible sum for the time), Solarz would attempt to steamroll his way to a slim plurality by any means necessary, while his (less funded) half-dozen Latino opponents split the remainder of the vote. Assailed for attempting to salvage his career at the expense of increased Latino political power and representation, Solarz was undeterred.

And if not for Nydia Velázquez, Stephen Solarz may have succeeded.

Velázquez, the daughter of a sugarcane worker from Yabucoa, a rural town on the outskirts of Puerto Rico, was always destined for greatness. As one of eight siblings, she more than held her own in dinnertime conversations, which were inevitably rooted in political organizing (farm workers, labor unions, Puerto Rican self-determination). She skipped three grades, becoming the first person in her family to receive a high school diploma, before arriving in New York City for college. In no time, she was teaching the classes herself, while simultaneously becoming enmeshed in local politics. In 1984, she was selected to fill a vacancy on the City Council, becoming the first Hispanic woman to serve on the body. However, the Brooklyn Democratic machine had other ideas, and ousted Velázquez in the next election. Undeterred, she pioneered Atrévete Con Tu Voto, a program that aimed to empower Latinos across the United States through voter registration. In New York City alone, Atrévete registered more than 200,000 new Latino voters, most of whom were Puerto Rican. Here, Velázquez “solidified her reputation as a street-smart and politically savvy woman who understood the value of solidarity and loyalty to other politicians, community leaders and unions.” Alongside Mayor David Dinkins, labor leader Dennis Rivera of 1199 SEIU, presidential candidate Jesse Jackson and others, Velázquez was integral in building New York City’s Rainbow Coalition, a political movement rooted in organized labor, progressive politics, and the multi-racial working class.

The Rainbow Coalition swept the first Black man into City Hall, but could it send the first Puerto Rican woman to Congress?

Stephen Solarz and Velázquez’s other opponents did not roll out the red carpet for her. A rival Hispanic candidate, Elizabeth Colon, mocked Velázquez’s accented pronunciations in English. Several prominent Puerto Rican politicians backed other candidates, and there was certainly no consolidation to stop the well-funded Solarz, who inundated local radio with Spanish language advertisements. (After the primary, Velázquez’s medical records were leaked, which revealed a prior suicide attempt). Her critics wondered aloud whether her ties to Puerto Rico made her too parochial to serve the Hispanic community in New York and if her alliance with Mayor Dinkins compromised her independence. Nonetheless, Velázquez was revered by supporters as a relentless fighter for “a progressive agenda.” She was beloved in the Puerto Rican communities of Williamsburg and Bushwick, then low-income neighborhoods riddled with crime and drugs, whose residents were desperate to see one of their own conquer the political establishment. Solarz would send “eight mailings and they were all on Israel, [but] never anything about Flatbush or Ocean Parkway,” whereas Velázquez was relentlessly focused on the needs of the district’s working class, Spanish speaking residents. After Solarz stumbled through a Spanish introduction at a forum, the slim Velázquez arose from her chair and delivered a fiery rapid-fire rebuke, “he doesn’t speak our language, the language of the poor.” When a wall separated Puerto Rican and Hasidic children at a school in Williamsburg, Velázquez protested vociferously. Soon, the wall came down.

When the votes were counted, Velázquez prevailed in the seven candidate field — 34% to Solarz’s 28%. Solarz’s choice was ultimately the wrong one: Weiss passed away the day before the election (he won anyway), and his seat was eventually filled by then-Assemblymember Jerry Nadler; whereas Bill Green was defeated in November by a young mother on the City Council named Carolyn Maloney. Stephen Solarz would never hold elected office again.

Nydia Velázquez would go on to serve 34 years in Congress.

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Since 1992, New York’s 7th Congressional District has changed remarkably.

Once gerrymandered block-by-block without shame, the contours of district are more compact than ever, excesses reigned in by a special master in 2022. Once a “Hispanic-opportunity” seat protected by the Voting Rights Amendment, NY-7 is now plurality white. The epicenter of Puerto Rican political power, the 7th District is now the heart and soul of the Commie Corridor, reshaped by Millennial and Gen Z renters, creating the most left-leaning electorate of any Congressional seat in the nation.

On the neighborhood level, the changes are even more pronounced. Long Island City is no longer a forgotten outpost for industry, but a haven of tech workers and recently erected luxury buildings. The Poles have left Greenpoint, and the Italians have deserted Woodhaven; both have been replaced by white college graduates from out of state and multi-racial immigrants, dueling middle-class tenants of the nuanced and diverse Mamdani Coalition. No more is Sunnyside an exclusively Irish enclave, lined with pubs and watering holes bearing shamrocks, but a Queens County melting pot of professionals, young families, and recent immigrants, bearing food from Paraguay and Thailand. The hip frontier of the L train has shifted one stop east every couple of years, from Williamsburg to Los Sures to Bushwick — an insignificant and forgotten voting bloc prior to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump; this loose collection of young renters now comprises a majority of the 7th Congressional District. They are joined, politically, by their more well-heeled neighbors in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, once the stomping ground of Spike Lee and Christopher Wallace and now the home of Brownstone Brooklyn’s professional class.

However, even amidst the breakneck pace of the five boroughs, not all has been lost in North Brooklyn and Western Queens. The Satmar Hasidim of South Williamsburg, the descendents of Holocaust refugees whose anti-Zionist politics do not neatly conform to stereotypes, have remained a supermajority in their triangled enclave since the second World War. Glendale, sequestered from subway lines, has been a refuge for the city’s dwindling population of middle-class, white ethnic homeowners — Archie Bunker’s descendents — who anchored the electorate in the World’s Borough in the days of Tom Manton and Joe Crowley. And, despite the violence, alcoholism, and drug use that once condemned quality of life across both Bushwick and the Southside of Williamsburg, many Puerto Rican and Latino families persevered and achieved the dream of stability, now often manifested in the ownership of a modest single or two-family home east of Myrtle Avenue, or on the other side of Highland Park, in working-class Cypress Hills.

New York’s 7th Congressional District is in the 99th percentile nationwide with respect to its share of both Millennials (31%) and renters (78%) — the two most consequential ingredients for leftist politics. Only NY-10 (Brownstone Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan), NY-12 (Midtown Manhattan, Upper West/East Sides), and CA-30 (Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Pasadena) have a higher percentage of residents in media and arts. In the Democratic Primary for Mayor of New York City, the past and present of the 7th District faced off head-to-head; with the new, embodied by democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, trouncing the old, symbolized by former Governor Andrew Cuomo — 76% to 24%. In fact, no Congressional District was more friendly to Mamdani than NY-7, evidence of the community’s increasingly ideological bent.

These changes, a snapshot of a thirty year migration of urban political power, are perhaps best embodied by the candidates — some declared, others rumored — who hope to succeed Nydia Velázquez.

Thus far, only one candidate has officially announced: Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. A son of the Southside and child of Dominican immigrants, Reynoso was always a political reformer. At 22, he co-founded New Kings Democrats, recruiting progressives challengers to contest the Democratic County Committee in Brooklyn, long consolidated by the party establishment. At 30, Reynoso went one step further, wresting power from the infamous Vito Lopez, a corrupt party boss who ran North Brooklyn’s majority-Hispanic neighborhoods as his own personal fiefdom (a man of Italian heritage, Lopez was aided by a Spanish sounding last name). Though Lopez was once unimpeachable, Reynoso delivered the fatal blow to his local machine, which had been a thorn in the side of Nydia Velázquez and other progressives for decades. To say Reynoso is close to Velázquez, the area’s Congresswoman for 32 years, would be a profound understatement. “La Luchadora” prides herself on mentorship (just ask her colleague, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), and a diverse cadre of North Brooklyn electeds hang on her every word — for good reason. Prior to the rise of NYC-DSA and the left resurgence of The Working Families Party, Velázquez was the only game in town when it came to building progressive political power and contesting the hegemony of the Lopez machine. In the City Council, Reynoso was one of the original members of the Progressive Caucus, frequently allying with Brad Lander and Jumaane Williams, and took noteworthy stances on criminal justice (closing Riker’s Island, supporting the “Right To Know” act) and transportation (Vision Zero). In 2021, when Borough President Eric Adams was term limited, Reynoso seized the opportunity, defeating a weak field of Jo Anne Simon and Robert Cornegy. Within the Brooklyn portion of the 7th Congressional District’s current boundaries, Reynoso won 66% of the three-way vote. As Borough President, a job largely bereft of real power mitigated by a large staff and endless opportunities for retail politicking, Reynoso has become a more vocal proponent of increased housing construction, while continuing to espouse the reform-progressivism that has distinguished his career thus far. As Eric Adams floundered in office, Reynoso was repeatedly courted by former aides to Bill de Blasio, and urged to run against the disgraced incumbent. Out of deference to Brad Lander and a reticence to abandon his position as Borough President (in an odd-year election), Reynoso ultimately eschewed a bid for higher office (a run for Comptroller was also floated). We all know what happened next.

Now, in the wake of Velázquez’s retirement, the path is cleared for Reynoso — or so it seems. It would be difficult for another candidate to rival the depth of Reynoso’s in-district relationships, burnished over a lifetime in Williamsburg, from non-profits to community leaders. He will, almost assuredly, win the endorsement of the Satmar Hasidim, another consequence of connection, instantly netting a five-figure vote advantage. He maintains robust relationships with the constellation of non-profits that make up the Working Families Party, from Make the Road to Churches United for Fair Housing. There will be no NYCHA tenant association president whose phone number Reynoso lacks. And, perhaps most importantly, the native Brooklynite has the inside track to a blessing from Velázquez, who remains a revered figure amongst generations of Puerto Ricans. Reynoso’s launch video, filmed at Lithuania Square on the Southside of Williamsburg, was an homage to this history, and a subtle but clear signal that he is the candidate best equipped to continue the district’s storied history. Save for five words, the ad is exclusively in Spanish.

Nonetheless, Reynoso, for all his progressive bona fides, will not be the left-most candidate in the race. That mantle will belong to whomever the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America endorses, whose much-anticipated vote will be scheduled in the new year, giving Reynoso at least a month-long head start.

NYC-DSA counts half-a-dozen elected officials within (and adjacent to) the 7th Congressional District: City Council Members Alexa Avilés and Tiffany Cabán, State Senators Julia Salazar and Kristen Gonzalez, and State Assembly Members Claire Valdez and Emily Gallagher.

Julia Salazar, elected in 2018, could have potentially cleared the (intra-socialist) field had she declared an intention to seek DSA’s endorsement. The longest tenured SiO (socialist in office), Salazar possesses a unique breadth of relationships in Albany and across the political class, frequently earning plaudits from ideologically unaligned (or even previously hostile) colleagues. Nonetheless, Salazar, whose first run for office was rather tumultuous, ultimately eschewed a bid for Congress, opening the door for her comrades. Alexa Avilés, squeezed from the neighboring Congressional race (NY-10) following a messy endorsement timeline (involving mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani supporting Brad Lander instead), could have been a compromise candidate for NY-7. However, the current borders of the 7th District are far from Avilés’ base in Sunset Park (though the neighborhood was part of NY-7 for 30 years), rendering an Avilés bid unrealistic. Emily Gallagher, the sole White elected in a district that is one-third Hispanic, would have been particularly disadvantaged versus Reynoso, and has decided against running (she also would have faced questions from her base concerning her well-documented reticence to support Mamdani).

As of today, Gonzalez, Cabán, and Valdez have all publicly expressed interest in a bid (or not ruled it out).

Kristen Gonzalez, the second socialist Latina to defeat one of the Crowley dynasty in Queens, theoretically has the broadest geographic base across NY-7, which overlaps significantly with her State Senate District. Tiffany Cabán, who lives a few blocks outside the district, has previously run for boroughwide office in Queens. Both have Puerto Rican heritage, important for a seat that has long been a symbol of the Island’s political power — from New York City to the mainland. However, the proverbial wind, with a gentle assist from a powerful third party, is behind Claire Valdez.

Valdez, a former organizer with the United Auto Workers (UAW), was only elected to a state legislature seat — encompassing Ridgewood, Sunnyside and Long Island City — last June. Segments of the political class, many of whom underestimated Mamdani’s potential, are quick to cast similar doubt on Valdez. Compared to the ease with which Mamdani charms his friends and foes alike, Valdez’s appeal is more understated, and thus far confined to a smaller circle of activists. In many respects, she represents the much sought after reluctant candidate. At Mamdani’s launch party last October, an intimate and hopeful gathering, there were no sitting elected officials present (or at least photographed), let alone a television camera. Yet, Valdez was there, one of the crowd, six weeks away from being sworn into the Assembly. Now, as the “invisible primary” for the 7th Congressional District takes shape, the powerful mayor-elect has signaled his support, “privately indicating to allies that he believes Ms. Valdez would be the best candidate,” according to The New York Times. When asked about the race to succeed Velázquez, Mamdani called Valdez “an incredible public servant.” One of his top advisors, Morris Katz, was more effusive, telling The Times, “Claire would be an incredibly strong candidate, and someone who understands deeply that the path to a dignified life for every New Yorker is to empower workers and unite with organized labor to deliver an affordability agenda for our city.” None of these quotes appear in print by accident, but the last line is particularly instructive, given Valdez’s ties to UAW (President Shawn Fain endorsed her campaign for Assembly) and the widespread desire on the left to run more labor-aligned candidates. Mamdani, not even in office, has already butted heads with NYC-DSA, his self-proclaimed “political home.” He backed Brad Lander over fellow socialist Alexa Avilés in the 10th Congressional District and campaigned publicly against a potential DSA endorsement of Chi Ossé versus Hakeem Jeffries (Ossé ultimately fell short, losing the internal vote 46% to 52%). But on the question of Valdez, the mayor-elect’s whims match that of the chapter rank-and-file, where Valdez is a consistent presence. Such goodwill will prove invaluable, given NYC-DSA will ultimately be tasked with greenlighting and staffing her candidacy. Thus, if the next month plays out as anticipated, Antonio Reynoso versus Claire Valdez will be an instructive and riveting lens into the future of urban, Democratic Party politics.

For a brief period during the first Trump era, Progressives vs. Socialists appeared to be the next frontier of New York City politics, as the two groups clashed in a handful of lowkey, down-ballot races. This fissure, lingering beneath the surface in Brooklyn and Queens, was momentarily on hold as the left attempted to coalesce against Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo, the gatekeepers of the political establishment. Indeed, such a fault line could have easily kneecapped the progressive-socialist alliance in the Mayoral Primary, but Zohran Mamdani’s triumphant breakout, Brad Lander’s struggling campaign, and the presence of ranked-choice voting in municipal elections (allowing Lander and Mamdani to cross-endorse one another ahead of the election), deferred such a clash. However, in the race for New York’s 7th Congressional District, fought at the height of the Trump midterm, there will be no such shortcuts.

Not too long ago, the left in New York City appeared resolutely ascendant, as national political conditions aligned with a burgeoning local movement. NYC-DSA pushed in their chips, spreading themselves thin across the outer boroughs. The results were uninspiring and cautionary. Democratic socialist candidates, struggling to draw consequential distinctions, were routinely felled by progressive opponents, whose greater in-district networks won the day. Reynoso, a genuine ally of the left, fits the mold of a candidate that could upset NYC-DSA’s federal ambitions if taken lightly. “I want to be a voice to push the party to the left,” Reynoso told The New York Times. But will the voters of the 7th District be inspired by a candidate who merely pushes? Or are they seeking someone who pulls? The fewer ideological distinctions drawn between Reynoso and Valdez, the more Brooklyn’s Borough President (armed with more relationships, legislative accomplishments, and name recognition) stands to benefit. Reynoso, a son of the Southside, will counter with distinctions of his own, rooted in place (Valdez, a native of Lubbock, Texas, moved to Queens in 2015), telling The New York Times, “I have been doing this work as a reformer, as a progressive, for a long time before the D.S.A. had a single candidate they were supporting.” Reynoso’s play is one of relationships, personal and local. NYC-DSA’s advantage is one of door knocking and mass mobilization, anchored by stellar communications and universal policies. Amidst this unprecedented and existential political moment, what will the majority of voters be motivated by?

Ironically, a similar dynamic defined Zohran Mamdani’s first campaign for State Assembly.

Mamdani was derided as an interloper challenging a lifelong resident of the neighborhood. NYC-DSA, untethered to longstanding local institutions, were seen as the new kids on the block. Nor was the organized left (AOC, WFP) united behind him, while drawing meaningful distinctions was a consistent challenge. Many questioned why Mamdani was challenging Aravella Simotas, the respectable left-liberal incumbent, at all. “A young man in a hurry” they mused. But Mamdani’s answer, simple as it was, echoes many years later. His opponent, liberal as she was, no longer represented the zeitgeist of the district’s increasingly left-leaning residents — a thesis validated by Mamdani’s (narrow) victory, which came at the height of COVID-19 pandemic. Mamdani prevailed against a relatively well-liked and well-known opponent, in part, because voters looked ahead. A deep-blue Assembly seat, similar to a deep-blue Congressional seat, is tantamount to a lifetime appointment. When asked who would best represent them, in a moment of crisis (and the many crises that would come thereafter), voters chose Zohran Mamdani; for what he lacked in longstanding connections, he made up for in movement politics. Mamdani will be the Mayor of New York City in two weeks, the most powerful figure in the five boroughs. At the apex of his political capital, he does not appear content to stand idly by.

While thanking commuters, the new Congresswoman for Brooklyn and Queens credited the democratic socialist mayor for his early and consistent support, in addition to a handful of influential labor unions (and their respective leaders) who backed her candidacy. She had weathered concerns about where her loyalties lied, and triumphed amidst a divided field, building a broad and winning coalition. Having arrived in New York City during her twenties, she was headed to Washington by her late thirties. The year was 1992.

History does not often repeat. But come 2026, perhaps it will rhyme.

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The hour was late.

Thanksgiving was fast approaching.

And with each day that she failed to secure the required 26 votes to become Speaker of the New York City Council, doubts about the fitness of her candidacy would grow.

Julie Menin, who had diligently campaigned for the second most powerful position in the five boroughs — hosting fundraisers, courting unions, charming colleagues — for the past three years, was only a couple votes away from realizing her ambition.

But those votes, from a handful of persuadable holdouts, would not come easily.

Pressure would have to be applied.

Thus, on the eve of the holiday, Menin and her allies pushed in their chips. They would shake the proverbial tree, and hope a few more “yes” votes would fall into their lap. Technically, they only needed four to lock in a majority; but in reality, given the official vote would not take place for almost two months, they needed close to a dozen: a statement of supermajority support.

As Council Members were contacted, the message was simple but effective. Menin already had more than twenty of their colleagues pledged to her. She had many of the largest unions behind her, such as 32BJ and the Hotel Trades Council, in addition to the publicly atrophying (but privately effective) Democratic machines in the Bronx and Queens. The following day, in advance of Thanksgiving, the frontrunner would release a letter to the press, detailing the breadth of her support. Did these members, many of whom were newcomers to the Council, want their names on the letter, so they could be part of the winning team (to the victor goes the spoils)? Or would they prefer, in the spirit of the season, to be left out in the cold instead, and risk power for principle? Speaker Julie Menin was inevitable — so her emissaries implied.

“The train is leaving the station. Get on board while you still can.”

This audacious plan, a concoction of gall and aggression, was typical of the behind-the-scenes “Speaker’s Race,” the pinnacle of insider baseball in New York City politics.

Would Menin’s bluff be called? Or had she played her hand perfectly?

What is the Speaker’s Race?

Certainly, that has been the question everyone was asking over the holiday weekend.

There are only 51 votes, one per City Council Member. There are caucuses (“Common Sense”, “Progressive”), county machines (the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn), and labor unions (Hotel Trades, 32BJ, 1199 SEIU, DC37) weighing in behind-the-scenes. Most of the consequential campaigning, absent a handful of public forums, is done outside the public eye. The mayor (or in this instance, mayor-elect) has considerable influence, but often eschews a back room knife fight to avoid the appearance of “defeat.” Relationships, more so than ideology, shape the whims of coalitions in the Speaker’s Race, which historically blends progressive, liberal, and moderate Democrats with Republicans. Almost always, there are twists and turns, last-minute defections and eleventh hour betrayals. Most importantly, one’s prowess navigating institutions and charming the insular “political class” does not neatly translate to appeal amongst the voters themselves — and vice versa.

Such were the terms of engagement pitting Julie Menin, a well-connected liberal moderate from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, versus Crystal Hudson, one of the leaders in the Progressive Caucus from Central Brooklyn. (Amanda Farias, Selvena Brooks-Powers, and Christopher Marte were also running, but failed to gain comparable traction).

Precedent, for better or worse, looms large in a contest of this nature — which only occurs once every four years. Given 35 of the Council’s 51 members were first elected in 2021, the previous Speaker’s Race, one of the more unique episodes in the Council’s history, weighed heavily on the minds of members this time around. Four years ago, the early favorites were Carlina Rivera and Justin Brannan, progressive-aligned members who had campaigned rigorously for the position across multiple years. However, newly-elected mayor Eric Adams made clear his opposition to both, strong-arming unions and persuadable members to deny them a majority. However, Adams foolishly propped up Francisco Moya, a close ally of his consultants, who was neither known nor liked by many of his colleagues. Had the mayor-elect, at the zenith of his political capital, rallied behind another candidate, the Speakership would have been theirs. Yet, this folly opened the door for Adrienne Adams — a lowkey, labor-aligned moderate from Southeast Queens — to emerge as a compromise candidate. In victory, the well-respected Adams threaded a coalition of the atrophying Queens Machine and the ascendant Progressive Caucus. The Mayor’s whims were defeated, and the labor unions had flexed their muscle.

The lessons (or false assumptions) were plentiful:

1. The Speaker’s Race was dynamic and fluid, with conditions ripe for sleeper and dark horse candidates to emerge in the latter stages.

2. Intervention from the Mayor was risky, and could lead to an early political “defeat” if executed poorly.

3. The slow paced race would inevitably drag into December, as it always had.

Four years later, ALL of those presumptions proved incorrect.

In 2021, there was a flurry of late movement as top contenders fell by the wayside, leading to a climactic battle between Adrienne Adams and Francisco Moya that produced an ideologically varied (majority) coalition for the former. In 2025, Julie Menin slowly and steadily amassed a considerable “lead,” leaving Crystal Hudson (and other non-Menin candidates) to increasingly rely on the Progressive Caucus. However, the votes of those twenty members, even if delivered uniformly, fell below the requisite majority, and could never seriously threaten Menin’s advantage alone.

For months, Menin, the sole contender not from the Progressive Caucus1, had the inside track with the nine members of the “Common Sense” Caucus, a collection of moderate Democrats (Darlene Mealy of Brownsville) to MAGA-aligned Republicans (Vickie Palladino of Whitestone, Inna Vernikov of Sheepshead Bay). The Bronx and Queens Democratic “machines” have historically moved as a united bloc, so as to maximize their influence. This race proved no different, as Menin was strongly supported by Bronx members Kevin Riley of Black-majority Wakefield and Co-op City, Eric Dinowitz of leafy and historically-Jewish Riverdale, and Oswald Feliz of lower-income Bedford Park. Menin was particularly strong in Eastern Queens, where members are far more ideologically moderate and the county organization retains considerable influence, banking the votes of Sandra Ung of Flushing, Linda Lee of Bayside, and James Gennaro of Fresh Meadows with ease (plus Lynn Shulman of Forest Hills and Kew Gardens). Their Queens colleagues, Nantasha Williams and Shekar Krishnan, core members of the Progressive Caucus, were also early and non-persuadable Menin supporters, evidence of the frontrunner’s ideological reach. Menin married this base with support from her Manhattan colleagues: Chelsea’s Erik Bottcher, fellow Upper East Sider Virginia Maloney, East Harlem’s Elsie Encarnacion, and Washington Heights’s Shaun Abreu. Here, Menin brokered an alliance with Upper Manhattan Congressman Adriano Espaillat, a local power broker of sorts, which proved integral in delivering the votes of both Abreu (a top Menin surrogate) and Encarnacion, a freshman. Of this cohort, Abreu, Dinowitz, Riley, and Lee are all expected to assume top leadership and committee positions.

As of last Tuesday, Julie Menin’s whip sheet added up to 22 members — 4 shy of the majority needed to clinch the vote.

The emergence of Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic Primary in stunning fashion this June, could have destabilized the Speaker’s Race, given the immense bargaining power that the incoming Mayor has at his disposal. However, despite greater ideological closeness to Crystal Hudson, Mamdani (juggling a transition to City Hall and several other behind-the-scenes machinations), kept his hands clean of the Speaker’s Race — publicly — in an effort to preserve his political capital. Following Mamdani’s ascendance, a handful of moderate members of the Council, previously pledged to Hudson, shifted their support to Menin, under the auspices that their Upper East Side colleague would be a more appropriate counterweight to the fresh-faced Mayor; repeating the “adult in the room” pitch used by Menin and her allies. Furthermore, absent midterm elections for Council members in 2027, and with two-thirds of the body term-limited in 2029, the progressive movement — whose political power is far greater at the ballot box — lacked the necessary electoral leverage to pressure legislators who eschewed their preferred candidate.

That left Julie Menin — who had tactfully passed key legislation favored by important labor unions, donated handsomely to the campaigns of her colleagues, and relentlessly worked the New York City political class for decades — with a significant head start against a field of progressives that failed to consolidate, whose most valuable chess piece remained on the sidelines. Peeling back Menin’s support, estimated as over twenty Council Members, would be challenging, but depriving her of a majority remained a possibility. For Crystal Hudson, this path ran through the Brooklyn delegation, home to the largest concentration of Progressive Caucus members, but historically less cohesive than their Bronx and Queens counterparts. In addition to her fellow progressives (Lincoln Restler, Shahana Hanif, Alexa Aviles, Jennifer Gutierrez, Sandy Nurse, Chi Ossé, Rita Joseph), Hudson needed to penetrate the borough’s more moderate enclaves. Specifically, she needed the votes of Chris Banks of East New York and Susan Zhuang of Bensonhurst — considered local allies of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. However, this arrangement was complicated by Chi Ossé, widely seen as a top ally of Hudson (the two serve together on several committees), threatening a primary challenge to Jeffries, who has represented New York’s 8th Congressional District for over a decade. Hudson herself, elected with Jeffries’ support in 2021 (against a candidate endorsed by NYC-DSA) and viewed as an ally of the House Democratic Leader, was caught in the middle. While efforts to thwart Osse’s primary of Jeffries were ultimately successful (the mayor-elect even appeared at Ossé’s NYC-DSA endorsement forum), the episode was nonetheless an ill-timed distraction for Hudson. Further muddying Hudson’s path in Kings County was County Leader Rodneyse Bichotte, who endorsed Cuomo, but quickly shifted her allegiance to Mamdani following the former’s defeat in the Democratic Primary. Bichotte, unkeen on Hudson’s bid, even attempted to persuade longtime ally Farah Louis of East Flatbush into the race during the annual SOMOS retreat in Puerto Rico. Hudson’s play for the Speakership lived and died with a unified Brooklyn delegation, a hopeful marriage of ideologically varied members lacking an agent of consolidation, a slim path strained beyond repair under the weight of Ossé–Jeffries and the County Leader’s objections. Whereas in contrast, The Bronx, led by State Senator Jamaal Bailey, and Queens, helmed by Congressman Greg Meeks, remained in lockstep behind Menin. All the while, the anti-Menin coalition lacked consolidation: as Amanda Farias, Selvena Brooks Powers, and Christopher Marte remained in the race, convinced they could be a dark horse candidate. Thus, as her path to victory narrowed, Crystal Hudson was increasingly reliant on the Progressive Caucus — incoming members, longtime colleagues, and fellow candidates for Speaker — remaining united. Such was the backdrop for Tuesday, November 25th.

While Julie Menin needed only a handful of votes from her colleagues to reach 26 members, a majority of the Council, she needed a significant cushion to declare “victory,” a number so impressive as to discourage her opponents from any further attempts to peel off her supporters. Her opponents, too reliant on precedent, presumed that time was on their side, for the earliest a candidate for Speaker had ever clinched the votes was December 17th — several weeks away.

As Menin and her allies, specifically emissaries from influential labor unions, called around to persuadable Council Members, many of whom were green to the Speaker’s race, the urgency of the message, and the fear of emerging empty-handed (without a chairmanship, a position on the powerful budget and taxation committee, or even discretionary funding) proved devastatingly effective. This dynamic was especially pronounced with newer(ish) members: Yusef Salaam of Central Harlem, Shanel Thomas-Henry of East Elmhurst, and Ty Hankerson of Southeast Queens. Perhaps most devastatingly, Lower Manhattan’s Christopher Marte and Harvey Epstein, both members of the Progressive Caucus, had given their left-leaning colleagues an impression of openness to Hudson. Marte, as reported by City and State, even joined a conference call arranged by The Working Families Party “to discuss strategy and urge consolidation” among the non-Menin candidates, only to abandon the coalition in the days thereafter. The defection of Epstein, widely supported in a competitive primary by the city’s progressive institutions, was seen as particularly suspect. Hour by hour, as Menin solidified more and more commitments from her colleagues, Hudson’s already slim path evaporated entirely. Before the knowledge of her defeat became widespread, a handful of progressive, Hudson-friendly holdouts — Pierina Sanchez and Althea Stevens of the Bronx, and Kayla Santosuosso of Southern Brooklyn — received permission from Hudson and other stakeholders to place their names on Menin’s list, so as to extract whatever concessions remained.

All told, Julie Menin earned the support of 36 of the Council’s 51 members.

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In many respects, the core of Julie Menin’s institutional coalition in the Speaker’s Race mirrored that of Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Primary: labor unions, county machines, and (relatively) moderate members. That coalition, whose atrophication was exposed in the voting booth, still held considerable sway behind-closed-doors. Zohran Mamdani’s movement represents the inverse: movement politics practiced in public, outsmarting the traditional power brokers, and one million votes (not thirty-six).

As such, the tensions (or lack thereof) between Mayor Mamdani and Speaker Menin will shape the contours of New York City politics over the next four years. Since clinching victory, Menin has struck a conciliatory tone, praising Mamdani’s affordability agenda, while citing childcare as a natural point of collaboration, in an effort to temper down talk of ideological asymmetry. Asked whether she would primary challenge Mamdani in 2029, Menin unequivocally ruled it out. However, this episode belies the fact that Menin, prior to having clinched the Speakership, seldom mentioned the mayor-elect, much less in a positive light. In advance of the General Election, Menin declined to endorse Mamdani, the Democratic nominee. The party boss instrumental in Menin’s speakership bid, Rep. Gregory Meeks, a longstanding ally of the pro-Israel lobby, also eschewed endorsing Mamdani. On the eve of her victory, The New York Daily News reported that Menin, in private conversations, had “floated bringing back use of the chamber’s subpoena power, a tool that could be a check on incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration.” The sources also reported that “Menin has privately affirmed she would not as speaker simply be a rubber-stamp on the Department of Community Safety, a $1 billion agency Mamdani proposes to launch to take over certain responsibilities from the NYPD,” indicating she would not green-light the agency’s launch without “serious deliberation.” Simply, Menin and Mamdani are not aligned on several political matters, and will likely encounter points of tension with respect to Israel–Palestine (Menin reportedly “urged City Hall to intervene” and cancel the SummerStage concert featuring pro-Palestine R&B singer Kehlani) and the NYPD (see: Menin’s hesitation with respect to the Department of Community Safety). Menin is one of the wealthiest member of the City Council, the wife of a prominent Real Estate developer, and represents much of old-moneyed Upper East Side; whereas Mamdani disavows donations from corporations and developers, remains a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and has cut-his-teeth in outer borough politics. To paraphrase a quote from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (describing her orientation towards Joe Biden), in any other country, Menin and Mamdani would be in separate political parties. Menin’s allies, well-represented throughout the political class, exhibit angst when these well-known facts are recited, and are quick to deride any criticism as borne solely of ignorance.

I expect Mamdani to approach the next Speaker’s Race, timed for his re-election in 2029, much differently. The mayor-elect has shown no qualms with getting involved in internal elections, evidenced by his maneuvering to kill NYC-DSA’s endorsement of Chi Ossé, particularly when the outcome, in Mamdani’s estimation, poses a threat to his affordability agenda. For decades, the political left in New York City has sorely lacked an organizer-in-chief, a concentrated center of power capable of aligning (or strong-arming) legislators, marshaling public support, brokering agreements between interests groups, and executing a coherent medium-term political vision. Mamdani has both the orientation and instinct to be just that leader. Given the plethora of stakeholders across the progressive left, broad coalitional buy-in will be necessary on many occasions, but much decision-making and maneuvering will be left to Mamdani, the most powerful figure in New York City. How Zohran Mamdani balances the movement and the machine will be one of the most telling storylines of his first term.

Nonetheless, despite their ideological distance, the Mamdani–Menin partnership will not inevitably be doomed to infighting. Menin, a shrewd operator in her own right (one does not lock up two-thirds of their colleagues, in record time, if not), knows that any opposition to Mamdani, real or perceived, will invite a torrent of outrage. Multiple Council staffers told me that their offices, upon the news breaking that Menin had clinched the Speakership, received a flurry of phone calls from constituents asking “what could be done to change the outcome?” — the day before Thanksgiving no less. Indeed, the days of the general public being agnostic to the affairs of the New York City Council died alongside Andrew Cuomo’s political career. Mamdani, the incoming Mayor who humiliated and charmed the city’s political class on his way to a historic victory, is at the zenith of his political power. To challenge or undermine him now would be short-sighted and foolhardy, a dynamic well-understood by Julie Menin. Mamdani, robustly popular with his hyper-engaged and loyal base, may have the natural talent and political savvy to sustain his larger-than-life standing in the modern Democratic Party throughout his first term; and as such, de-fang the most fervent opposition. However, were the inertia of governing to weaken Mayor Mamdani over the course of months and years — particularly on all the thorny issues where his political capital is less pronounced — how would Speaker Menin, amidst a fever pitch of whispers from the (momentarily silent) Mamdani skeptics, respond?

Perhaps now, she will think twice.

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Yesterday, Brooklyn City Council Member Chi Ossé filed to run against House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents New York’s 8th Congressional District. Immediately, the contest would become one of the highest profile races in the nation: pitting an ascendant and insurgent democratic socialist movement against the Democratic Party’s moderate establishment at the heart of Black Brooklyn.

Ossé, the youngest person ever to be elected to the New York City Council, has earned plaudits for an impressive understanding of new media. Beating back Central Brooklyn’s atrophying Democratic machine, Ossé won his Council seat four years ago with little institutional support, a guerrilla effort of door knocking, creative mailers, and millennial-focused social media. His chief legislative accomplishment, the FARE Act, which prohibits the act of charging tenants for the fees of a broker retained by the landlord, was one of the most renter-friendly (and impressive) legislative accomplishments over the past few years. Armed with robust communicative instincts, Ossé’s future is undeniably bright; a twenty-seven year old talent that could easily raise millions of dollars and galvanize scores of volunteers.

Nonetheless, Ossé is choosing one of the steepest hills to climb, given Hakeem Jeffries has remained a powerful fixture of Brooklyn politics for two decades. Jeffries ran for State Assembly twice versus incumbent Roger Green (ironically, the young corporate lawyer campaigning on “change” and “reform” was the top choice of the urban professional class he now openly derides) but lost both times, only to luck into a vacancy when Green (foolheartedly) ran for Congress. As a legislator, Jeffries played a key role in the passage of several criminal justice reform bills, while his campaign coffers remained flush with funds from Wall Street and corporate law networks. Rep. Ed Towns, who once succeeded the “unbought and unbossed” Shirley Chisholm, looked increasingly vulnerable; barely winning re-election and struggling to raise money. While one to discourage such efforts today, Jeffries launched a “soft” primary challenge to the declining Towns, stockpiling funds and stoking speculation. The gambit worked, and pushed the seventy-eight year old incumbent to retire rather than stare down certain defeat, leaving Jeffries to crush City Council Member (and former Black Panther) Charles Barron, whom the future Democratic leader derided as needlessly divisive and antisemitic. Since then, Jeffries has never faced a competitive election; both a sign of genuine strength in this era of primary challenges and a potential liability. Were Democrats to retake the lower chamber next year, Jeffries would be in line to be the next Speaker of the House.

In local politics, Jeffries maintains a lower-profile. He has repeatedly sparred with NYC-DSA, whom his spokesperson (a transplant himself) has referred to as “Team Gentrification.” Jeffries also counts relatively few tried-and-true allies (Stefani Zinerman, Chris Banks, Nikki Lucas), compared to his Congressional contemporaries, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velázquez. He eschewed allying himself with Eric Adams, who concurrently rose through Black Brooklyn politics, but took a hands off approach with respect to the Mayor’s myriad of scandals. This year, the House Democratic Leader sat out the Democratic Primary for Mayor; only issuing a tepid endorsement of Zohran Mamdani once the result was beyond doubt. Nonetheless, while Jeffries is not the local political player that some of his predecessors were, the Brooklyn representative remains closely allied with organized labor, the Governor, and the state’s Congressional delegation. Most importantly, for the purposes of this discussion, Jeffries remains well-liked throughout his majority-Black, working and middle-class district.

New York’s 8th Congressional District spans more than a dozen neighborhoods in Brooklyn, stretching from gentrifying Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant through many of the city’s pre-eminent Black communities: low-income Brownsville and East New York, middle-class Canarsie and Flatlands. The Southern Brooklyn portion — which includes Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Brighton Beach and Coney Island — remains a sizable geographic portion, home to many (more politically conservative) immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who scarcely contribute in Democratic Primaries. Hence, the vast majority of the Democratic Primary electorate in NY-8 comes from either the district’s left-leaning gentrifying pockets (college-educated, renter-majority, younger) or its predominantly Black neighborhoods (diverse class character, older, less college-educated), where politics is less ideological, but more centered on institutions and relationships. In the Democratic Primary for Mayor, Zohran Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo 55.8% to 44.2% across the 8th Congressional District. Mamdani won by thrashing Cuomo in both Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant (76% to 24%), blanketing the tree-lined, brownstone blocks of Central Brooklyn with enthusiastic canvassers, while maximizing young voter turnout with sharp messaging and attentional hegemony (to voters under the age of 45, Mamdani was ubiquitous). In neighboring Canarsie and East New York, Cuomo outpaced Mamdani by more than thirty percent, but voter turnout noticeably lagged behind the district’s (increasingly) white-collar precincts. And, among middle-aged Black voters, particularly in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Mamdani made traceable inroads, which reduced Cuomo to relying solely on older voters, whom he struggled to motivate to the polls en masse. While the Russian Jews of Trump Village, Manhattan Beach, and Sea Gate broke for the avowedly pro-Israel Cuomo, as did the moderate Italians and Irish of Marine Park and Mill Basin, preferring centrism over socialism, their relatively few votes could not save the former Governor.

Theoretically, couldn’t Chi Ossé simply replicate a version of the Mamdani Coalition?

Unfortunately, it’s not so simple. Comparing Mamdani–Cuomo to Ossé–Jeffries is a natural impulse, but one that should be exercised with nuance. Jeffries, for all of the concern over his lackluster response to President Trump’s authoritarian administration (narratives that are, in my estimation, largely confined to white-collar media), remains scandal-free (unlike Cuomo) and broadly popular with his working-class Black constituents. While not a wartime consigliere, Jeffries remains difficult to negatively define (as opposed to the perpetually stumbling Chuck Schumer), even for Republicans. As the House Democratic Leader, Jeffries will have unlimited money at his disposal, through both his campaign and aligned Independent Expenditures.

To many on the left, Hakeem Jeffries is a clear villain, the symbol of Democratic establishment unable to meet the political moment: feckless when standing up to Donald Trump, complicit as Gaza is reduced to rubble. The question is whether Black voters in Brooklyn, the heart and soul of the 8th District, view Hakeem — the man who comes to their churches on Sunday, who has represented them for over a decade, and is now the most visible Black political leader in America — feel the same way?

In defeating Cuomo, the Mamdani Coalition spanned a remarkably big tent: NYC-DSA, The Working Families Party, DC37, Letitia James, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders. Pending a forum vote tomorrow evening, the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America may decide to back Ossé. But who else, among those aforementioned institutions, would line up behind Ossé’s challenge to the Democratic leader? The Working Families Party, who eschewed supporting a viable DSA challenger to Jeffries-ally Stefani Zinerman last year, and will assuredly work alongside Jeffries to flip House districts across New York, has little incentive to wage war with the Minority Leader. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Axios yesterday, “I certainly don’t think a primary challenge to the leader is a good idea right now.” Attorney General Letitia James would endorse Jeffries upon request, as would the state’s largest labor unions, who count thousands of members in Black Brooklyn.

And, of course, the man who cohered said Rainbow coalition, mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, has repeatedly stressed his opposition.

For a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Defeating Jeffries, even with a left-progressive coalition similar to Mamdani’s, would be a herculean task. Without it, the endeavor is lonely and fraught. Most importantly, candidates and coalitions shape (and change) the electorate. Mamdani did this tremendously well, leveraging the political moment into a movement campaign, while maximizing his base on all fronts. However, in a citywide campaign, Mamdani could pull votes from every neighborhood, and maintained many paths to the nomination. Cuomo, need it be repeated, ran a listless and uninspiring effort, overly reliant on money, while failing to motivate his base of older Black and Hispanic Democrats. Jeffries, while marooned in Washington for days and weeks at a time (perhaps his greatest vulnerability), will have the time and money to tend to his working and middle-class base, and enough surrogates to fill in the gaps. While Zohran Mamdani received more votes (39K) than Andrew Cuomo (32K) in NY-8; Eric Adams , the son of Black Brooklyn whose electoral profile is more comparable to Jeffries, won more raw votes than either in 2021 (41K).

The electorate that comes to the polls in 2026 will not so neatly mirror that of 2025.

Undeniably, the stakes are high, even existential. An Ossé victory over Jeffries, comparable to Eric Cantor’s defeat at the hands of the Tea Party in 2014, would have the potential to realign the Democratic Party, and provide another devastating blow to the AIPAC. With another round of redistricting looming in 2028, and the Democratic base seething with anger towards the Party’s leadership, it’s now or never.

A generational opportunity to strike while the iron is hot? Or a mirage that threatens to bitterly divide an otherwise ascendant left coalition?

Zohran Mamdani, mere weeks removed from a General Election mandate, is at the center of this dispute. Already, Mamdani and Ossé, erstwhile allies, have reportedly fallen out. Mamdani, days away from entering City Hall, is unsettled by the prospect of being tangled up in an ugly, high-profile brawl that lacks upside for his state-sponsored agenda. The stakes would be raised further were NYC-DSA, Mamdani’s self-proclaimed “political home,” to lead the effort behind Ossé to unseat the face of Black political power in America. As Jeffries was asked ad nauseam over the summer whether he would endorse Mamdani, the reverse would be true for Mamdani’s first six months in office, oxygen deprived from his affordability agenda. After more than a year of carefully constructing a coalition, which finally came to include a majority of Black New Yorkers, the mayor-elect is reluctant to pick intra-Party fights.

This time last year, the left had nothing to lose by wholeheartedly supporting Zohran Mamdani. Now, Mamdani is one of the three most celebrated politicians in the United States, with an unrivaled megaphone to communicate his vision and beliefs. His success or failure, over the next four years, will have repercussions far beyond himself or New York City. Suddenly, there is everything to lose.

But does Mamdani’s base, who helped him get there, feel the same way?

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The cadence of Election Day in New York City is strange and suspenseful.

Before the polls even open, close to one-third of all ballots, steadily acquired during the ten day early voting period, are already in the bank. The data from the “early vote,” released every evening by the Board of Elections, leaves ample time for discernment and dissection. However, when election day voting commences at dawn, there is nothing more than anecdotes, and token borough-by-borough data, for the next sixteen hours. Other states, such as New Jersey and Virginia, periodically provide updates of incoming ballots, based on age, geographic, and party distribution.

New York City does none of that. For election day is shaped entirely in the dark.

I spent last Tuesday following Zohran Mamdani around; mixing in a series of interviews, phone calls, and borough-wide vote total analyses along the way. There was, regrettably, little time to sojourn deep into the outer boroughs. Mamdani opened the day with a playground press conference in Astoria, after voting alongside his wife (and learning, in real time, of Dick Cheney’s passing) at Frank Sinatra High School. The eager crowd of reporters and cameramen, who closed ranks around the Democratic nominee, was comparable to that of a Presidential frontrunner on Super Tuesday. Afterwards, I stopped in a local coffee shop, Sweet Scene, several blocks away and off the beaten path, for a meal and some uninterrupted laptop time. A reporter–photographer duo from The New York Times coincidentally stopped by; laying out their next moves (they planned to visit Ozone Park and speak to South Asian voters). For fun, I scanned The Times archives for references to Ozone Park, a middle-class neighborhood in South Queens, during the previous mayoral race. I only found one, a fleeting reference in the description of a voter interviewed on the street. Now, immigrant enclaves like Ozone Park (and Brighton Beach, Westchester Square, Jamaica Hills) are spotlighted regularly by elite media: The Mamdani Effect in real time. A young woman sat down at my table, opened up her laptop, and dialed into a voter contact software using her cell phone, and was soon calling prospective voters, inquiring as to whether they had already cast their ballots. She was, of course, doing this volunteer work for Zohran Mamdani. Around noon, I set off for Brooklyn, taking the G train (better known as the Commie Corridor express), arriving in Clinton Hill, a brownstone neighborhood with several murals of the Notorious BIG (a native of St. James Place), for Mamdani’s event with State Attorney General Letitia James (that block: Mamdani 84%, Cuomo 14%). At his next stop, on the Lower East Side, voters could barely even reach the Democratic nominee, surrounded by an entourage of allies and media (that block: Mamdani 79%, Cuomo 17%). Pulling away in his SUV security detail, Mamdani rolled down the tinted window and stuck his head out, shouting “BLOCK BY BLOCK baby” at me, a reference to my predictions piece from the day prior. Yelling back, I told Mamdani that I may have undercounted his support once again (“I think you can hit 55%”); in the primary, while I predicted Mamdani would win, one of only a handful to make such a claim, he still outperformed my bullish expectations by twelve points. Mamdani, who has not lost his sense of humor with fame, laughed back, “Don’t be a coward, stick to your prediction!” He was right.

My comment belied a sense of optimism. Mamdani’s best boroughs in the primary, Manhattan and Brooklyn, were once again leading the way in the general. Voter turnout was on pace to easily surpass two million, a figure not reached since the halcyon days of civic engagement during the 1960s. Sure, some of that surge would come from an anti-Mamdani groundswell, most notably a handful of staunchly pro-Israel Jewish neighborhoods, but a higher turnout environment, overall, assuredly benefited the Democratic nominee in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-to-1. Mamdani still led almost every public poll by double digits, with a coalition — indexed to lower-propensity younger voters and oft-overlooked immigrant groups — that is notoriously difficult to poll. Was another BIG polling miss on the horizon?

As the witching hour arrived, both campaigns hunkered down, playing host to both supporters and the media: Mamdani at Brooklyn Paramount, a theater in Fort Greene; Cuomo at the Ziegfeld ballroom in Midtown Manhattan. In the twentieth century, it would take several hours for the entirety of the citywide vote to be reported, forcing campaign strategists to scrutinize a handful of block-level precincts, bellwethers of sorts, for trends and clues. In 2025, the shape of the results would be known within an hour of the polls closing, as batches of ballots (“drops”) were processed by the Board of Elections; six figure vote totals revealed with the refresh of a webpage every ten minutes. The first “drop” came shortly after 9PM, four minutes after the polls closed, with all 819,165 early votes (in addition to the processed mail-in ballots). As expected, Zohran Mamdani was ahead of Andrew Cuomo: 51.5% to 39.7%. A healthy, but not an “I’ve seen enough,” lead. The pace and distribution of the early vote favors the city’s white collar precincts. Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn, walkable and in close proximity to polling sites, are well represented in the early vote tally (advantage Mamdani); in addition to car-dominated, pseudo suburban swaths of Staten Island and Northeast Queens (advantage Cuomo). The precinct results were instantly fed into live maps, painting a political picture of the five boroughs.

The Commie Corridor could be seen from space, while Upper Manhattan and Central Brooklyn were a sea of Mamdani blue. The working-poor South Bronx and middle-class Southeast Queens — Cuomo Country in the Primary — had swung dramatically to the Democratic nominee. Mamdani’s support neatly traced the city’s subway lines: from the end of the R train in Bay Ridge, to the N/W in Astoria, and the A in Inwood; among the most racially integrated and renter-majority in the five boroughs. Along Hillside Avenue in Queens, the five-mile Bangladeshi, Sikh, and Indo-Carribean thoroughfare where Mamdani began his campaign by speaking to newly-minted Trump voters, the democratic socialist did not lose a single block. Nonetheless, Cuomo held onto a noticeable chunk of the Manhattan vote, anchored by the Upper East Side’s Capitalist Corridor, and the island’s many old moneyed precincts. South of the Staten Island expressway, the most Italian census tracts in the nation, the son of Mario Cuomo was winning every block. The Anti Commie Corridor, pockets of Orthodox and Hasidic enclaves (most notably in Southern Brooklyn) could also be seen from space, supporting the avowedly pro-Israel (and rabidly Islamophobic) Cuomo. There was not a single Republican red precinct on the entire map, for Curtis Sliwa’s support had completely collapsed, the consequence of tactical voting and a late, quasi-endorsement of the former Governor from President Donald Trump.

In mere minutes, as preceding ballot drops were processed by the Board of Elections, Mamdani’s twelve point lead was cut to eight, with more than one million votes still outstanding. Was Zohran Mamdani, who had entered the evening preparing for a coronation, on the precipice of a historic nightmare?

The forthcoming “drops” would be skewed towards the outer boroughs, from the blue collar voters who cast their ballots after work. The small business men and women, the single family homeowner, the union workers, the public school parents: the people the left always claimed to speak for — but could never win. These were the people Cuomo needed to reclaim power, but whose votes he had often taken for granted.

Hours earlier, along Broadway in Upper Manhattan, the Spanish speaking blocks of Washington Heights and West Harlem delivered their votes to the fresh-faced candidate who so eagerly walked their streets greeting passersby months earlier, as Mamdani seldom lost a single block. Inside schools and libraries across Bedford-Stuyvesant, the evening crowd was White and Black, young and old, but united behind the Democratic nominee. Outside IS-145, named after Joseph Pulitzer, in the ethnic polyglot of Jackson Heights, ballots were printed in more than two dozen languages; three-quarters of which were delivered to the candidate who best embodied immigrant New York. Inside the Seth Low Senior Center in Brownsville, at the heart of the city’s lowest income neighborhood, Black seniors bubbled in the oval next to “M-A-M-D-A-N-I,” rather than the name they had known for decades. At Christ Church of Bay Ridge, the local Irish and Italian Catholics that once revered the Cuomo name were few and far between; outnumbered by their Arab Christian neighbors, eager to cast their votes for the inspiring young man who had become a fixture at their houses of worship years earlier. In working-class Westchester Square, where almost forty-percent of voters cast ballots for both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump the previous November, the sounds of Bangla and Spanish could be heard in the gymnasium of Lewis and Clark middle school, a new frontier being unearthed in real time. Uncles and Aunties formed a line at Arthur Ashe School in South Ozone Park, on the precipice of another man of color making history in Queens.

They did so silently and in the dark; their ballots furiously adding up, creating a new political mosaic, piece by piece. And for those who arrived at their polling place still undecided, most were greeted by an enthusiastic Mamdani volunteer, who knew their candidate’s positions by heart, their eager eyes twinkling with the hopes and dreams of the next generation. In those canvassers, many voters saw their neighbors, friends, nieces and nephews, sons or daughters. Perhaps, some even saw a glimpse of earlier, less-disillusioned versions of themselves. Whatever it was, the doors that opened at midnight believed in Zohran Mamdani, and had shut the door on Andrew Cuomo once and for all. The mayor-elect had eclipsed one million votes and fifty-percent.

In short order, Tascha Van Auken, Mamdani’s Field Director and longtime DSA organizer — who strategized, administered, and executed the canvassing plan that made all of those open doors possible — introduced the Mayor-elect on stage.

“My friends,” Zohran Mamdani smiled, “we have toppled a political dynasty.”

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I began election day with four questions:

• Will Mamdani crack 50%? Yes, with over one million votes.

In total, Zohran Mamdani added over five hundred thousand votes compared to the Democratic Primary. He needed every last one, for Andrew Cuomo doubled his vote total from the Primary, too. But it was from whom Mamdani consolidated support that was remarkable. Amidst voter turnout not seen since the 1960s, Mamdani’s triumph was the result of a coalition rooted in the city’s multi-racial working and middle classes. From the Democratic Primary to the General Election, Mamdani made pronounced inroads with Black (+26) and Hispanic (+22) voters, while cementing his emergent coalition of renters (+25), public transit commuters (+29), younger leftists, older progressives and liberals, South Asians, rent-stabilized tenants, and Muslims (+30). The “Jewish Vote,” much discussed, was far closer than many realize; among Jewish Democrats (precincts where 10%+ of registered voters have Jewish surnames, and Kamala Harris won 60%+ of the vote), Mamdani ran less than two points behind Cuomo (47.8% to 49.2%). Among households earning $30K-$50K, Mamdani won by thirteen points; while households between $50K-$100K went for democratic socialist by twenty percent. Mamdani, of course, won the votes of those who valued a candidate that “would bring needed change” (+62) and “was honest and trustworthy,” (+49) too. Nonetheless, the most instructive Mamdani-Cuomo split was among those in search of a candidate “who will work for someone like me,” a cohort that made up one-fifth of the electorate, and broke decisively for Mamdani by more than fifty points. More than half of voters (55%) said the Cost of Living was the most important issue, dwarfing Crime (22%) and Immigration (9%), more proof Mamdani had actively molded the electorate, rather than merely reacted to it.

This was, unequivocally, the voter coalition the political left had always sought to build.

• Can the first major Muslim candidate for mayor win back the city’s working-class Hispanic and Asian communities that swung dramatically towards Donald Trump last November? For the most part, yes, sans struggles with East Asian voters.

The Trump-Mamdani voters are working-class Latinos, South Asians, & Muslims.

And they number in the tens of thousands.

Across neighborhoods like Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Jamaica Hills, Westchester Square, and Glen Oaks — working-class, immigrant enclaves — Zohran Mamdani outperformed Kamala Harris in vote share (and, some cases, raw votes), despite facing another Democrat (running as an Independent) and a Republican. Here, the man who relentlessly focused on costs of living, listened to the plight of immigrant New York (hosting press conferences with night workers, speaking to former Trump voters), all while showing up – over and over again — delivered on his promise. The sole weak spot: East Asian voters (mostly Chinese). The caveat is class and age.

In working-class Elmhurst, one of two Chinatowns in Queens, Mamdani easily outpaced Cuomo by fifteen points (a comparable margin to the Democratic Primary). Throughout downtown Flushing, a lower-income Chinatown at the conclusion of the #7 train, Mamdani and Cuomo split a handful of precincts. But, in the adjacent and more middle-class Murray Hill (Queens), Cuomo outran Mamdani by double digits. In neighboring Bayside, home to the Korean middle-class, Cuomo won by twenty five percent. In Southern Brooklyn, the emerging Chinese communities of Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and Gravesend contributed relatively few votes during the Democratic Primary (in June, Mamdani clobbered the listless Cuomo there, aided by younger, second generation immigrants). However, these middle-class neighborhoods have become the epicenter of rightward political realignment over the past five years. And last Tuesday, the behavior of these voters mirrored that of other Republicans: abandoning Curtis Sliwa en masse, and shifting dramatically towards Andrew Cuomo. Why? A series of damaging headlines (“Mamdani Says He Would Phase Out Gifted Program”) from both The New York Times and New York Post, articles which received tens of millions of impressions, surely did the Democratic nominee no favors. Nor did Cuomo’s repeated attempts to tie Mamdani to the legalizing (and proliferation) of prostitution, a damaging charge in middle-class immigrant enclaves. Nonetheless, the result goes well beyond just Mamdani, and should be contextualized in the multi-cycle realignment of Chinese voters away from the Democratic Party.

• How many Republican voters can Andrew Cuomo peel away from GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa? A hell of a lot, Sliwa didn’t win a single precinct.

Andrew Cuomo tried a reverse Dan Osborn — let me explain.

Osborn, an Independent candidate for Senate in blood red Nebraska, benefited from the Democratic Party eschewing the race entirely; allowing the mechanic to consolidate support from the state’s Democratic voters, while making an anti-oligarch play for Independent and Republican voters, leading to the greatest over-performance of any Senate candidate in the nation. In deep-blue New York City, particularly amidst Donald Trump’s second term, the Republican Party is equally toxic. While Cuomo, a lifelong Democrat running as an Independent, marginalized Curtis Sliwa to a remarkable extent, had the Republican nominee actually quit the race (or eschewed it entirely), the outcome may have been different.

Given the tactical voting exhibited by New York Republicans, could a similar (more coordinated) strategy work against progressive and socialist Democratic nominees at the city and state level? The Reverse Osborn: the GOP stands down and rallies behind a centrist “Democrat” embraced by the billionaire class, who runs-up-the-score among suburban moderates, Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, and white ethnics, while retaining some appeal among non-white working-class voters. Yet, Andrew Cuomo, a scandal-scarred candidate who ran consecutive listless campaigns, still retained an ability to thread an (otherwise) unaligned coalition; his electoral appeal (Cuomo once routinely exceeded 80% of the vote in NYC), while diminished, is still unique.

Would the New York GOP be wise to re-create this strategy?

• Will the Black electorate, older and historically loyal to Cuomo, shift to Mamdani, the Democratic nominee? Yes, providing his margin of victory.

In my opinion, this is the story of the election.

Zohran Mamdani’s inroads with Black voters were not pre-ordained, nor the sole consequence of him being the Democratic nominee. For nine months, Mamdani has been double (and triple) booked with church services every Sunday, hustling between Harlem, Southeast Queens, and Brooklyn’s Black Belt. But since the primary, the African-born Mamdani gained relationships and institutional validators across the Black community by the day, allowing him unfettered access to larger congregations and wider audiences. During the Primary, Mamdani’s allies attempted to host a rally at the legendary Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, only for the well-connected Cuomo to call in a favor and nix the effort; but as the Democratic nominee for mayor, Mamdani was able to speak at Abyssinian on the eve of Election Day, seated alongside Harlem’s political class. From the pulpit, Mamdani would tell the story of his father’s Civil Rights era activism, a “which side are you on” moment for the young academic, while making light of the pronunciation of his name to lighten the mood, an old trick employed by early career Barack Obama. Over the course of weeks and months, these efforts made a difference, undoubtedly hastened by Cuomo entering a de-facto truce with Donald Trump in an effort to court Republican voters.

Zohran Mamdani built the next chapter of New York City’s Rainbow Coalition.

Coined by Jesse Jackson during his consecutive Presidential campaigns, the Rainbow Coalition (locally) is most commonly associated with the triumph of David Dinkins in 1989. At a tense, sliding doors moment in the city’s history (well-chronicled in Jonathan Mahler’s The Gods of New York), the soft spoken Dinkins, one of Harlem’s legendary “Gang of Four,” brought together upper-middle class Jewish liberals, labor unions, and the city’s large (but oft-ignored) working-class Black and Puerto Rican communities. An enthusiastic majority of New Yorkers helped Dinkins defeat both three-term incumbent Ed Koch and the (white) backlash campaign of prosecutor Rudy Giuliani. The Rainbow Coalition was beautiful and robust, but amidst zealous and alert opposition, its margin for error was slim. Under the weight of record-breaking crime, complicated by the specter of race and class in a segregated and economically-divided municipality, the “Rainbow Coalition” buckled. When Dinkins and Giuliani rematched, New York City’s first Black mayor lost by less than 2%.

While New York City has changed remarkably over the following three decades, there are many parallels to the present moment. The opposition to Mamdani, while not a majority of the city, is fierce and well-represented throughout elite institutions. There will be no “benefit of the doubt” for the thirty-four year old mayor, nor a plethora of second or third chances. Mamdani will deal with a hostile federal government, as large swaths of his Party openly root for his failure. His ambitious agenda will be, to an extent, at the mercy of his (soon to be former) colleagues in Albany. In the words of NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo, “the fate of the organized left and the Mamdani administration will be tied together.” In the story of David Dinkins and his failed re-election, Zohran Mamdani has a cautionary tale of backlash politics.

Nonetheless, the eleventh-hour rally to Andrew Cuomo felt like the last gasp of the Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg coalition, arrangements that once reigned municipal politics. The core tenants of Mamdani’s coalition are the city’s most ascendant demographics: young voters, the college-educated renter class, South Asians, and Muslims. While he made pronounced inroads among working-class Black and Hispanic voters the past four months, his ceiling for improvement is even greater. The intelligentsia of Manhattan may sour on him, or rally behind a white-collar adversary in four years, but Mamdani will almost assuredly deepen his reservoir of support across the blue-collar outer boroughs; net positive arithmetic in the equation of re-election. His ability to command attention and comprehensive understanding of new media gives him a unique, and unparalleled, ability to disseminate his message.

Most importantly, Mamdani has a political movement at his back. One could quantify that movement as more than one hundred thousand volunteers, more than one million votes, or more than three million doors knocked. But a movement should not be quantified, for the will to climb a sixth floor walkup in search of conversation cannot be reduced to numbers on a screen. A movement must be nurtured and protected, but also given space to grow organically. Movements need leaders, and Mamdani has become that, and so much more. Already, the mayor-elect appears poised to not re-create the failures of Obama’s own vanished volunteer army. Since Mamdani stepped off the R train in Bay Ridge, in search of Father Khader El-Yateem eight years ago, he has never stopped organizing. He will not only bring that ethos to City Hall, but foreground it in the next generation of New Yorkers who have been inspired by his rise.

To these folks, Zohran Mamdani represents hope. And you can’t put a price on that.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelLangeNYC

Email me at Michael.James.Lange@gmail.com

From start to finish, the campaign for New York City Mayor, pitting Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani against former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has been scintillating and suspenseful. But tomorrow night, this bittersweet election, spanning more than twelve months, will come to an end. While not as climactic as the Democratic Primary, a come-from-behind upset of epic proportions, the General Election is nonetheless on course for historic voter turnout, the highest in fifty-six years.

With Zohran Mamdani’s victory all but assured, the real drama lies in the details.

Will Mamdani crack 50%? Can the first major Muslim candidate for mayor win back the city’s working-class Hispanic and Asian communities that swung dramatically towards Donald Trump last November? How many Republican voters can Andrew Cuomo peel away from GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa? And will the Black electorate, older and historically loyal to Cuomo, shift to Mamdani, the Democratic nominee?

Thus, in an ode to the infinite nuance of New York City’s mosaic, I have predicted the results, BLOCK by BLOCK.

2,000,000+ Votes

120,000+ City Blocks

4,000+ Election Districts

1,212 Polling Sites

350 Neighborhoods

51 City Council Seats

5 Boroughs

3 Candidates

1 Prediction

Without further ado, let’s begin!

TO VIEW AN INTERACTIVE MAP OF MY PREDICTION, CLICK HERE

THE BRONX

On the banks of the Hudson River rests the Riverdale section of the Northwest Bronx. Adjacent to the water, homes routinely cost millions, while the atmosphere bears a closer resemblance to Westchester County, than the rest of the borough. Here, Cuomo will do well, particularly among Orthodox Jews in the lush Fieldston enclave. Mamdani, in turn, will perform better inland, closer to Van Cortlandt Park; a mix of apartments and modest single family homes, more middle class and culturally diverse.

Woodlawn, a historically-Irish community (bordered by Westchester County, Van Cortlandt Park, Woodlawn Cemetery, and the Bronx River Parkway), should be close between Mamdani and Sliwa (although Cuomo, on account of the older white ethnic population, remains viable here, too). A bit south, on both sides of the Major Deegan Expressway, Mamdani is poised to perform well among the Hispanic working-class of Kingsbridge, and the middle-class of Van Cortlandt Village and Kingsbridge Heights, building upon his strong showing in the Democratic Primary. Across the Jerome Park Reservoir, the Bronx Science alum should continue to dominate in Norwood, a neighborhood of hospital workers and civil servants at the end of the #4 train, home to a growing South Asian and Muslim population. I also expect Mamdani to win Bedford Park comfortably, along with the blocks adjacent to Fordham University. College students, having missed the Democratic Primary on account of summer break, are back in school for the fall semester, and should give Mamdani a notable boost in Fordham and Morningside Heights.

South of the Cross Bronx Expressway, Mamdani and Cuomo trade precincts, while Sliwa remains a non-factor. In the bluffs of Highbridge, Cuomo holds onto support from older Black and Hispanic Democrats (many of whom live in public housing); whereas on the comparably low-income blocks of Morrisania and East Tremont, adjacent to Crotona Park, where the majority of the housing stock is either rent-stabilized or subsidized with vouchers, Mamdani fares better. In Mott Haven, the southernmost neighborhood of the South Bronx, amidst the early stages of gentrification, I expect Mamdani to do well, as is the case for the precincts adjacent to Saint Mary’s Park (where Bernie Sanders held a Presidential rally in 2016) and the Dawson Street historic district in Longwood. Across the Bruckner Expressway, in the industrial, working-class peninsula of Hunts Point, Mamdani and Cuomo should play to a draw. Across the South Bronx, I expect voter participation to continue to decline, a consistent trend since 2016. Were Mamdani to rout Cuomo here, amongst the lowest-income blocks in the United States, which dramatically shifted to the right over the past decade, countless narratives would be shattered in real time.

Across the Bronx River, in Soundview and Castle Hill, Cuomo holds onto a handful of HDFC co-ops and public housing developments, but Mamdani gains everywhere else. On the middle-class peninsula of Clason Point, colloquially referred to as “Little Puerto Rico,” complete with waterfront condominiums, townhouses, and two influential homeowner’s associations, I expect Mamdani to win a plurality. However, north of the Cross Bronx Expressway, those pluralities become majorities (and supermajorities) in Parkchester, a planned community of 171 apartment buildings (affixed with beautiful Terracotta statues on their exterior, between seven and thirteen stories tall), home to thousands of African, South American, Bangladeshi, and Puerto Rican immigrants. Once “Whites Only,” Parkchester has become a remarkable reflection of New York City’s mosaic, a place where working class people, whose doors open at midnight, can harbor middle-class dreams. Half a mile away in Westchester Square, home to an even larger Bangladeshi Muslim population, Mamdani will run-up-the-score, as he did in the Primary. On one block in particular, where almost 40% of voters cast their ballots for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump last November, Mamdani has a chance to eclipse 80% of the vote (Kamala Harris limped to 60%).

On the other side of the (freight) tracks, the heart of historically-Italian Morris Park promises to be a red reprieve in an otherwise blue borough, surrounded by Mamdani blue in working-class Van Nest (Yemeni immigrants) and Allerton (Puerto Ricans and Dominicans). Farther north, The Black Belt of the Northeast Bronx, once represented in Congress by Jamaal Bowman, begins. Majority African American and Afro Caribbean, the area straddles between working and middle class, with an almost identical number of renters and homeowners. The oldest precincts, such as the Edenwald houses, stick with Cuomo, albeit to a lesser extent; while the younger, bluer blocks of Wakefield and Williamsbridge shift to Mamdani. Across I-95 lies Co-op City, the world’s largest NORC (naturally occurring retirement community), whose electorate is two-thirds Black and one-third Hispanic. In the Democratic Primary, Cuomo dominated Mamdani here, winning by 50%. However, as Mamdani has steadily gained ground among older Black and Hispanic voters, I expect the margin will be much closer this time around, with Cuomo earning majorities from the development’s two senior centers (along with several pluralities elsewhere), while Mamdani performs better in the more Puerto Rican precincts.

I predict Pelham Bay, a vestige of the white working-class at the terminus of the #6 train, to break for Mamdani, albeit narrowly. East Tremont Avenue, which runs south from Pelham Bay through Throggs Neck, acts as the de-facto line of political demarcation: with middle-aged, working-class two family homeowners to the west supporting Mamdani; while their older, white ethnic counterparts to the east back Sliwa (and Cuomo). In both Country Club and Throggs Neck, I believe Cuomo will dent Sliwa’s margins among Italian American homeowners, limiting the Republican nominee to pluralities, not majorities. The two Sliwa majority precincts are both gated communities: Edgewater Park and Silver Beach, the most GOP-friendly blocks of the Bronx. I expect the Seaside Swing State of City Island, closely contested by all three candidates, to be a narrow Sliwa plurality, with Mamdani finishing a close second. Throughout the many white ethnic (and Republican-leaning) enclaves of the East Bronx, Sliwa should also receive a bump from the local City Council Member, Kristy Marmorato, who I expect to comfortably win re-election.

Bronx Prediction: Mamdani 50%, Cuomo 39%, Sliwa 10%

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MANHATTAN

Along the Upper East Side’s Capitalist Corridor, from Park to Fifth Avenue, the wealthiest and oldest precincts in the nation, resistance to the thirty-four year old democratic socialist will be pronounced. The same can be said for tony Sutton Place, Cuomo’s temporary home during the campaign, in addition to Battery Park City, East End Avenue, Lincoln Square, and pockets of Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. Here, where The Free Press outranks The New York Times, expect both the Democratic nominee, a pro-Palestinian socialist committed to raising taxes on the wealthy, and the Republican nominee, an outer borough populist who frequently rails against the billionaire class, to struggle for votes. Amongst these old, educated, and avowedly zionist billion-dollar blocks, Mamdani hysteria has reached a fever pitch.

Yet, I expect everywhere else to be a sea of blue, the only question is what shade?

Cuomo’s working-class support will keep him afloat in East Harlem and corners of Washington Heights, but only enough to “limit” Mamdani to pluralities and majorities. Across Harlem and Hamilton Heights — gentrifying, relatively young, staunchly Democratic — I expect Mamdani to run up the score, building on his twenty five point margin in the Primary. Throughout Hudson Heights and the Park Terrace historic district, Cuomo, the scandal-scarred former Governor running as an Independent, will be bludgeoned by progressive, upper-middle class cooperators. Mamdani will even hold his own in the Yorkville section of the Upper East Side, the young (and increasingly hip), renter-majority counter to the neighborhood’s old-moneyed elite. In Hell’s Kitchen and the East Village, neighborhoods I have deemed part of The Commie Corridor Jr, Mamdani will assuredly run-up-the-score, as he did four months prior. While Cuomo can temper Mamdani’s margins in the West Village and TriBeca, the former Governor lacks avenues to build majorities of his own, absent the Upper East and Upper West Side.

One year after the election of Donald Trump, Manhattan’s predominantly white-collar electorate will be fired up and motivated to Vote Blue No Matter, inevitably aiding Mamdani, the Democratic nominee. In the Primary, Mamdani won Manhattan by 11%. Expect that number to grow, perhaps significantly.

Manhattan Prediction: Mamdani 56%, Cuomo 40%, Sliwa 4%

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STATEN ISLAND

Across the racially diverse and working-class North Shore of Staten Island, one would never know that The Forgotten Borough routinely delivers more than two-thirds of its votes to Republicans each November.

Here, expect Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani to win the majority of most precincts, from gentrifying Tompkinsville to immigrant-heavy Port Richmond, in addition to working-class Black enclaves such as Mariner’s Harbor and Clifton. Mamdani will also excel at bringing out the North Shore’s growing Muslim and Arab community, and will likely outperform Kamala Harris across a handful of precincts.

The Staten Island Expressway splits the borough politically, between the bluer North Shore, a diverse polyglot of renters; and the redder Southern and Eastern Shores: Italian, union-dense, and homeowner-heavy. Across mid-Island, I expect Sliwa to perform well in middle-class Castleton Corners and the wealthier Todt Hill enclave, while Cuomo wins the Orthodox of Willowbrook. Some neighborhoods along the Eastern Shore, such as Dongan Hills and Arrochar (whose electorates are two-thirds White, one-third Hispanic & Asian), have the chance to be competitive between all three candidates. Farther south, I was conservative with my prediction, limiting Sliwa to pluralities along most of the Eastern Shore, communities where other Republicans have coasted to majorities. Yet, I have also been generous to the GOP nominee, as Cuomo wins only a handful of precincts outright, with Sliwa even approaching supermajority territory in Tottenville and Prince’s Bay. However, my least confident prediction point rests with Sliwa’s performance among white ethnic Republicans and Independents, specifically Italian Americans. Were Sliwa, consistently painted as a spoiler, to see his support collapse, Cuomo would stand to benefit handsomely in places like Staten Island, the most Italian county in the United States.

Brigid Bergin from Gothamist published an excellent article exploring this question about Staten Island’s southern shore, the most Republican-leaning state house district in the entire northeast. Here, turnout is among the highest of anywhere in New York City, only eclipsed by Brownstone Brooklyn. How many — given the choice of a non-viable Republican gadfly, a disgraced former Governor embodying the Democratic establishment’s old guard, and an unabashed democratic socialist — will simply stay home?

Staten Island Prediction: Mamdani 25%, Cuomo 37%, Sliwa 38%

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BROOKLYN

As the results pour in, you will be able to see The Commie Corridor from space.

From Greenpoint, once the Polish capital of New York, to Sunset Park, a gentrifying Mexican and Puerto Rican community adjacent to Greenwood Cemetery, Mamdani will win a supermajority of the vote. For miles, the Democratic nominee will not lose a single precinct, save for the Satmar Hasidim of South Williamsburg (more on them later), netting several hundreds of votes per block. At the end of the R train, Bay Ridge — once the only neighborhood outside of Staten Island to vote for Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson — is expected to decisively support Mamdani. Across upper-class Brownstone Brooklyn (Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Prospect Heights) where the proverbial No Kings Marchers (90-10: Harris vs. Trump) reign, the fresh-faced and dynamic Mamdani will clobber the listless and scandal-scarred Cuomo, amidst a deluge of blue wave voter turnout. Farther into Central Brooklyn, Mamdani’s pronounced advantage among younger voters, combined with the loyalty of Black voters to the Democratic Party, will carry him to significant majorities in Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Bedford-Stuyvesant; the bluest neighborhoods in New York City. As was the case in the Bronx, I expect Brooklyn’s African American and Afro Caribbean neighborhoods to split their votes between Mamdani and Cuomo, along the lines of age, tilting slightly towards the Democratic nominee. Once more, were Mamdani to consolidate support across middle-class Canarsie, working-class East Flatbush, and low-income Brownsville, he would be on pace for 60%+ in Kings County, the most vote-rich of all five boroughs.

While some leadership of the powerful anti-zionist Satmar Hasidim in South Williamsburg have declined to make an endorsement, sending a letter to the community protesting the “smears against Mamdani,” (despite an eleventh hour plea from both Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams), I expect the rank-and-file to still support either Cuomo or Sliwa. Amongst other Orthodox and Hasidic sects, in Midwood and Borough Park (and Crown Heights), I anticipate Cuomo’s margins to be even more pronounced. Along Ocean Parkway, home to the thousands of Sephardic Jews, expect Cuomo to earn a supermajority of support.

Across Southern Brooklyn’s mosaic, each candidate will find pockets of support. For Curtis Sliwa, the blood red blocks (Trump 80%+) of Russian-heavy Manhattan Beach, as well as Luna Park Towers and Trump Village (built by the President’s father) in nearby Coney Island, should serve as a bulwark against some of Cuomo’s late gains. Sheepshead Bay, reliably Republican, predominantly Russian and Chinese, should also be friendly to the GOP nominee; ditto for Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach, and Mill Basin, white ethnic waterfront communities (mostly Italian) that serve as time capsules to an older era. Andrew Cuomo should be able to peel away some votes here, particularly from immigrants from the former Soviet Union, as evidenced by Republican Council Member Inna Vernikov’s endorsement of the former Governor over the weekend. Mamdani, in turn, should continue building support among Brighton Beach’s emerging Pakistani Muslim population, partially offsetting the neighborhood’s heavy Republican lean. In Coney Island, the Democratic nominee should find solace among the Mexican working-class and local public housing residents. Across Gravesend Bay, I am eagerly anticipating the results of Bath Beach and Bensonhurst, Italian and Asian neighborhoods which Donald Trump won with more than 60% of the vote. Four years ago, Curtis Sliwa shocked the Democratic establishment by crushing Eric Adams here, foreshadowing the rightward realignment of the Chinese working and middle class. I consider both genuine Swing States, where each candidate has a chance. As of now, I expect both neighborhoods to split, block by block, between Mamdani and Sliwa (in neighboring Sunset Park East, Mamdani should lead, with Sliwa ahead in Dyker Heights). For Zohran Mamdani, the overlooked whims of the Chinese working-class will be one of many tests on Tuesday. Can he outrun Kamala Harris? I wouldn’t rule it out.

Brooklyn Prediction: Mamdani 59%, Cuomo 30%, Sliwa 10%

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QUEENS

We end where it all began: The World’s Borough.

“The People’s Republic of Astoria,” the heart and soul of The Commie Corridor, will inevitably turn out in large numbers to support their State Assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani. As will neighboring Long Island City and Sunnyside, a trinity of once white ethnic, now gentrifying neighborhoods that have helped remake New York City politics since 2018. Astoria Heights, the neighborhood’s last enclave of Greek homeowners, which seesaws between Democrats and Republicans in midterm and Presidential elections, should be an interesting battleground between the three leading candidates. The Commie Corridor, and Mamdani’s dominance, will extend farther east into Filipino and Bangladeshi Woodside and the multi-ethnic, immigrant polyglot of Jackson Heights (where 200+ languages are spoken), the site of Mamdani recent night workers press conference. In the civilly-engaged Historic District, Mamdani will crush Cuomo among older progressive white voters. Farther south, buried between cemeteries and expressways, I expect Sliwa to hold onto historically-Irish Maspeth and historically-Polish and German Middle Village, while Mamdani annihilates the competition in Ridgewood along the Brooklyn border.

Both Chinatowns in Queens, Elmhurst and Flushing, are enclaves where Mamdani will expand his head-to-head lead versus Cuomo. Flushing, in particular, should be a fascinating battleground between Mamdani and Sliwa, whereas Cuomo will almost assuredly finish a distant third. College Point, a nearby peninsula of working-and-middle-class Chinese and Hispanic immigrants, won decisively by Donald Trump last November, has a strong chance of being retaken by Mamdani. The incredible influence of South Asian voters, activated like never before through Mamdani’s campaign, can be seen along the dark blue of Hillside Avenue, which stretches from South Richmond Hill to Glen Oaks. One year ago, this corridor experienced one of the most pronounced rightward shifts in the nation. In the wake of Trump’s victory, Mamdani’s breakout moment as a little known candidate for mayor came from talking to voters here, listening to their concerns. Since then, the democratic socialist has worked tirelessly to bring those communities back into the Democratic Party tent with an affirmative, costs-of-living focused agenda. Tomorrow night, at the epicenter of the World’s Borough, Mamdani is poised to do just that.

In the older suburban neighborhoods across northeast Queens, Cuomo and Sliwa will battle for votes. Sliwa should hold MAGA-friendly Whitestone and build off his past Asian inroads across Linden Hill (home to conservative Chinese homeowners) and Bayside (the Korean middle-class); while the former Governor coalesces older, white Democrats in Bay Terrace, Douglaston, and Little Neck, in addition to running-up-the-score among Orthodox Jews in Fresh Meadows and Kew Gardens Hills.

Southeast Queens, the heart of the city’s Black middle-class, should be more amenable to Mamdani than in the Democratic Primary, where the well-known Cuomo easily outpaced his fresh-faced opponent. Here, I expect Mamdani to do best in-and-around Queens Village and Jamaica, which, in addition to their large Black populations, have growing South Asian communities; while struggling the most (a relative term) in places like Rochdale Village and Springfield Gardens, among the oldest developments in the city. If Mamdani, the Democratic nominee among the bluest neighborhoods in the United States, thrashes Cuomo among Black voters in Queens, a mandate will be inevitable.

Along the Rockaway Peninsula, from west to east, Sliwa should win the Republican stronghold of Breezy Point, a gated community of Irish civil servants and retirees, and neighboring Belle Harbor, both of whom delivered 70%+ of their votes to Donald Trump (expect Broad Channel and Howard Beach, fellow A train peninsulas, to follow suit). Rockaway Park, once known as the “Irish Riviera,” has the contours of a Swing State, split between Sliwa, Cuomo, and Mamdani. Farther east, in Arverne and Edgemere, the character of the peninsula changes, becoming more working-class and racially-diverse, to Mamdani’s benefit as the Democratic nominee. At the edge of the peninsula, bordering Nassau County, I anticipate the local Orthodox population of Bayswater and Far Rockaway will bloc vote for Cuomo.

Fittingly, I wanted to conclude with Corona, a working poor neighborhood of immigrants and non-English speakers, in the shadow of the #7 train. There is no place, over the last decade, where the Democratic Party has hemorrhaged more support, taken voters so consistently for granted, and failed so catastrophically. The people of Corona are The Forgotten People to many across the media class: ignored unless given a reason to care. Last November, Donald Trump won a majority of the vote in precincts that went for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton by more than 90%. The political establishment took notice, as did the national press, at least for a couple months. Now, especially around election season, we hear little about the plight of Corona; perhaps because this immigrant enclave, home to tens of thousands of non-citizens, has relatively few votes to contribute. Their fears of prostitution, ICE raids, and higher costs have not receded, but the attention has. Perhaps it is wishful thinking to say that Zohran Mamdani will do well here, that his economic message and I’m Fighting for You ethos speaks to the anxieties and fears pulsing through this oft-overlooked community. Everyone always wants the perfect ending. Maybe this is it.

Queens Prediction: Mamdani 49%, Cuomo 34%, Sliwa 16%

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FINAL PREDICTION

Connect With Me:

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelLangeNYC

Email me at Michael.James.Lange@gmail.com

Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani will win the General Election for New York City Mayor on Tuesday, November 4th — yet the question remains: by what margin?

Mamdani, amidst a bitter three-way campaign, faces both former Governor Andrew Cuomo, running on an Independent ballot line, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. While consistently leading by double digits, Mamdani’s support, gauged repeatedly by surveys, has remained stuck in the mid-40’s (not that the polls are accurate), allowing critics to charge that the democratic socialist has a hard ceiling. Thus, Mamdani not only needs to win, but cross the 50% threshold along the way, earning a symbolic majority of the vote, tantamount to a mandate for his ambitious agenda.

Hence, I have sorted all of New York City’s 365 neighborhoods into eleven categories:

• The Commie Corridor Sr: The young, leftist base that has reshaped New York City Politics over the past decade

• The Commie Corridor Jr: The next era of socialist electoral expansion

• Open Doors: Working-class South Asian and Muslim communities where Mamdani opened doors for The Left

• The Capitalist Corridor: The wealthiest blocks of Manhattan

• No Kings Marchers: Progressive middle-aged and older voters in Brownstone neighborhoods that broke overwhelmingly for Lander and Mamdani

• MSNBC Viewers: Liberals who split their votes between Mamdani, Cuomo, and Lander in the Primary

• The Black Belt: The most staunchly Democratic neighborhoods in America

• The Anti-Commie Corridor: Heavily Republican communities with large ancestral Eastern European populations

• The Forgotten People: Lower-income Black and Hispanic precincts where the Democratic Party is losing support

• Swing States: Neighborhoods where the margin was close between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic Primary AND Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the Presidential Election

• Archie Bunker’s Descendants: The dwindling MAGA white ethnics that once anchored New York City’s electorate

Here is Mamdani’s path to a Mandate.

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THE COALITION OF THE IN-BETWEEN

The movement that carried Zohran Mamdani to victory in the Democratic Primary

The Commie Corridor Sr.

The young, leftist base that has reshaped New York City Politics over the past decade

Astoria, Long Island City, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Fort Greene, Bushwick, Bed-Stuy

2024 General: Harris 83%, Trump 17%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 66%, Cuomo 14%, Lander 12%

We’re back!

Since the Democratic Primary, The Commie Corridor, the phrase I coined to describe Mamdani’s left-leaning and youthful base, has taken on a life of its own: headlining a New York Times Op-Ed, featuring in a primetime CNN segment, receiving a citation in The New Yorker, and even a Wikipedia blurb.

On June 24th, this ideological cohort, stretching from Astoria to Sunset Park, powered the democratic socialist Mamdani to victory with record turnout and resounding margins. But can the new shorthand for the urban left keep up this raucous energy in November? After all, the youth are notoriously fickle, at least according to their Baby Boomer parents.

Young people, thus far, have made up a smaller percentage of the electorate than in the Democratic Primary, according to data released by the Board of Elections, leaving some to question whether the Mamdani-mania has worn off. However, there is ample evidence to suggest that Mamdani’s tent has only grown. In the past few months, Mamdani’s volunteer army, which numbered close to fifty-thousand in the Primary, has nearly doubled to ninety thousand plus. Along the G train line, there is no more popular politician in America than Zohran Mamdani.

In a bitterly contested and higher-turnout General Election, The Commie Corridor will have less influence than a closed Democratic Primary. Mamdani did an excellent job of maximizing his base, but how many more untapped votes are there left?

We’ll find out soon enough.

Electorate Estimation: 14-18%

Zohran needs to win almost 80% of the vote (75% is pretty good, too).

The Commie Corridor Jr.

The next era of progressive and socialist electoral expansion

Bay Ridge, East Village, Hamilton Heights, Harlem, Hell’s Kitchen, Kensington, LES

2024 General: Harris 79%, Trump 21%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 52%, Cuomo 28%, Lander 11%

Nonetheless, Mamdani’s dominance in June was not confined to the neighborhoods where the socialist left had already established an electoral foothold. In expanding the political map, Mamdani broadened the Left’s horizons: coalescing previously unrealized gains, creating a new electorate with a mass politics campaign, and providing a winning template for future candidates of his mold.

For youth and leftism is not confined to the shores of Long Island City and Greenpoint.

Throughout the hip and happening blocks of the East Village, Alphabet City and the Lower East Side, Mamdani routinely eclipsed 80% of the vote. Across bustling Hell’s Kitchen and gentrifying Hamilton Heights, the charismatic insurgent seldom lost a precinct. Ditto for Central Harlem, historically the Black political capital of the world, where Mamdani trounced Cuomo by more than twenty-percent. In Bay Ridge, a diversifying middle-class community at the end of the R train, Cuomo won five precincts — Mamdani won the other thirty five. None of these neighborhoods, where the democratic socialist won handily, have any DSA elected officials.

Perhaps that will soon change.

Electorate Estimation: 13-17%

Zohran needs to win approximately two-thirds of the vote.

Open Doors

South Asian & Muslim communities where Mamdani opened doors for The Left

City Line, Elmhurst, Jamaica Hills, South Richmond Hill, Westchester Square

2024 General: Harris 61%, Trump 39%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 55%, Cuomo 36%

Mamdani’s victory was not solely a triumph of The Commie Corridor, but under-represented and oft-overlooked New Yorkers: Muslims, South Asians, rent-stabilized tenants. Now, they are the fulcrum of the biggest political story in the country, with cable news pundits and national magazines have been forced to learn the plight of South Richmond Hill, Jamaica, and Westchester Square. A new story, bringing visibility to the lives of those too often ignored, written before our eyes.

One year ago, these working-class communities were the epicenter of the Democratic Party’s failure: lost to the couch, a write-in ballot, or Donald Trump himself.

In the wake of Trump’s victory, Mamdani’s breakout moment as a candidate for Mayor came from talking to voters on Hillside Avenue in Queens, a Bangladeshi corridor that saw one of the nation’s most pronounced shifts to the right. This was the start of an unprecedented level of outreach to South Asian and Muslim voters. Every Friday without fail, the first major Muslim candidate for Mayor would be at a different mosque for Jummah Prayers; on the night of Chaad Raat, the first South Asian man elected to the State Legislature crisscrossed Parkchester and Jamaica Hills. Four days before the Democratic Primary, Mamdani’s team canvassed a head-spinning 135 mosques after their weekly prayer session. On June 24th, as the results from the Board of Elections were broadcast onto a citywide precinct map, Hillside Avenue, emblazoned with Mamdani colors, was finally visible — in more ways than one.

In recent days, the Cuomo campaign and their surrogates have openly embraced Islamophobic rhetoric, intent to rile up their wealthy and zionist base with fear mongering. In doing so, they mirrored the tactics once used against Cuomo’s Italian and Catholic ancestors. Muslim and South Asian voters, ignored by the political class until this campaign, have been subjected to the anti-immigrant reaction that has, regrettably, been part of New York City’s storied history. Yet, every ethnic group has overcome the tide of inflammation on their path to political power. Now, on the precipice of history, these Open Doors can bring the race home for one of their own.

Electorate Estimation: 5-6%

Zohran needs to win greater than 60% (ideally two-thirds).

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VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO?

The modern Democratic Party: the donor elite, progressive activists, liberal media, and Black working-class. To what extent will they back their Party’s nominee?

The Capitalist Corridor

The wealthiest (and avowedly zionist) blocks of Manhattan

Upper East Side (Park, Madison, Fifth), Carnegie Hill, Sutton Place, Battery Park City

2024 General: Harris 78%, Trump 22%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 27%, Cuomo 45%, Lander 19%

Save for Orthodox and Hasidic enclaves, the staunchest resistance to Zohran Mamdani comes from the city’s well-heeled older residents. Between Park and Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side, stretching from Sutton Place to Carnegie Hill, age and affluence meet, culminating in a crescendo of support for Andrew Cuomo. Once the home of the Republican Party’s liberal wing, these billion dollar blocks have realigned towards the Democratic Party during the Trump era.

Here, where The Free Press and Wall Street Journal outrank The New York Times, expect both the Democratic nominee, a pro-Palestinian socialist committed to raising this taxes on the wealthy, and Republican nominee, an outer borough populist who frequently rails against the billionaire class, to struggle for votes. While never overwhelming in numbers at the ballot box, The Capitalist Corridor’s influence was felt elsewhere: in editorial boardrooms, multi-million dollar television advertisements, and Super PAC expenditures. For months, these precincts have been the heart of the anti-Mamdani resistance, which has fallen flat, despite its financial largesse.

Through the first few days of Early Voting, The Capitalist Corridor has led the way with respect to voter turnout: offering an early bright spot for Cuomo and mild warning sign for Mamdani. However, amongst the wealthiest, oldest, and most-educated blocks in the nation, where Mamdani hysteria has reached a fever pitch, the question remains: do working-class Black, Hispanic, and Asian New Yorkers feel the same?

Electorate Estimation: 6-7%

Zohran needs to win more than 25% of the vote.

No Kings Marchers

Progressive middle-aged and older voters in Brownstone neighborhoods that broke overwhelmingly for Mamdani and Lander

Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Carroll Gardens, Hudson Heights, Morningside Heights

2024 General: Harris 90%, Trump 10%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 47%, Cuomo 16%, Lander 30%

The Resistance 2.0

They are angry at the establishment and crave new leadership. They span all ages, embody the politics of New York Magazine and your local Indivisible chapter, and form the backbone of the small dollar donor class. And most importantly, for our purposes, they vote in large numbers. The No Kings Marchers may be wealthy, but affluence has not stymied their radicalization.

In 2016, most of these neighborhoods decisively backed Hillary Clinton, eschewing the democratic socialist rhetoric of Bernie Sanders; only to overwhelmingly reject Clinton acolyte (and former Governor) Andrew Cuomo in favor of Zohran Mamdani, a cadre member of NYC-DSA, less than a decade later. Not only had their ideology changed over time, the political environment had, too. A concurrence of crises, local and national — Trump, Gaza, Cuomo’s resignation, Adams’ corruption — pushed No Kings Marchers to their Party’s anti-establishment, left-leaning flank.

These civically-engaged communities, some of the only places where Kamala Harris did not bleed support last fall, came to the polls in droves this June, squashing Cuomo like a bug. On November 4th, I expect more of the same.

Electorate Estimation: 4-5%

Zohran needs to win more than 70% (honestly, he should aim for three-quarters)

MSNBC Viewers

Liberals who split their votes between Mamdani, Cuomo, and Lander in the Primary

Brooklyn Heights, Forest Hills, Spuyten Duyvil, Upper West Side, Yorkville

2024 General: Harris 81%, Trump 19%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 34%, Cuomo 34%, Lander 22%

The median New York Times reader and cable news watcher, MSNBC viewers are steadfastly liberal, but value technocracy in local government. Predominantly concentrated in Manhattan’s affluent enclaves, they seek candidates in the mold of Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Michael Bloomberg. Instead, they were forced to choose between a democratic socialist, a scandal-scarred relic of the political establishment, and a well-meaning left-liberal with no chance of victory; the closest three-way margin between Mamdani, Lander, and Cuomo.

With the primary decided, many of these voters will fall in line behind the Democratic ticket. While raging debates over Israel may cost the nominee some support among Jewish Democrats, it should not be enough to temper Mamdani’s momentum.

Electorate Estimation: 11-13%

Zohran needs to win a decisive majority (60%+ ideally).

The Black Belt

The most staunchly Democratic neighborhoods in the United States

Brownsville, Canarsie, Co-op City, East Flatbush, Rochdale Village, Wakefield

2024 General: Harris 87%, Trump 13%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 26%, Cuomo 60%

In the Democratic Primary, Zohran Mamdani won White, Hispanic, and Asian voters; whereas the well-known Andrew Cuomo performed best among Black voters.

Across The Black Belt, spanning Canarsie in Brooklyn to Co-op City in the Bronx, Cuomo consistently outperformed Mamdani by double-digits. Nonetheless, the former Governor lacked comparable enthusiasm to that of Eric Adams four years prior, which manifested in lower voter turnout, which ultimately cost him dearly. Since then, Mamdani, armed with the Democratic nomination, has made steady and significant inroads with older Black voters. Now, according to some polls, the African-born Mamdani, who shares the story of his father’s Civil Rights era activism from the church pulpit every Sunday, is leading among African Americans.

No cohort could swing the election’s outcome more than The Black Belt. If Mamdani, the Democrat on the ballot among the nation’s bluest blocks, thrashes Cuomo among Black voters, a mandate will be inevitable. However, were Cuomo to keep the margin close, or even win the Black electorate for a second straight time (despite losing scores of institutional support), the race would narrow. At the very least, uncomfortable narratives about The Left’s struggles with the Black working-class would resurface.

Electorate Estimation: 11-13%

Zohran needs to win at least a plurality (48%+).

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OUTER BOROUGH NUANCE

A messy mosaic away from the neat narratives

The Anti-Commie Corridor

Heavily Republican communities with large ancestral Eastern European populations

Borough Park, Gravesend, Manhattan Beach, Midwood, Sheepshead Bay

2024 General: Harris 35%, Trump 65%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 23%, Cuomo 65%

It is not a question as to whether most of the various Hasidic, Sephardic, and Orthodox Jewish sects will vote for Andrew Cuomo, who has made “fighting antisemitism” (and Islamophobic fear mongering) a cornerstone of his campaign, but by what margin. However, while Cuomo has relentlessly courted influential rabbis, most Orthodox communities consistently vote for the Republican at the top of the ticket, a potentially boon to Curtis Sliwa. The Cuomo-Sliwa splits in Borough Park, Kew Gardens Hills, and Ocean Parkway — all of whom voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump — will make-or-break the former Governor’s third party bid.

Farther south, the Russians and Ukrainians of Southern Brooklyn — along the blood red blocks of Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach — are far more likely to remain with Sliwa, despite an eleventh hour push from Cuomo to earn their votes, who has cast the Republican nominee as a hopeless spoiler. Mamdani, on track to receive scant support, is hoping for a non-historic turnout against him.

Electorate Estimation: 6-8%

Zohran needs to win a non-negligible amount of the Satmar in South Williamsburg.

The Forgotten People

Lower-income Black & Hispanic voters where the Democratic Party is losing support

Bedford Park, Castle Hill, Highbridge, Hunts Point, Morrisania, Corona, Port Richmond

2024 General: Harris 72%, Trump 28%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 38%, Cuomo 50%

Last November, the Black and Brown working class dramatically shifted away from the Democratic Party. Only three counties in the country experienced a more pronounced swing to the right than The Bronx and Queens. Can Zohran Mamdani, who began his campaign talking to voters on Fordham Road, reverse these troubling trends?

In the Democratic Primary, Cuomo held most of these neighborhoods, albeit by a lesser margin than expected. Unsurprisingly, Cuomo did better in areas with higher Black populations, while Mamdani was stronger in more Hispanic precincts. The democratic socialist who ran on “freezing the rent” for two million rent stabilized tenants did best among the renter class more broadly; while the former Governor with universal name recognition swept every public and senior housing development.

Could Republican Curtis Sliwa, on the back of Trump’s gains last November, submit a surprisingly strong performance? In 2021, Sliwa performed quite well with Chinese immigrants in Southern Brooklyn and Eastern Queens, a precursor to the racial realignment that would come in the following years. However, the red beret Republican failed to make any discernible inroads with working-class Black and Hispanic voters, and, now hindered by a blue wave environment amidst the backlash to Trump 2.0, shows little signs of meaningful improvement four years later.

What percentage of these “lower propensity” voters will simply stay home?

Electorate Estimation: 8-10%

Zohran needs to win a plurality for victory, a majority for a mandate.

Archie Bunker’s Descendants

The dwindling MAGA white ethnics that once anchored New York City’s electorate

Breezy Point, Country Club, Howard Beach, Marine Park, New Dorp, Whitestone

2024 General: Harris 30%, Trump 70%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 35%, Cuomo 49%

In political commentary, the Archie Bunker vote, named after the fictional Queens homeowner from the 1970’s sitcom All in the Family, has become shorthand for the bloc of urban, white, working-class men. During the latter half of the 20th century, many neighborhoods across the outer boroughs (some of which, like Astoria and Throggs Neck, would be represented in Congress by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decades later) were embodied by the blue-collar, Catholic, white ethnics (Italians, Irish, Greek, Polish, German); most of whom, despite identifying as Democrats, held relatively conservative views, particularly with respect to school busing and abortion.

For decades, the Archie Bunker bloc was the pre-eminent force shaping the contours of New York City politics. After uniting behind their fellow “stoop sitter,” Mario Procaccino, only to fall short to “limousine liberal” John Lindsay, the Archie Bunker vote became a key piece of Ed Koch’s three term coalition, a marriage of white conservatives and reactionary liberals, before migrating to Republican Rudy Giuliani, at the height of racial backlash, and later Michael Bloomberg, foreshadowing the Party realignment that would soon plague the national Democratic Party.

However, since the election of Bill de Blasio, Bunker’s Descendants, now a generation removed from their political heydey, have lacked the ability to influence municipal elections. De Blasio, a Park Slope liberal with a penchant for YMCA workouts and tardiness, routinely tarred and feathered by The New York Post, was particularly offensive to these voters. Yet every November, Bunker’s Descendants cried out in protest, only to be trounced at the ballot box, their votes never adding up to more than thirty percent; an island of red in a deep blue city. As the number of Bunker’s Descendants dwindled year-after-year, the consequence of age and atrophy, it appeared as though their days of influencing New York City elections were over.

Not yet. Amidst the most competitive Mayoral election in sixteen years, Bunker’s Descendants are poised to play a meaningful role in shaping the outcome. On these MAGA-friendly blocks, most will pull the lever for fellow Republican Curtis Sliwa, despite his impossibly long odds of victory. However, some (to what extent remains unknown), will be tempted to not “waste” their vote, and bet on Andrew Cuomo (once a darling of white ethnic New York), the Italian Catholic who can flawlessly pronounce “Kosciuzko.” Ultimately, for Cuomo to have a fighting chance, he will need to peel away a significant percentage of Bunker’s Descendants from Sliwa.

Electorate Estimation: 8-10%

Zohran needs to win a few precincts that voted for Trump (for the narrative war).

Swing States

Neighborhoods where the margin was close between Cuomo and Mamdani in the Democratic Primary AND Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the Presidential Election

Bath Beach, College Point, City Island, Coney Island, Morris Park, Glendale

2024 General: Harris 50%, Trump 50%

2025 Primary: Mamdani 42%, Cuomo 43%

An eclectic mix of Open Doors, Archie Bunker’s Descendants, and Forgotten People (with some Commie Corridor Jr. sprinkled in), the Swing States are New York City’s most interesting blocks, neatly split at both the national and local level.

Here, it will come down to turning out the base. Curtis Sliwa is counting on registered Republicans sticking with their nominee, and building on his inroads with East Asian voters from four years ago; Andrew Cuomo hopes to peel off Irish and Italian Republicans from Sliwa, activate moderate Democrats, and win a sizable chunk of Independents; Zohran Mamdani continues to rely on young voters, straight ticket Democrats (of all races), and his (difficult to poll) working-class coalition.

For Andrew Cuomo to close the gap versus the frontrunner, the former Governor will have to perform far better across these unique pockets than he did during the primary. Here, Cuomo has a greater chance of finishing third, behind Mamdani and Sliwa, than winning a plurality. On the contrary, a strong performance throughout the Swing States from Zohran Mamdani would go a long way in showcasing the appeal of economic populism with working-class voters in politically “purple” areas.

Can Mamdani, who has surpassed expectations at every turn, deliver one last time?

Electorate Estimation: 7-9%

Zohran needs to win around 40%.

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Email me at Michael.James.Lange@gmail.com

When Andrew Cuomo stepped onto the debate stage Wednesday night, he needed a strong performance to maintain any hope of an improbable upset on November 4th.

Cuomo, heavily favored in the Democratic Primary, had been felled in dramatic and humiliating fashion by a gifted upstart less than half his age. Yet, despite his thirteen point drubbing in June, the former Governor of New York soldiered onto the General Election, running as an Independent, determined to rewrite his political obituary.

Zohran Mamdani, his opponent, was the anti-Cuomo. Where the career politician avoided unscripted interactions and retail politics altogether, the democratic socialist insurgent, who had spent a small lifetime knocking doors, relished any chance to talk to voters. When the son of Albany stuck to the familiar playbook of the Democratic Party establishment and its attendant consultant class, the son of an acclaimed filmmaker leaned into creativity and belonging, reinventing the art of campaigning along the way. And, for what the thirty-three year old lacked in experience, he made up for with youthful energy and earnest charisma, compared to his scandal-scarred and overly-cautious opponent. If Mamdani was Michael Jordan, a supremely talented overachiever, then Cuomo was Karl Malone, always coming up short in the clutch.

With Election Day around the corner, polls showed Cuomo trailing Mamdani by double-digits.

The debate was his last chance.

Cuomo’s entrance was serenaded by bagpipes, played by volunteers wearing all Black. After falling flat in the previous debate, the evening had all the makings of a funeral for his storied career.

Nonetheless, Cuomo started out strong, routinely emphasizing Mamdani’s lack of experience. “You’ve never even introduced a bill on housing,” he asserted, to steady applause. Asked his position on the three ballot measures (Questions 2-4), Mamdani, unwilling to irk the Democratic City Council or anger the influential and well-funded pro-housing forces in the city, pointedly refused to answer the question. The anti-politician was caught being a politician. This was followed by another bruising exchange for the Democratic nominee, as Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa took turns pillorying Mamdani for refusing to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.”

Through the first 40 minutes, the listless Cuomo was full of life, the dynamic Mamdani on the defensive.

However, Mamdani soon turned the tide. After Cuomo complained about a lack of state funding for housing, Mamdani effortlessly trapped his opponent: “We just had a former Governor say in his own words that ‘the city is getting screwed by the state.’ WHO was leading the state? It was YOU.”

Since the Democratic Primary, Cuomo, now a longshot third party candidate, has avoided the same degree of media scrutiny he experienced prior to the Primary, as Mamdani, the heavily-favored Democratic nominee, has become the main source of press attention and vetting. Thus, in the cross-examination portion of the debate, Mamdani shined the light back on Cuomo’s skeletons, none more damning than his alleged sexual harassment of female state employees.

“Mr. Cuomo, in 2021, thirteen different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment. One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening. You sought to access her private gynecological records. She cannot speak because you launched a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak. What do you say to the thirteen women that you sexually harassed?” — Zohran Mamdani

“If you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature…” his opponent stammered, before pivoting. The arrogant and heartless Cuomo was back.

Nonetheless, the evening was a rare bright spot in an otherwise forgettable campaign. The political class agreed, describing the former Governor’s showing as “much better than last time,” and even “pretty good.”

However, mere moments after the debate concluded, almost no one was talking about Andrew Cuomo’s performance, for their attention was focused elsewhere…

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It has been bewildering to watch Andrew Cuomo, the son of a beloved three-term Governor, the most powerful man in New York State for a decade, and the talk of the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic, reduced to such a diminished state.

It is not so much that the sixty-seven year old Cuomo is old, but more that his understanding of political power, media, the Democratic Party, and New York City are ancient — despite spending a lifetime in the arena.

After the primary debacle, Cuomo’s institutional support abandoned him in droves. Immediately, the city’s largest labor unions defected to the Democratic nominee who would soon negotiate their contracts. They were followed by many elected officials, particularly those who, fearing a primary challenge from the Democratic Socialists of America, watched Mamdani handily win their districts. His high dollar consultants, eager to preserve their other business before the city, left the campaign (some of whom leaked internal conversations to the press in the process). Even billionaire Bill Ackman, the perfect caricature of the feckless and entitled anti-Mamdani coalition, said that Cuomo was too “low energy” to continue. Only a handful of the former Governor’s most loyal and sycophantic aides stayed on for the General. Their autopsy was convenient and incomplete: Cuomo was too cautious, neglected retail politics, and remained anonymous on social media. After watching the Biden debacle last summer, Cuomo ran an equally moribund campaign — no questions, few public appearances, rooted in opposition rather than affirmation — save for the senility. There were little to no reflection on Cuomo’s losing and lacking message: that the city was a hellscape only he could save, despite half a lifetime spent in the suburbs and Manhattan’s toniest enclaves. No, with a few simple tweaks and increased media scrutiny of Mamdani, the listless Cuomo could be competitive in November. “He’s read the polling,” they insisted. But could an old dog learn new tricks?

The answer was resoundingly no. For a couple weeks, Cuomo made a series of direct-to-camera videos in Mamdani’s mold — visiting seniors in Co-op City, showcasing his love of muscle cars, choosing a campaign theme song with his daughter — in an attempt to humanize the man with terrible favorability ratings. However, these productions were abandoned quickly, replaced by AI slop: somehow even more hollow and cringe. Now, Cuomo outsources his social media to a handful of “meme lords” and “comedy influencers,” each more controversial than the last, in a futile and pathetic attempt to manufacture attention. Governor Cuomo, who once ruled New York State with an iron fist, would have never tolerated such nonsense.

Absent genuine enthusiasm, desperately needing to counter Mamdani’s “emotional momentum,” Cuomo’s only move was to try and consolidate the field and take his chances with the older, more politically moderate General Election. The problem was that neither Eric Adams nor Curtis Sliwa wanted to defer to the man who had been so handily defeated months earlier. For this was Andrew Cuomo’s modus operandi, pushing aside those who stood in the way of his ambition. Twenty years ago, on the brink of salvaging his career, Cuomo and his allies forced Charlie King out of the Democratic Primary for Attorney General, so as not to split the Black vote. As AG, Cuomo frequently marginalized New York’s first Black Governor, David Paterson; wounded by scandal, the incumbent eschewed re-election, clearing the deck for Cuomo to ascend to the state’s top post. No wonder his contemporaries believed he was arrogant and entitled. Two aligned operatives, pollster Mark Penn and former Council President Andrew Stein, personally briefed President Donald Trump on Cuomo’s chances versus Mamdani in a one-on-one race, a secret plot unearthed by The New York Times. The saga left Cuomo damaged by a pseudo-association with the unpopular GOP President in overwhelmingly liberal New York City, without a comparable boost among conservatives. And, while Adams eventually dropped out (but not before ripping Cuomo in a bitter, live televised rant outside of Gracie Mansion), Sliwa is adamant he would only leave the race in a body bag. When asked on WABC whether he would consider working for a Cuomo administration, Sliwa asserted he would “rather be tortured and murdered than work for Andrew Cuomo,” comparing the experience to the final scene of Braveheart. Instead of marginalizing Sliwa’s support, the GOP nominee experienced a boost in the polls, as the red beret wearing Republican gleefully cast Cuomo as an avatar of political insiders and the billionaire class. As Governor, Cuomo could ruthlessly bully others, for he had no true peers, only subordinates; but as a retread candidate with no power, he cannot.

With Early Voting beginning tomorrow, the math is not in the former Governor’s favor:

For every one vote Andrew Cuomo gains from the bungalows of Breezy Point, a gated community of conservative Irish civil servants, or the single family homes of Throggs Neck, home to the Puerto Rican and white ethnic homeowner class; he loses two votes to Zohran Mamdani on the Upper West Side, historically-Jewish and steadfastly liberal, or the working-class Caribbean neighborhoods of East Flatbush and Canarsie, among the bluest blocks in the United States. Mamdani is poised to crush Cuomo in white-collar Manhattan and Brooklyn, the most vote-rich and Democrat-leaning boroughs of New York City. A bloodbath, even more pronounced than the Primary, will commence throughout the Commie Corridor. The age splits between Mamdani, 34, and Cuomo, 67, will only widen; with the former annihilating the latter among voters under-45 (close to half of the electorate last November). The alienated and disillusioned working-class masses of the Bronx and Queens have little incentive to turn out for the former Governor, an avatar of the dysfunctional status quo and loathed political establishment. Were the city’s demographics fixed in 2001, Cuomo would be the heavy favorite; in 2025, he has a snowball’s chance in hell.

To pull off an improbable upset, Cuomo, not Mamdani, will need to expand the electorate. However, given Cuomo’s supporters have the lowest enthusiasm (by far) of any major candidate, that will prove extremely difficult.

His solution? Fear.

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Halfway through the debate, Cuomo’s campaign posted — and quickly deleted — an AI-generated ad depicting “criminals for Zohran Mamdani,” where a shoplifting Black man in a keffiyeh, a domestic abuser, a pimp, a drug dealer, and a drunk driver collectively declare their support for Mamdani. The video also portrayed Mamdani eating rice with his hands, a “common practice among South Asians that has been frequently invoked by the right to mock Mr. Mamdani,” according to The New York Times. The final shot was New York City in smoldering ruins, overlaid with an ominous “PAID FOR BY CUOMO NYC” tag. Hours later, another TV ad, from a pro-Cuomo, business-funded super PAC, placed “JIHAD ON NYC” over Mamdani’s face.

As the Internet reacted to the former Governor’s most recent blunder, he sped away to Madison Square Garden, sitting courtside next to incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who quit the race weeks earlier. After calling the former Governor “a snake and a liar,” Adams endorsed Cuomo the following day. If Cuomo fanned the flames of Islamophobia, his newest ally poured gasoline on the fire, telling reporters: “New York can’t be Europe, you see what is playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism. Those Islamic extremisms that are burning churches in Nigeria, that are destroying communities in Germany, that have taken over the logical thinking.”

Yesterday morning, Cuomo, talking to conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg, asked: “God forbid, another 9/11 — can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?”

“He’d be cheering,” Rosenberg responded. Cuomo, who never visited a mosque during his decade-long tenure as Governor, paused and chuckled before saying, “That’s another problem.”

The episode marked the natural conclusion of a monthslong escalation of Cuomo’s rhetoric with respect to Mamdani’s faith, talking points which have since been echoed by JD Vance, Elon Musk, and white nationalists across the country.

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Fifty years ago, New York City’s Italian population routinely faced discrimination. The patrician press, dominated by progressive WASPs, derided the more conservative Italians as uncouth and reactionary. They lacked a foothold in the labor movement: the Police Department and Transit Workers Union were tightly controlled by Irish bosses; while the United Federation of Teachers was overwhelmingly Jewish. The backbone of the lower and middle homeowner class, Italian Americans did not receive the government welfare of the Black and Puerto Rican underclass, nor the media clout of the upper-middle class intelligentsia. While Manhattan was filled with “the beautiful people,” the Outer Boroughs were home to the “stoop sitters.”

During the tumultuous period of the late 60’s and 70’s, two Italian Americans ran for Mayor of New York City: Mario Procaccino and Mario Cuomo.

They could not have been more different.

Procaccino, the son of a shoemaker who infamously coined the term “limousine liberal,” was far more than a candidate of cultural grievance. Stoking the flames of white working-class resentments, Procaccino trafficked in apocalyptic rhetoric with respect to the city’s poorest residents, overwhelmingly people of color, slowly moving beyond redlined ghettos into what were previously solely White neighborhoods. After Black and Puerto Rican students at City College went on a seventeen day strike, Procaccino ran commercials depicting the college in West Harlem burning down from a riot. New York’s elite liberal institutions, newspapers and celebrities, portrayed Procaccino as a caricature of himself for a series of embarrassing gaffes (tinged with anti-Italian prejudice). In defeat, Procaccino claimed the election was stolen.

Cuomo, running for Mayor in 1977, shattered many of these stereotypes, breaking barriers for Italian Americans in New York City. A well-respected lawyer, Cuomo was regarded as a bridge builder, tasked with managing tensions during polarizing housing fights in Forest Hills and Corona, both middle class white neighborhoods. As a Democrat, he won the votes of many who also cast ballots for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, without forsaking his liberal conscience. At great cost to his political ambitions, Cuomo eschewed reactionary rhetoric (his opponent regularly railed against “poverty pimps,” demeaning the welfare system), and famously declined to support the Death Penalty (a key factor cited in his defeat to Ed Koch, who did).

There are many parallels between the Italians of twentieth century New York and the city’s present-day Muslim community. Both established an economic foothold in the small merchant class, which the most fortunate parlayed into homeownership in the outer boroughs. Owing to the more traditional values espoused by their religion, Italians and Muslims, concerned with safety and crime, have been described as “moderate” and “conservative,” both culturally and politically, in a city where liberalism has always reigned. Italians and Muslims watched their festivals and gatherings broken up by the police, only to be told they were not intentionally targeted on the basis of their darker skin. Despite consistently growing, each remained an overlooked piece of the local political tapestry, until one of their own emerged to topple the pre-existing machine. And, when their leading politicians were maligned on account of their faith or cultural orientation, many throughout the Democratic Party establishment, past and present, remained silent. John Lindsay could not pronounce (or deliberately butchered) “PRO-CAC-CINO,” the same way Andrew Cuomo fails to pronounce “M-A-M-D-A-N-I”.

During his opening statement at the debate, Andrew Cuomo promised to “end the hate mongering and division that is tearing this city apart, because that is not who we are as New Yorkers.” Those words were tested yesterday, and Cuomo failed to channel the high-minded and inclusive prose of his father, instead opting for the bigoted and inflammatory rhetoric of Procaccino, lacking an affirmative message of his own. Similar behavior and tactics to those employed by Cuomo and his surrogates over the past 24 hours were once used to disparage and discredit his ancestors.

Our city has always been a home to new immigrants, who have come to the five boroughs in search of opportunity, hoping to be judged by the content of their character, rather than their skin color or religion. Let’s keep it that way.

For the New York City project will endure. Andrew Cuomo’s career will not.

Connect With Me:

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelLangeNYC

Email me at Michael.James.Lange@gmail.com

In 1895, the seafaring residents of City Island — a quiet, Bronx neighborhood adrift Eastchester Bay and the Long Island Sound — were presented with a choice: remain in Westchester County, or join New York City.

With 900 ballots cast, New York City defeated Westchester County by two votes. In exchange, City Island received a bridge to the mainland.

Even one-hundred and thirty years ago, City Island was a swing state.

Hailed as a “working man’s Nantucket” by The New York Times or the “Bronx Hamptons” in the eyes of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, City Island is one of the only neighborhoods in New York City where one can spot Black Lives Matter and Thin Blue Line flags on the same street. Last November, single family detached homes alternated lawn signs in support of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump; with the Democratic nominee ultimately prevailing: 1,138 votes to 990.

While trending left at the national level (Gore, Kerry, Obama, Clinton, and Biden all won), the Island consistently leans right at the local level. In fact, no Democrat candidate for Mayor has won City Island in forty years. Inside an Irish watering hole at the heart of the Island’s “downtown,” two women, both registered Democrats, lament the “crapshoot” of choices on November’s ballot: Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

“I want Michael Bloomberg back,” says one. “I loved Rudy Giuliani, but now he’s a kook,” replies the other. Both loathe Donald Trump, plan to vote for Kristy Marmorato (the area’s Republican Council Member), but are undecided on the Mayoral race: “I’ll know when I walk into the booth,” a familiar sentiment heard across the Island.

And that is exactly why I ventured to this seaside village in the Bronx. In the majority of New York City’s 365 neighborhoods, one candidate (maybe two) will be competitive this November, owed to partisanship and demographics. City Island, with a unique and diverse political culture (home to civil servants, resistance liberals, Archie Bunker boomers, and everything in between), remains the exception: possessing discernible pockets of support for Mamdani, Cuomo, and Sliwa.

Despite this eclectic tapestry, there is little scholarship about City Island, much less its fascinating politics, reducing the Island’s footprint to a handful of articles (primarily real estate focused). Here, I hope to change that.

From an early age, civic engagement is fostered across City Island, bred by the burning desire to “protect” the Island’s fragile character — from crime, summer traffic, environmental catastrophe, or runaway development.

For generations of Islanders, guarding against the latter has been a time-tested tradition, the roots of which can be traced back centuries. Dating back to 1761, City Island has been targeted for development. August Belmont, a political insider who founded the Belmont Stakes, “quietly” tried to buy up the Island’s precious real estate, intrigued by the possibility of developing a horse racing center. When the Islanders became privy to Belmont’s intentions, they came together to keep prices out of the financier’s vast reach, ultimately thwarting his effort. Nor would it be the last time Islanders organized to preserve their nautical colony, as the preceding centuries saw “exclusive resorts, enclaves for wealthy yachtsmen, and an amusement park” attempt to establish a foothold on the Island, only to suffer similar fates. City Island’s first apartment complex, the rent-controlled Pickwick Terrace, was built in 1964, totalling all of seven stories. A decade later, height restrictions were imposed capping future development at three stories. Low density is prized, and rezonings are unwelcome.

A coastal community, to say the least, climate resilience and conservation are far from theoretical to Islanders. Runoff from the Hutchinson River has polluted the surrounding channels, threatening the long-term health of those who grew up swimming in said waterways. Memories of Hurricane Sandy endure, while an ominous billboard looms — depicting waves crashing onto City Island in the year 2050, foreshadowing the next generation of flooding — at the heart of the main thoroughfare. Several organizations, including City Island Rising and the Oyster Project, have spawned to protect this precarious ecosystem.

This creates an interesting bi-partisan dynamic, where the Island’s political left, right, and center are relatively united against development (historically conservative), but also care about climate resilience (traditionally liberal). John Doyle, an outspoken Democratic District Leader, attributed these non-partisan attitudes, in an era defined by polarization, to the Island’s community-oriented ethos: “It doesn’t matter if you’re a D or R, when the floods come we’re all F’d.” However, the past decade has surfaced underlying tensions among this close-knit neighborhood. At the Irish pub, the liberal Democrats (bespectacled women) gravitated to one side, while the MAGA-aligned Republicans (gruff older men) drifted to the other. When Republican politicians visit the Island, they often frequent City Island Diner; whereas Democratic candidates opt for Clipper Coffee. “When I was growing up,” a Catholic Democrat and thirty year resident told me, “no one would even ask you who you voted for, it just was not polite.”

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During the twentieth century, what was once a blue-collar fishing village, where residents lived and worked on the Island, gradually became a residential community with “far more people in professional and managerial jobs than in craft and repair operations.” City Islanders have always rejoiced in their relative anonymity, which had helped keep their precious sanctuary affordable. The slow erosion of the local maritime economy, coupled with the steady outmigration of Italians, Irish, and Germans from other Bronx neighborhoods (fueled by white flight in the 60s and the fiscal crisis in the 70s), lifted the veil of secrecy that once shielded City Island from the speculative outside world. Today, less than ten-percent of residents work on the Island, almost exclusively in the small businesses that line City Island Avenue.

This arc mirrors a political transition. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried for a fourth term versus New York Governor Thomas Dewey, the architect of the New Deal won 61% in New York City; but amongst the white working-class shipbuilders of City Island, his Republican opponent took more than two-thirds of the vote (some Italians resented FDR for going to war with fascist Italy). Patriotism and patriarchy are integral to the identity of the Island’s white ethnic families. The American flag is omnipresent on City Island: a staple of every front yard, an homage to achieving the middle-class dream of homeownership, and a reminder of the generations of Islanders who were raised in the shadow of the second World War.

After World War II, City Island remained a GOP stronghold for decades, delivering majorities to Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush. The wartime economy of ship building steadily declined; when the final boatyard closed in 1982, gated condominiums, fittingly named The Boatyard, were swiftly built atop the remnants, embodying the Island’s economic transition. On the municipal level, the Republican Party prevailed as well. Sixty years ago, liberal Republican John Lindsay narrowly won City Island, while William F. Buckley, the architect of modern conservatism, finished a close second. Four years later, after Lindsay’s liberalism was rejected by the GOP faithful, much of the blue collar Bronx, in closer proximity to racial encroachment, backed conservative Democrat Mario Procaccino, the candidate whose rhetoric, inflammatory and apocalyptic, matched their own emotion. City Islanders, sequestered from the anxiety of the mainland, delivered a plurality of their votes to the patrician John Marchi, the soft spoken Republican nominee from Staten Island. These party trend lines held through the late 80s, with notable and instructive exceptions for Italian-American Democrats, such as Mario Biaggi and Mario Cuomo. “I loved Mario Cuomo and wanted him on the Supreme Court,” said a late Gen-X Democrat and Muscle Sucker (the colloquial name given to those who move to City Island; Clam Diggers are born on the Island).

“I wish his son was more like him. Mario was a very compassionate human being.”

As City Island became more of a “bedroom community” and the Democratic Party embraced neoliberalism, the national trends shifted. Since 1992, every Democratic candidate for President has won City Island, a remarkable reversal after generations of consistent Republican support dating back to the Great Depression. Over the last decade, as the Hispanic and Asian working-class of the five boroughs have shifted dramatically to the right, City Island remained one of a handful of neighborhoods to move to the left, mirroring upper middle-class and suburban shifts across the country.

Nonetheless, City Island maintained its red hue on the municipal level, delivering substantial mandates to Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg in six consecutive elections. Even when Bill de Blasio consecutively won 73% and 66% of the citywide vote, the Park Slope Democrat failed to win a plurality on City Island. No Democratic candidate for Mayor has won City Island since Ed Koch in 1985. To this day, when politics is mentioned, many yearn for Giuliani and Bloomberg. Even as the national environment has become more polarized, City Islanders have continued to split their tickets in local, state, and federal elections; when Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by fifteen percent, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost to Island-native John Cummings down the ballot. In this seaside village of no more than forty-five hundred residents, the quality and longevity of one’s relationships can transcend political ideology.

“City Island is the New Hampshire of the Bronx,” Doyle tells me, “people here like to get a feel for the candidates.” Four years ago, several mayoral candidates visited City Island, including second-place finisher Kathryn Garcia, who ultimately won seventy-five percent of the Island’s voters (the technocratic Garcia is closer to the Island’s ideological median than anyone in the current field). Those closely involved in City Island politics, both Democrat and Republican, cannot recall an instance when Andrew Cuomo has ever visited their nautical colony. In fact, the only major candidate for mayor to visit City Island this cycle has been Zohran Mamdani.

In March, Mamdani cut one of his signature videos, visiting a handful of small businesses: Clipper’s Coffee, Cinema on the Sound, and Dan’s Parents House (a phenomenal toy store). “That was the most views on social media we have ever received,” the owner of both the coffee shop and cinema where Mamdani appeared, told me. The cinema, in particular, (one of only three in the Bronx) received an uptick in business following Mamdani’s video, which received more than half-a-million views. Mamdani was unknown when he first made landfall on City Island, but his video quickly made the rounds to residents. In June’s Democratic Primary, the well-known Cuomo barely edged Mamdani — 52% to 48% — across the Island.

“I liked his answer in the debate, when they asked each candidate where they would visit as mayor,” a Millennial Democrat told me, “and he said ‘I’m going to stay in New York City.’” The man continued, “It was refreshing to hear that. Our City Council Member just came back from a trip to Israel. She represents Throggs Neck, Country Club and Pelham Bay — why is she visiting Israel?”

In many respects, Mamdani represents a new era of City Island politics, brewing since Donald Trump was first elected. Unlike other “swing state” neighborhoods in New York City, the Democratic electorate on City Island is relatively liberal, a consequence of generation. The inflection point came in 2018, when progressive Alessandra Biaggi challenged State Senate incumbent Jeff Klein, who brokered a controversial power sharing agreement with Republicans in the state legislature. Local Democrats, rallied by the neighborhood’s Indivisible chapter, put off by Klein’s ties to the GOP, and catalyzed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory months earlier, helped deliver City Island to the progressive insurgent by a two-to-one margin. Many of the older Italian voters, erstwhile loyal to Klein, their ethnic brethren, had left the Democratic Party.

Alessandra’s grandfather, Mario Biaggi, was beloved on City Island during his two decades in Congress. A decorated former police officer who was shot eleven times in the line of duty, the tough-talking Mario was a fixture of the East Bronx, running on the Democrat, Republican, and Conservative Party ballot lines. “A law-and-order conservative who supported labor, Israel and laws to crack down on drugs, lift local businesses, and help families and the elderly,” Biaggi embodied the spirit of his Italian and Irish working-class constituents. When forced to resign from the House of Representatives following multiple felony convictions for corruption, Biaggi remained on the ballot in both the Primary and General Election. Declining to campaign altogether, the disgraced Biaggi was handily defeated. However, the ex-cop still won City Island, in both the Primary and the General Election, whose loyal residents still held a four-hundred person rally for the scandal-scarred icon on the eve of the vote.

If Mario understood the zeitgeist of City Island’s old guard, law-and-order conservatives relentlessly focused on local concerns; Alessandra embodied the next generation, unabashedly liberal in an era shaped by national politics.

City Island remains rich in union density — nurses, carpenters, teachers — traditional hallmarks of the Democratic electorate, the vast majority of whose leadership has endorsed Mamdani. On the big development question of the day, whether or not to add a NYC Ferry stop to the Island, Mamdani is supportive, as is much of the local business community and the younger, white-collar professionals who work in Manhattan. Once greater than 95% white, the City Island of today is more racially diverse than ever. While Italian delicatessens and Irish pubs can still be found, one will not have to venture far to find a landmark of Bronx life, the Puerto Rican flag. Latinos — once relegated to visiting the Island during crowded weekends or working the handful of restaurant, landscaping, or boatyard jobs available year-round — now account for one-quarter of City Island’s population, whose votes Mamdani won by double-digits in the Primary. Pride flags are commonplace in small businesses and front yards. There is even a quasi-hipster coffee shop and a yoga studio. The shared values of Islanders — inherent skepticism of real estate development (and those who take their campaign contributions), firsthand concern with respect to climate change, and embrace of public education (PS 175 is one of the best rated K-8 schools in the Bronx) — align with key issues championed by progressives like Mamdani.

Nonetheless, the tide has not turned definitively in Mamdani’s favor. Familiar skepticism (“how will he pay for that?”) is common among older Democrats (“he’s making promises he can’t keep”), while Republicans shudder, afraid the property taxes on their semi-detached homes will be increased (“he wants to raise taxes only in white neighborhoods”). City Island is home to a small but engaged Jewish population, many of whom worship at Temple Beth El (one of the only Bronx synagogues outside of Riverdale). According to Ryan Grim’s reporting in The Squad, after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voted against funding the Iron Dome, “rabbis from City Island who were typically progressive and on her side were sending out mass emails warning that her vote would put people’s lives at risk. She had even been banned from attending High Holidays in her district.” Years later, as tensions with respect to Israel and Palestine have risen precipitously, one can assume the folks who organized against Ocasio-Cortez did not vote for the anti-zionist Mamdani in June. Nor have Mamdani’s past statements in favor of “defunding” the police helped in a community home to hundreds of retired police officers. As Mamdani-mania grips the nation, many City Islanders, highly informed and politically savvy, still don’t know what to make of the man who has captured America’s attention. “He seems sincere,” one woman, 64, tells me, gesturing towards a television broadcast of News 12 The Bronx, showing Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul speaking at a press conference. “You never know whether what they’re saying about him is just fear mongering,” she admits. But, in the quest to win the hearts and minds of City Islanders, Zohran Mamdani’s stiffest competition may not come from fellow Democrat (turned Independent) Andrew Cuomo, but Republican Curtis Sliwa.

In the eyes of the GOP faithful, Sliwa has been a staple of the East Bronx, the borough’s only Republican outpost, for years. Before the infamous “Hochulmander” map was overturned by the courts, he weighed a move to the Bronx to run for Congress. Four years ago, Sliwa won 50% of the City Island vote as the Republican nominee, finishing five points ahead of Eric Adams, albeit in a very low turnout General Election. And, despite Republicans only accounting for 24% of the Island’s registered voters, Donald Trump’s consistent 45%+ performance on City Island indicates that Curtis Sliwa has the highest floor of any candidate. Andrew Cuomo has attempted to court Republican voters, casting Sliwa as a hopeless spoiler, in the hope of coalescing the anti-Mamdani electorate; according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, Cuomo is winning 37% of Republicans, compared to Sliwa’s 54%. If City Island is any bellwether, that plan remains flawed, if not doomed entirely. For among City Island’s Republicans, appetite for Cuomo is scant. “He’s not a predator, but he’s a sleezeball” grumbled one Italian Boomer, a GOP loyalist. Another spent months in a nursing home during the pandemic, and swore off Cuomo then and there. Frank Ramftl, the Republican District Leader, told me he is sticking by Sliwa, and his Republican neighbors are doing the same: “Cuomo got us into this mess, he signed the bail reform laws.” His Democratic counterpart, Doyle told me, “40% of City Island is MAGA; unless there is a personal appeal from Trump on Cuomo’s behalf, those folks will vote for Sliwa.” Sliwa has raised more money, from more donors, on City Island than both Mamdani and Cuomo combined. Even among Trump-hating Democrats, opinions of Sliwa were mixed. “He cleaned up the subway,” one woman told me, referencing his founding of the Guardian Angels, while another dismissed the political gadfly and his signature red-beret: “Sliwa is not a governing person.”

Herein reveals Andrew Cuomo’s best chance. Many Democrats — liberals, moderates, conservatives — tell me they “liked Cuomo as Governor,” fondly remember his daily briefings during the pandemic, and voted for him in the Primary. Indeed, when voters are asked who has the “right kind of experience to be mayor,” Cuomo enjoys a wide lead over Mamdani: 72% to 39%. Homeowners, two-thirds of City Island’s electorate, are a constituency theoretically ripe for Mario’s son. Cuomo’s problem, as it has been the entire campaign, is generation. City Island is older than New York City as a whole (over 70% of the Democratic electorate is over-50), yet Cuomo barely beat Mamdani in the Primary; before a tidal wave of press coverage increased the Democratic nominee’s name recognition. If Andrew Cuomo falls short on November 4th, as polling suggests, it will be because the former Governor, running without a Party, found himself boxed out for votes — by the Democratic Mamdani and Republican Sliwa — in neighborhoods like City Island.

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For several decades, every warm weekend has been met with hundreds of Bronxites toiling across the borough to experience, albeit for a fleeting afternoon, the spoils of City Island: a taste of fried seafood at Sammy’s Fish Box, the summer breeze off the Long Island Sound, capped off by a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline beyond the Throgs Neck Bridge. Making their pilgrimage from Morrisania, University Heights, Parkchester, or Soundview, these visitors – largely the borough’s Black, Puerto Rican, and Dominican urban dwellers — see the Island as a nautical reprieve of blue and green within reach of working-class families used to a life of asphalt and concrete. This “patchwork of race and class” is where City Island “begins to look more like New York than anything resembling Martha’s Vineyard.” While the weekend influx elicits predictable complaints from locals about traffic and noise – such grievances are limited to just that. Indeed, countless small businesses on City Island, the few remaining on a commercial strip still recovering from the economic crash of 2008, are sustained by Black and Hispanic patrons. Spending their teenage summers in restaurant work at Johnny’s Reef or Seafood City, generations of Islanders are acquainted with their fellow Bronxites on the warm Saturday afternoons of Spring and Summer. This acquaintance — between those intimately aware of the precarity pulsing through the concrete jungle, and those whose understanding is confined to the secondhand — however fleeting, nonetheless fosters a degree of respect and acceptance often denied in more segregated enclaves.

This ethos sets City Island apart from other neighborhoods in the East Bronx. Infamously, many of the communities across the bay — Country Club, Edgewater Park, and Silver Beach — which share a racial, class, and ethnic profile similar to City Island, have conspired to keep people of color from buying homes in their sequestered enclaves.

Whereas the key to City Island’s culture is rooted in proximity to people different from oneself. For when I strolled through the streets of this authentic coastal hamlet, there were fewer political lawn signs than I observed one year ago. What I did see was friends and family who knew one another on a first name basis, almost every house eagerly preparing for Halloween, and small acts of mutual respect between neighbors.

Because after November 4th, City Island, split between Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa, will continue to co-exist — as it always has.

Perhaps the rest of us could learn something.

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Email me at Michael.James.Lange@gmail.com

New York City is headed in the wrong direction.

A reform candidate emerges, untethered to the city’s political machines, in the mold of Fiorello La Guardia. Handsome and dynamic, he excites tens of thousands of volunteers and is aided by a left-leaning third party. Raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, his ethnic background and upper class upbringing are considered liabilities by the political class. On the campaign trail, he is accused of sympathizing with “communists.” Young voters, disillusioned by war abroad, flock to the polls. Trailing until the final days, the candidate consistently walks the streets of working-class neighborhoods, shaking hands of passersby. In victory, the press credits a relentless work ethic and appetite for new blood: “He is fresh while everyone else is tired.”

At a moment of vacuum in his Party, the progressive Mayor-elect is hailed as a national model; an avatar for what is possible.

I’m not talking about Zohran Mamdani. I’m talking about John Lindsay.

Sixty years ago, the latter entered City Hall with momentum, but lacked a wide mandate for his agenda. Young, ambitious, college-educated bureaucrats — motivated by his message of reform — flocked to his administration, but struggled relating to union leaders and power brokers, still a staple of the city’s political tapestry. As middle-class families fled the outer boroughs in droves, New York City’s tax base thinned precipitously, forcing the mayor to borrow against the city’s assets, foreshadowing the fiscal crisis of the 1970s. In the pursuit of noble reforms, like adding civilian members to the city’s police reform board, increasing community control over public schools, or building scatter-site housing in middle-class neighborhoods, the progressive mayor faced intense backlash from the white working-class.

In 1965, the Lindsay coalition — the business elite, affluent Manhattan Republicans, lower-middle-class Catholic homeowners, liberal Manhattan reformers, middle-class Jews, and a small but significant number of Blacks and Puerto Ricans — resembled the northeastern liberal wing of the Republican Party. However, the late sixties, a period of unprecedented racial and cultural strife in American history, dramatically realigned the Democratic and Republican parties (to an extent still felt today), with John V. Lindsay and New York City at the epicenter.

Once hailed as a future Presidential candidate, in the mold of New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Lindsay saw the Republican Party embrace the more conservative Richard Nixon, whose “Southern Strategy” proved as popular among the white-working class of the urban North as it did in suburban Dixie. Running for re-election in 1969, Lindsay lost the Republican nomination to John Marchi, an unknown and uninspiring state legislator from Staten Island; a triumph not rooted in oratory skill or campaign prowess, but solely because Marchi was the non-Lindsay candidate. A similar wave of backlash swept the Democratic Primary, as Comptroller Mario Procaccino, a conservative Italian from the East Bronx, felled both the Democratic establishment, lined up behind former three-term mayor Robert F. Wagner, and the Party’s liberal institutions, who supported Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo.

Indeed, liberalism was in retreat.

Rejected by the Republicans and divorced from the Democrats, Lindsay ran for re-election with the support of the Liberal Party; a symbolic last stand for progressivism in New York City.

“The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class,” detailed by Pete Hamill, embodied the campaign of Mario Procaccino, derided by the cosmopolitan class as the “frenetic voice of a reactionary Democratic bloc” (Hamill’s essay became a favorite of President Richard Nixon). Undoubtedly, the liberal mayor lacked an understanding of the outer borough worldview. Were crime to spike and quality of life to deteriorate, across neighborhoods on the precipice of the ever-expanding “ghetto,” the sequestered elite of Manhattan (Lindsay’s social circle) would remain insulated behind their doormen; whereas their white ethnic counterparts, the small homeowner class, would not. However, there was a darker side to Procaccino’s appeal, one rooted in racial backlash that went far beyond cultural grievance (Procaccino coining the term “Limousine Liberal”). Lindsay, whose record on Civil Rights was excellent, was sensitive to the plight of poor Black and Puerto Ricans, the city’s most marginalized residents, condemned to a life of poverty and welfare with little hope of escape.

To the “White Lower Middle Class” and the “Middle Americans” at the heart of Mario Procaccino’s coalition, John Lindsay only cared about them.

Procaccino, a proficient retail-campaigner who resonated with blue-collar whites, spoke the language of the alienated and powerless middle-class; Lindsay, tall and handsome, enjoyed almost uniform support from elite institutions: editorial boards, unions, celebrities. Those institutions, trusted and respected, portrayed Procaccino as a caricature of himself (tinged with anti-Italian prejudice) — not that he made it particularly difficult. The Bronx Democrat remarked that his running mate, Francis X. Smith, “grows on you like cancer.” Repeatedly embellishing his resume, Procaccino claimed he was the President of Verrazano College (it did not exist). Contrasted to Lindsay by the media at every turn, an insecurity swiftly consumed Procaccino, to the point where he carried around a copy of his law school transcript to show reporters. Addressing a Black audience, Procaccino’s plea – “my heart is as Black as yours‘’ — encapsulated his ignorance. Golda Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel, attended a twelve-hundred person event hosted by the mayor on the eve of the General Election, signaling to attuned Jewish voters that “the Israeli best interest was to keep Lindsay.” Procaccino did not receive a single newspaper endorsement (The New York Times not only endorsed Lindsay once, but twice), while the unions lined up behind the mayor who negotiated their contracts. All the “beautiful people” voted for John Lindsay; only the “stoop sitters” voted for Mario Procaccino.

In defeat, Procaccino claimed the election was stolen. Lindsay, who earned only a plurality of the vote, called his triumph, “a commitment by the City as a whole to progressive government.”

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If a picture is worth one-thousand words, then the map of New York City in 1969 tells a story of five boroughs amidst profound demographic and cultural upheaval. From a distance, one can glean the “beautiful people” of Manhattan, who bequeathed near unanimous support to one of their own, John Lindsay; the ancestral Republican outposts of Maspeth and Breezy Point, Bay Ridge and Staten Island, whose votes were delivered to John Marchi; and the sea of outer borough blue, a tide of white ethnic reaction and law-and-order rhetoric on behalf of Mario Procaccino. The migration of Black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers can be seen, block-by-block, in the pro-Lindsay precincts of Central Brooklyn and the South Bronx. The handful of remaining Italians, many of whom supported socialists Vito Marcantonio (and Fiorello La Guardia) in their respective campaigns three decades prior, can be seen as lonely islands of Procaccino holdouts in an ocean of Lindsay support across Harlem.

In Manhattan, John Lindsay took over two-thirds of the vote, finishing with 85% of the Black vote, 65% of the Puerto Rican vote, and 45% of the Jewish vote. Young voters, from students to reform-minded professionals, increasingly left-leaning and catalyzed by the Vietnam War, spearheaded Lindsay’s volunteer operation — becoming a formidable voting bloc in their own right. The unsophisticated Procaccino campaign, little more than a “one note denunciation of crime,” ran-up-the-score with New York City’s “Middle Americans,” but was crushed by liberal institutions and the Black and Hispanic working-poor. Marchi, running a distant third, split the anti-Lindsay coalition, allowing the incumbent to win with only forty-one percent of the vote.

John Lindsay’s arc foreshadowed the Party realignment half-a-century later; with his 1969 coalition — Blacks, cosmopolitans, the college-educated, Hispanics, and ideologically motivated youths — serving as a precursor to the modern Democratic Party. In creating a new, multi-racial coalition of the top and the bottom, Lindsay had lost the middle-class. In the late sixties, as progressives were wiped out of elected office across the country, Lindsay’s survival was notable, but it also represented the high watermark of his second term. As Richard Nixon shifted the Republican Party to the right, the left-liberal mayor registered as a Democrat, his cultural and social liberalism reviled by the emerging Republican base.

The coalitional differences between Procaccino and Marchi, both Italian, are instructional as well. Marchi, the patrician northern Italian (the vast majority of New York’s Italians trace their roots to Southern Italy), drew on a more well-heeled, suburban base of sequestered conservatives. “Many Italians thought Marchi (pronounced: Markey) was Irish, not Italian… In some ways, Marchi was as foreign to most ethnic New Yorkers as Lindsay,“ wrote Vincent Cannato in The Ungovernable City. Whereas Procaccino’s voters, more blue-collar and in closer proximity to racial encroachment, backed the candidate whose rhetoric, inflammatory and apocalyptic, matched their own emotion. The precincts in the heavily Italian enclave of Belmont, well-depicted in A Bronx Tale, gave Procaccino almost 80% of the vote, their last line of defense as the blight of the South Bronx inched northward. In Canarsie, a middle-class Brooklyn neighborhood surrounded by water on three sides, strong support for Procaccino (and lack thereof for Lindsay) informed the thesis of Jonathan Reider’s sociological book, The Italians and Jews Against Liberalism. For many of the white families who could not flee the city, a fortress mentality kicked in, their neighborhood under siege from “limousine liberalism,” forced busing, and cultural change.

From his office on Avenue Z in Southern Brooklyn, Fred Trump tapped into this zeitgeist. In 1969, Trump was in the process of handing off the family real estate business to his eldest son, Donald. Fred’s staunch backing of the outer borough Democratic machines (which all stuck by the party nominee), is small evidence of a Trump–Procaccino connection; but the symmetry is far more subtle. Not long after the election, the federal government charged the Trump Management Corporation with discriminating against African Americans seeking apartments in the thirty-nine buildings the firm operated. If the son craved the acceptance of the “beautiful people,” and wanted, desperately, to become one of them; the father, who lived in Jamaica Estates and worked in Sheepshead Bay, not only built housing for the “stoop sitting voters,” but shared their worldview. When the former ran for President in 2016, he faced silk-stocking opponents (John Kasich) reminiscent of Lindsay and those whose lack of charisma (Ted Cruz) was matched only by Marchi. Returning home to New York, Fred’s son swept the modern-day Procaccinos, blasting apart his Republican rivals in Broad Channel, Tottenville, and Brighton Beach. After watching New York City’s “Middle Americans” forsake liberalism decades ago, Trump nationalized Procaccino’s backlash campaign perfectly, shattering the so-called blue wall in the white-working class Upper Midwest on his way to the White House.

When Donald Trump told four non-white congresswomen (Ayanna Presley, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib) to “go back to where you come from,” many were aghast; but the President was channeling his outer borough upbringing.

You could hear the echoes of Mario Procaccino.

John Lindsay acts as both a cautionary and inspirational tale for Zohran Mamdani on the nuances and limitations of coalition building atop the nation’s largest city.

Sixty years later, we have a very different New York City. The white ethnic homeowner class, save for pockets of sequestered waterfront enclaves, have since absconded from the five boroughs. The richest and poorest Democrats voted for Andrew Cuomo, while the new working and middle-classes — renter-majority, youthful, college-educated, ethnically and racial diverse — formed the bedrock of Mamdani’s movement, the “Coalition of the In-Between.” New York’s civic and cultural institutions (newspapers, unions, machines) ensured John Lindsay won re-election; sixty years later, they lined up to stop Zohran Mamdani, and failed miserably.

For John Lindsay, supported by the wealthiest and lowest income New Yorkers, the working and middle-classes remained not only an Achilles Heel, but a foreign constituency. The journalist Jimmy Breslin, who frequently praised the progressive mayor, nonetheless questioned whether Lindsay was too tall to be Mayor: “Take Lindsay off the front pages and put him on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Put him there with the schools closed and the garbage not picked up and the robberies and assaults way up… Do this, and you do not have a towering figure anymore. You have a bony Protestant from Yale and Wall Street whose height makes him a conspicuous target for the stumpy little people who yell up at him.”

Despite sharing Lindsay’s upbringing on the West Side, Mamdani did not cut his teeth in the “Silk Stocking” neighborhoods of Manhattan, but across the outer boroughs: canvassing in Glen Oaks, managing campaigns in Bay Ridge, before being elected to the State Assembly in Astoria. After a flurry of suicides in the Sikh community, Mamdani went on a fifteen day hunger strike alongside Taxi drivers to win debt forgiveness for their medallions. His mayoral campaign, from inception, was focused on bringing new voters into the political process: rent stabilized tenants, Muslims, and South Asians. While Lindsay was comfortable walking the firebombed streets of the South Bronx or the slums of Brownsville, the liberal mayor struggled to grasp the outer borough mind, or relate to the worldview of Woodhaven Boulevard, New Utrecht Avenue, or Pelham Parkway. Mamdani, aided by the changing racial complexion of New York City, has built goodwill across these communities; whose class character (and underlying values) have nonetheless remained constant.

In recent days, Andrew Cuomo has resorted to calling the Democratic nominee “shorter Bill de Blasio,” a Trump-esque dig at the six foot Mamdani. However, what the marginally taller Cuomo (ironically) fails to comprehend, is that his own “height” remains the reason why the former Governor is hopelessly behind in the polls, one month away from the end of his career. After years of looking down on others, or not seeing them at all, Cuomo grew too old, too tired, and too out-of-touch.

Too tall to be mayor, indeed.

Lindsay never won a majority of the vote in either of his campaigns, underscoring the deep and bitter divides of the era. This November, Mamdani, versus two well-funded and well-known opponents, has the opportunity to do just that: a clear statement of the democratic socialist’s appeal that manifests in even greater political capital.

Once Lindsay was victorious, much of the neighborhood-level organizing, so tantamount to his campaign’s success, ceased — not to be resumed until his re-election several years later. Mamdani, who was endorsed by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, is closely allied with a multiple mass-member organization — NYC-DSA, the Working Families Party, DRUM Beats — capable of leading an “outside” organizing arm throughout his term. Such a movement, rooted in electoral politics, gives Mamdani soft power that Lindsay sorely lacked, particularly in Albany; the liberal mayor was routinely steamrolled by Robert Moses (immortalized in Robert Caro’s The Power Broker) and infamously ceded city control of the Metropolitan Transit Authority to the Governor.

Nonetheless, during a period of fervent polarization, Lindsay held the social fabric of the city together. After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lindsay walked the streets of Harlem, and New York City avoided the rioting that befell Los Angeles, Detroit, and Newark. On the defining issues of the time, Lindsay remained a staunch critic of the Vietnam War and made Civil Rights a cornerstone of his administration; Mamdani, who has vowed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has helped shift the Democratic Party zeitgeist with respect to the War in Gaza. Through these principled stances, Lindsay maintained his core coalition of younger voters and liberal Jews, similar to that of Mamdani. Most importantly, Lindsay methodically built up his support in the city’s Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, despite the Democratic machine’s institutional advantages. When Lindsay ran for re-election, he prevailed because of overwhelming support from African Americans and Puerto Ricans, the lowest-income New Yorkers. Mamdani, now the Democratic nominee, has the opportunity to do the same in the coming months and years, given people of color are most harmed by the cost-of-living crisis.

However, when his second term concluded, Lindsay was forced into political retirement. Abe Beame, the pride of the Democratic machine whom Lindsay defeated in 1965, succeeded him as New York City fell into fiscal catastrophe. One of Lindsay’s most vocal critics, Ed Koch, went on to serve three terms as Mayor, remaking the five boroughs in his image. Lindsay, who shepherded New York City through one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S. history, watched his political opponents diminish his legacy, reducing the former mayor to “an exile in his own city.” To his enduring credit, Lindsay gave visibility to the plight of the most marginalized New Yorkers at a time when they lacked political or institutional power. An enthusiastic forty-percent of New Yorkers had supported Lindsay twice, but under the stress of the era, the liberal mayor failed to win over those in the middle: the city’s working people.

The backlash to Zohran Mamdani, already bubbling, is far more astroturfed, concentrated in C-suites and editorial boardrooms; whereas John Lindsay enjoyed almost universal support from elites, he failed to win over a majority of the city to his vision of progressive governance. The Mamdani coalition, rooted in the middle-class, centered on affordability, represents a path forward for the Democratic Party, which has consistently hemorrhaged support from the modern-day “stoop sitters” in service of placating “the beautiful people.” For Mamdani to build on Lindsay’s legacy, he does not need comparable support from oligarchs, but the latter’s resonance and goodwill among the Black and Hispanic working class, on the front lines of our political realignment, and most importantly, the costs of living crisis in the five boroughs.

To transform New York City (and the American left), Zohran Mamdani will not only have to build this new majority, but work tirelessly to maintain it.

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Email me at Michael.James.Lange@gmail.com

On Sunday afternoon, Mayor Eric Adams announced he would not seek re-election.

Almost one year to the day from his indictment, Adams — New York City’s second Black mayor — chose to end his campaign rather than face the will of the voters, who would have assuredly levied a historic rejection for an incumbent. After eschewing the Democratic Primary following an (alleged) quid pro quo with the Trump administration (so the aforementioned charges would not be prosecuted), Adams received what seemed to be a lifeline when Zohran Mamdani trounced Andrew Cuomo in June. However, Adams, underwater with all demographic groups and political parties, failed to mount a credible Independent bid, mortally wounded by the clouds of corruption and a widely-reported kinship with the Republican President. Announcing his departure from the race, Adams blamed everyone — his “dishonest” opponents, the “unfair” media, even the campaign finance board (who denied the incumbent matching funds) — for his shortcomings, rather than himself. No accountability, only accusations: the perfect encapsulation of his one (and only) term. For years, there were a plethora of warning signs with respect to Adams’ ethics, yet those red flags did not stop the Democratic establishment from not only rallying behind Adams, but praising him as a national model for the Party (that he would later reject). When Adams ran for mayor, he did so as a tough talker from the outer boroughs who made liberals squeamish, the resounding first choice of blue-collar New York. However, the crises of his mayoralty not only re-oriented the city’s politics around his enemies, leading to the ascendance of Zohran Mamdani, but damaged his allies in the Black political establishment, perhaps irrevocably. As I wrote in The Metropolitan Review, Adams’ victory was the last gasp of old New York’s political power — labor unions, political machines, the financial elite — although few recognized it at the time. Now, the self-proclaimed “Biden of Brooklyn,” who frequently compared himself to the honest and gentle David Dinkins, will be relegated to the dustbin of history alongside Jimmy Walker, the infamous nightlife mayor, and William O’Dwyer, an ex-cop who could never abandon his unscrupulous past. Eric Adams embodies the worst of both.

The incumbent mayor, whose name will nonetheless remain on the ballot, was polling between six and twelve percent prior to dropping out — leaving relatively little support to shift to other candidates. Andrew Cuomo, also running as an Independent, is the de-facto beneficiary of Adams’ departure, inheriting more than half of his supporters according to recent polling: an amalgamation of older Black voters, moderate Democrats, Orthodox Jews, and white ethnic Republicans. Without Adams, another favorite of the billionaire class, the deck is cleared for the coffers of Cuomo-aligned Super PACs, thus far barren, to be filled with tens of millions of dollars in a last ditch effort to stop the democratic socialist Mamdani, thus far on pace to coast to victory. In September polls (CBS News, Marist, Quinnipiac) which modeled a three-way race, a consistent hierarchy emerged: Zohran Mamdani (46-47%), Andrew Cuomo (30%), and Curtis Sliwa (16-17%). Quickly, one can discern that Adams’ withdrawal alone is not enough to propel Cuomo to within striking distance of the Democratic nominee.

Hence, Cuomo’s masterplan — a plot stretching all the way to the President — is contingent upon sidelining the Republican nominee, on course to “waste” hundreds of thousands of theoretically anti-Mamdani votes.

However, while Donald Trump has run roughshod over Congress, the courts, universities, and law enforcement — he has never coerced Curtis Sliwa.

Sliwa, a red beret-wearing ex-vigilante, is a fascinating character — to say the least. The founder of the Guardian Angels and staple of local talk radio for decades, Sliwa’s exploits include fostering six cats (formerly seventeen) and surviving an assassination attempt linked to the Gambino crime family. Four years ago, he received twenty-eight percent of the vote as the Republican nominee during one of the least contested General Elections in recent memory. However, Sliwa is far from a dyed-in-the-wool MAGA loyalist; six years ago, he called the President a “screwball and a crackpot,” and only registered to vote as a Republican after Trump left office. A longstanding supporter of gay marriage, who (in his telling) has refused several million dollar bribes from oligarchs to leave the race, Sliwa’s colorful nature (“slapping fannies and killing grannies”) has turned him into somewhat of a cult hero. Thus far, Sliwa has run a credible campaign, opening offices in every borough, boasting more endorsements than Cuomo, while maintaining a busy schedule of events. Given Sliwa has (literally) fought off killer mob bosses, the conventional wisdom is that the Republican nominee will remain in the race — Trump, Cuomo, and the billionaire class be damned.

Eric Adams, losing leverage by the day, can be bought off for the right price; Curtis Sliwa, a political gadfly who enjoys running for Mayor, lacks the same incentive.

In the coming weeks, there will be a coordinated push to cast the Sliwa as a hopeless spoiler, an effort designed to push Republicans and moderate Independents into a shotgun-marriage with Andrew Cuomo. Donald Trump, in an appearance on Fox and Friends, has already previewed the manner in which Sliwa will be dismissed by the anti-Mamdani political class: “I’m a Republican, but Curtis is not exactly prime time… he wants cats to be in Gracie Mansion, we don’t need thousands of cats.” Members of Sliwa’s own party are already using his lack of viability to peel away voters to Cuomo, a moderate backed by the business elite; in New York City, Democrats outnumber Republicans 8-to-1. Cuomo, whose Polymarket odds are fifteen percent, is relying on Sliwa’s support gradually atrophying, aided by the media framing the contest as a one-versus-one. Theoretically, were Sliwa’s vote share to steadily decrease (to approximately ten-percent), while the polarizing Mamdani (bruised by an avalanche of negative advertisements) stalls out at his forty-five percent polling average, Cuomo, against all odds, would have a chance. Fortunately, we do not deal in hypotheticals.

Despite receiving a lifeline yesterday, Andrew Cuomo remains in a very difficult position. Donald Trump’s fingerprints are all over the Mayoral race, with the President from Jamaica Estates making it known that his fellow Queens-native, Cuomo, would be his preferred choice to lead the five boroughs. Given that Trump’s intervention is so blatant, top Democrats, such as Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, may not have a choice to support Zohran Mamdani. And, while Cuomo can count on the support of many moderates and centrists, avowedly zionist Jews, the ultra-wealthy, Italian and Greek ancestral Democrats, coupled with various Hasidim and Orthodox sects — the former Governor’s viability is yoked to his consistently solid support among older Black and Hispanic Democrats; constituencies with whom Mamdani has steadily made progress, and where the specter of the unpopular President threatens to erode Cuomo’s decades of goodwill. Indeed, the hint of a deal with Donald Trump will end the career of any Democrat in New York City — just ask Eric Adams.

Donald Trump, for all his electoral gains in New York City, earned only thirty percent of the vote last November. Many of those inroads came with lower propensity Hispanic and Asian working-class voters, less likely to participate in an off-year, municipal election. Bludgeoned by higher costs-of-living and upset that their support was taken for granted by Democrats as quality of life in their neighborhoods deteriorated, said pronounced shifts to the GOP cannot be interpreted as an unequivocal rubber-stamp of all things Trump — particularly given the chaos that has emanated from Washington over the past nine months. In contrast, New York City’s Democratic electorate is fired up amidst Trump 2.0, evidenced by the near-record turnout in June’s primary. Such a backroom deal, reeking of Trump’s influence, will inevitably polarize the city’s more than three million Democrats.

The question remains: are voters more afraid of Donald Trump, the wannabe authoritarian, or Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist?

Herein lies the problem for the former Governor. For every one vote Andrew Cuomo gains from the bungalows of Breezy Point, a gated community of conservative Irish civil servants, or the single family homes of Throggs Neck, home to the Puerto Rican and white ethnic homeowner class; he loses two votes to Zohran Mamdani on the Upper West Side, historically-Jewish and steadfastly liberal, or the working-class Caribbean neighborhoods of East Flatbush and Canarsie, among the bluest blocks in the United States. Mamdani is poised to crush Cuomo in white-collar Manhattan and Brooklyn, the most vote-rich and Democrat-leaning boroughs of New York City. A bloodbath, even more pronounced than the Primary, will commence throughout the Commie Corridor. The age splits between Mamdani, 33, and Cuomo, 67, will only widen; with the former annihilating the latter among voters under-45 (close to half of the electorate last November). The alienated and disillusioned working-class masses of the Bronx and Queens have little incentive to turn out for the former Governor, an avatar of the dysfunctional status quo and loathed political establishment. Were the city’s demographics fixed in 2001, Cuomo would be the heavy favorite; in 2025, he has a snowball’s chance in hell. To pull off an improbable upset, Cuomo, not Mamdani, will need to expand the electorate. Could three months of Fox News and New York Post headlines, demonizing the democratic socialist, create a localized red wave in what promises to be a blue year? I doubt it.

In fact, many of the polls are still undercounting Mamdani’s support.

So where does this leave the Democratic nominee? I have said Zohran is Inevitable…

With thirty-six days until November 4th, Mamdani is not so much competing against his opponents, but himself. The concern for Mamdani does not lie with Eric Adams, or even Curtis Sliwa, consolidating behind Andrew Cuomo: forcing a dreaded, but nonetheless climactic, one-on-one race entering the homestretch.

No, the real danger lies in panic — anxiety arising from an unforeseen development, an onslaught of advertisements depressing morale, the fear of losing what once seemed certain — that knocks Mamdani off his game, leading to an unforced error. What separates Mamdani from his contemporaries is that he does not play the game of politics scared. Most elected officials and candidates for office live in fear of making the mistake; but Mamdani, anxious about backlash as anyone would, knows that to forsake risk means compromising creativity and authenticity. If the Mamdani of the Democratic Primary was bold and unapologetic, a brilliant insurgent; the Mamdani of the General Election is deliberate and principled, a thoughtful coalition builder. As his historic campaign comes to a close, Mamdani has the opportunity to intertwine both approaches, a crescendo that culminates in a November 4th mandate.

Andrew Cuomo cannot beat Zohran Mamdani — only he can.

As the Mayor would say, “stay focused, no distractions, and grind.”

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Email me at Michael.James.Lange@gmail.com

On November 4th, Zohran Mamdani will be elected the next Mayor of New York City.

Since the night of June 24th, Mamdani has become one of the most acclaimed — and polarizing — politicians in the nation. A brief sojourn to Uganda to celebrate his nuptials did not interrupt the hype. Much of the Democratic establishment, quietly impressed throughout the Primary, has flocked to Mamdani. Even Governor Kathy Hochul, an Upstate moderate, bent the metaphorical knee; along with Speaker Carl Heastie, who formerly cancelled the democratic socialist’s bus pilot. A phone call with Barack Obama was reported by The New York Times. All sectors of the political press — local, national, international — clamor for Mamdani-mentum. Magazine covers bear his warm smile, with even more profiles in waiting. Socialism and Affordability are en vogue; their champion praised as a model for the Democratic Party. He is not only the talk of this town of almost nine million, but the United States of America.

Despite Mamdani’s twelve point victory in the Democratic Primary, none of this was guaranteed. In the weeks thereafter, the billionaire class, caught flat footed in June, foreshadowed a tidal wave of outside spending come November, while scheming to narrow the field down to two. However, three months later, their efforts have flopped. Mayor Eric Adams, doomed to single digits, has remained in the race, content to attack Andrew Cuomo, the only candidate with a prayer of upsetting Mamdani. As has Republican Curtis Sliwa, eschewing several bribes from business oligarchs (in his telling). Cuomo, on the heels of a humiliating defeat, has adopted a more aggressive social media presence, but has little to show for it with less than six weeks remaining, his negatives baked in. Now, Zohran Mamdani has more endorsements than the rest of the field combined — several times over. And, while his opponents poll numbers have flatlined, Mamdani’s have steadily risen, on pace to exceed fifty-percent.

Inevitably, the day-to-day contours of Mamdani’s campaign, when compared to the Democratic Primary, is different. His team, once a scrappy cadre of underdogs, has grown to more than two dozen. As the Democratic nominee, more doors have opened for Mamdani: business leaders request meetings, clergy ask him to speak to their congregations, and Democrats in D.C. want to know how he did the impossible.

The pace too, has changed. Mamdani, who became one of the most famous figures in America overnight, does not face the 107 day, existential sprint to the finish that Kamala Harris did last fall, nor an entirely irrelevant General Election, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. If Harris was running for her life while Ocasio-Cortez casually strolled, Mamdani is jogging; his eyes simultaneously fixed on a November 4th mandate and a smooth transition on January 1st.

These currents have spawned an interesting discussion, mostly confined to the political class, about the fitness of Mamdani’s general election campaign. Ross Barkan, detailing the need for Mamdani (once Barkan’s Campaign Manager) to crack fifty-percent, wrote “from the outside, I’ve been less impressed by the general election effort, though that doesn’t mean he won’t win big.” Ben Smith, the co-founder of Semafor and member of the New York Editorial Board, recently quipped to former Mayor Bill de Blasio: “You don’t think [Mamdani’s] sort-of dropped the ball politically by letting, I don’t know, what is he doing? He had a scavenger hunt. He hasn’t announced new policies. You don’t think that’s a mistake?”

Mamdani not only has to manage greater scrutiny from the press, but continue to satiate his political base. Elements of the socialist left, distrustful of institutions and occasionally paranoid of co-option, get anxious whenever the left-liberal establishment wholeheartedly embraces one of their own: “Aren’t these the guys who got us in this mess?” Any move perceived as pivoting, even a simple apology to police officers or discouraging the use of the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” risks backlash from his staunchest supporters. Still, Mamdani, the best needle-threader I have ever seen (“Israel has a right to exist… as a state with equal rights”), has managed to avoid these familiar pitfalls.

Undoubtedly, Mamdani ran one of the best primary campaigns in recent memory (let alone history). Flawlessly executed, the democratic socialist rose from one percent in the polls to earn fifty-six percent of the vote, successfully defining himself as an authentic economic populist. His videos not only went viral, but inspired tens of thousands of volunteers to donate their time, talking to strangers about the movement they were building. On Election Night, the Ugandan-born Muslim socialist stood alongside Nydia Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress; Letitia James, the first African American and woman to be elected New York Attorney General; and Brad Lander, the progressive zionist whose cross-endorsement proved so crucial to Mamdani’s surge in the final days. His triumph was the highest water mark for the American Left since Bernie Sanders’ victory in the Nevada Caucus, the Rainbow coalition of the working-class put into practice.

Comparable to a sequel of a blockbuster epic, the second title — larger budget, greater hype, higher expectations — often lives in the shadow of the first, naturally leading to disappointment.

There was a tangible risk this phenomena occurred with Mamdani’s general election effort.

Yet, on all fronts, Mamdani has plowed ahead. After a brief summer break, the campaign resumed its vaunted canvassing operation in August, attracting even more first time volunteers. What was once fifty-thousand now exceeds seventy; and with six weeks remaining, crossing the six figure volunteer threshold remains firmly in play. The polarizing nature of Cuomo (and Adams) has helped Mamdani cohere labor unions and state Democratic leaders (Kathy Hochul, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Carl Heastie), fundamental pieces of any successful governing coalition. While the last vestiges of the Democratic establishment, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, have yet to come on board, Mamdani’s twenty point lead in the polls and attentional hegemony has effectively backed them both into a corner.

At this point, given Jeffries and Schumer cannot escape an interview without being pressed on their Mamdani-related reluctance, they need the democratic socialist more than he needs them (at least until Trump sends in the national guard). Most notably, Mamdani has shifted the Overton Window with respect to support for Palestine, in New York City and across the nation, arguably more than any other political leader. While the principal, due to safety concerns and a packed schedule, sees the light of day less, the magic on display throughout the Democratic Primary is still there for all to see: on sports podcasts with Pablo Torres, on the open streets of Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, and in the stories of “Until It’s Done.”

Still, the emotional heights of June serve as a lofty barometer. Barkan, in his aforementioned article, offers several suggestions: more press availability and neighborhood walks, pre-emptive announcements of future administration appointments, and one last scorched earth campaign on Andrew Cuomo. In Smith’s telling, Mamdani should lean into his technocratic bona fides.

These ideas orbit a greater question: how does Zohran Mamdani close the campaign?

The announcement of Deputy Mayors (“If elected, I would hire X”) would further build the aura of inevitability; conveying preparedness, rather than hubris. Indeed, the biggest knock against Mamdani, age thirty-three, is his relative youth and inexperience in executive positions. A comprehensive governing plan for multiple agencies, as Mamdani has detailed for public safety and policing, would disarm his most fervent critics. Nor does Cuomo, forty days away from the end of his career, deserve a free pass; the former Governor’s connection to the Trump administration’s plan to influence the general election result remains a fatal error in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans eight-to-one. To this effect, Adam Carlson recently opined, “there’s been a lot of speculation around whether Mamdani will pivot further to the center to attract more skeptical Dem voters, or tack left to help re-energize the base that launched him to victory in the primary. Going hard after Trump accomplishes both.” Yes and No.

As we enter the homestretch, Mamdani is not so much competing against Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa, Eric Adams — or even Donald Trump — but himself.

Undoubtedly, the President, reviled in the deeply blue four boroughs, is the gift that keeps on giving. While anxieties about the state of democracy are real and well-founded, they pale in comparison to the fear of eviction, ICE raids, the genocide of loved one’s overseas, and random violence — everyday realities for millions of New Yorkers. Zohran Mamdani’s brilliance is that, amidst a sea of aloof Democratic leadership, he not only understands this dynamic, but speaks to it. Mamdani began his campaign, in the days after Trump’s victory, talking to voters on Fordham Road in the Bronx and Hillside Avenue in Queens; local working-class constituencies the Democratic Party had forgotten. His victory was not solely a triumph of The Commie Corridor, but under-represented and oft-overlooked New Yorkers: Muslims, South Asians, rent-stabilized tenants. Now, they are at the center of the biggest political story in the nation. Cable news pundits and national magazines have been forced to learn the plight of Brighton Beach, College Point, and Westchester Square; a new story written before our eyes. When Mamdani first introduced his candidacy to Trump-curious, Democrat-skeptic voters, his courting was hypothetical: “If a candidate ran on these issues, would you support them?” This November, Mamdani has the opportunity to do just that; closing the campaign where it began. There would be no better bookend than: “I voted for Trump, but now I’m voting for you.”

While words tell stories, images do too. On the morning of November 5th, what will the map of New York City say? A sea of blue across University Heights, Bensonhurst, Richmond Hill, and Corona — far from the case one year ago — would be worth far more than one thousand words; Mamdani’s fifty-percent plus mandate realized.

If there is a way to both nationalize and localize the campaign’s final days, it is here.

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Today, Mamdani could not re-create “the walk,” the seventeen mile journey the length of Manhattan (shoutout Julian Gerson) that served as the perfect capstone to his Primary campaign. From a security perspective, it would be a nightmare: tall buildings, thousands of people, an easily discernible route. Since the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, the impetus of raising Mamdani’s protection has only increased; many of us were already concerned. Nonetheless, there are several ways Mamdani can build upon this magic that does not compromise safety or dynamism. There is a reason why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a political figure whose fame is on par with Mamdani, lives in North Corona, and not Astoria. Those working-class blocks are among the handful of ZIP codes in the country where she exists as a civilian, rather than a celebrity. There are many such places where Mamdani can strike this balance: touring small businesses and canvassing commuters along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights and Corona; speaking with parents after dismissal in East Tremont, one of the lowest performing school districts in the city, talking about public education and his plans for helping their children; a gun violence walk and roundtable in East New York, once dubbed “the killing fields,” to discuss how the new department of community safety will complement the NYPD. While each stop serves a policy, political, and narrative purpose, the underlying emotion would always be one of community and hope, the heart and soul of the Mamdani campaign: bringing visibility and dignity to the lives of those too often ignored.

Yet beyond any explicit aim, such an undertaking would implicitly benefit the principal. Interacting, safely and unscripted, with everyday New Yorkers on the street — not politicians or power brokers — would act as a reprieve for Mamdani. There is a memorable line from Oppenheimer that has stuck with me ever since, where an esteemed professor appeals to the restless and wayward genius: “Algebra is like sheet music, the important thing isn’t can you read music, it’s can you hear it. Can you hear the music, Robert?” For someone like Zohran, the music is played on the streets of New York City, away from the stuffy political class.

Ironically, the scavenger hunt, much to the chagrin of Smith, harnessed this ethos. Thousands of people — families with children, singles on their first date, new friends made from volunteering, strangers getting to know one another — spending multiple hours of their Sunday together, criss-crossing the Island of Manhattan (before reaching the final stop in Queens). If the anti-social century is the anti-meaning century, where young people are “spending less time socializing and partying than previous generations” instead “gaming alone, watching TV alone, scrolling on social media alone,” then Mamdani’s campaign is offering the real-time antidote.

Recently, I found myself listening to Ezra Klein and Spencer Cox, the Governor of Utah. Cox, a “moderate” Republican (if that even exists in the Trump era), has received national attention following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, speaking of the destruction wrought by the tech oligarchs on the youngest generations of Americans (during Cox’s tenure, Utah has passed some of the strictest social media regulation in the United States). Utah, a predominantly Mormon state that is seventy-five percent white, is about as far from New York City — culturally, demographically, politically — as one can be. Which is why, when Cox offered the following, I stopped:

“Most people will not have a huge impact on the world as we understand it. What I think we should be telling our young people is that they shouldn’t be trying to change the world, they should be trying to change their community, their neighborhood. Service is one of the most important things we can do for our own mental health and building community. I would encourage them to… believe in something bigger than themselves. If you are not interested in faith, then find a group, a positive tribe, that is doing good in this world, and gives you a place to meet people different from you. I hope people will log off of social media.. and find human beings again.”

If you did not know any better, you would have sworn he was talking about Zohran Mamdani.

Maybe he was.

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As the sun set on Labor Day weekend, Rep. Jerry Nadler announced his retirement after thirty-two years in Congress. Nadler, 78, the Dean of New York’s Congressional delegation and a “pillar of the Democratic Party’s [liberal] old guard,” stepped aside to facilitate generational change, scarred from Joe Biden’s decline last year.

The departure of Nadler from New York’s 12th Congressional District, which spans both sides of Central Park, creates a sought-after political vacuum at the heart of Manhattan, and a generational opportunity for the next representative. In many respects, the Twelfth District is the epicenter of the cultural, financial and media elite; including Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue, Billionaires Row on Central Park South, and The New York Times headquarters in Times Square. The constituency is the wealthiest of any Congressional District in the United States.

Nadler is well representative of the Twelfth District’s ideological median. The Chair of the House Judiciary Committee during Donald Trump’s first term, Nadler famously brought a bag from Zabar’s, the iconic gourmet emporium on 79th Street, to impeachment proceedings. A proud zionist, Nadler has nonetheless sharpened his criticism of the Israeli government in recent weeks. When the House reconvenes, the Co-Chair of the Jewish Caucus, who represents more of Abraham’s descendents than any other member of Congress, plans to support an offensive weapons ban. Not a political boss in the classic sense, Nadler’s multi-decade immersion in local politics has inspired generations of loyalty. Forced to choose between two polarizing candidates, the Twelfth District split nearly 50-50 in the Democratic Primary for Mayor, between democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Nadler endorsed neither, but backed Mamdani immediately upon his victory, becoming a key surrogate for the Democratic nominee in the weeks thereafter.

The Path To Victory in NY-12 is unique. Stratified by Age, the most predictive variable for voter preference in the aforementioned Mayoral Primary, the Twelfth District ranks in the 95th percentile for the Silent Generation, and the 99th for Millennials, but with the lowest number of Generation-Z in the nation. The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, ascendant in the wake of Mamdani’s triumph, have only one elected official here (Kristen Gonzalez, whose district is anchored by the Commie Corridor of Western Queens and North Brooklyn). Democratic clubs, moribund in many corners of the city, remain an important part of the local political ecosystem. Organized labor, the quintessential backbone of the Democratic coalition, tantamount to coalition building in the outer boroughs, lacks a foothold in this white-collar, affluent district (save for the teacher’s union). Rather, in the most-educated (and wealthy) district in America, the whims of The New York Times and prestige media is akin to gospel. Historically, “liberal technocrats” — in the mold of Kathryn Garcia, Scott Stringer, or Michael Bloomberg — have done well. Yet, for all the cultural spoils and institutional influence throughout the Twelfth District, geography may play the most important role in anointing the next Member of Congress.

For decades, Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Side were deliberately placed in separate Congressional Districts, despite their comparable racial and class character, a nod to the culture that differentiated West from East: the former, historically-Jewish, was decidedly more liberal (and overwhelmingly Democrat) than the latter, historically-waspy and old moneyed (home to countless ancestral Independents and Republicans). That all changed in 2022, when a court-appointed special master combined both sides of Central Park, narrowing the Twelfth to a single borough, stretching south to 14th Street. In the process, Representatives Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, neighboring septuagenarian staples of the Democratic Party, were forced to fight to the (metaphorical) death. The West Side prevailed.

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Changing of the Guard

While the race will undoubtedly be crowded, several otherwise marquee contenders will be missing. State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who contemplated a run for adjacent 10th Congressional District four years ago, will become the newly-minted Manhattan Borough President come January, robbing the field of a pre-eminent contender. Despite residing farther uptown, Mark Levine would have been well-positioned to appeal to voters on both sides of Central Park, were he too not slated for higher office in the new year. Once Nadler’s top protégé, Scott Stringer has seen his electoral prospects diminish over the past five years after two unsuccessful campaigns for Mayor (the first of which was irrevocably derailed by sexual harassment allegations). Were this vacancy to have occurred last decade, Stringer would have been a shoe-in to succeed Nadler. “I believe that the next congressmember should fight like hell to continue Social Security,” Stringer told Gothamist, “It should not be a person who is on Social Security.” Had the incumbent retired a few years down the road, Virginia Maloney — daughter of three-decade, East Side Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney — now the Democratic nominee for a Manhattan-based City Council seat, would have been in the mix as her mother’s heir. Out for vengeance following her crushing and abrupt defeat to Nadler in 2022, the eldest Maloney (age 79) may be tempted to reclaim the seat she held for thirty years. However, she would face a steep climb in returning to Congress; Maloney’s battle with Nadler was ugly, as she implied her West Side colleague was “senile.” Even beforehand, the East Side incumbent was hemorrhaging support across her district, eking out narrow victories in both 2018 and 2020. The next generation of Upper East Side politicos are no longer deferring their ambitions. For these reasons, I expect her to (ultimately) remain on the sidelines. Given the seventy-eight year old Nadler stressed the theme of “generational change” in his retirement, elected officials such as Linda Rosenthal and Liz Kreuger, both 67, have unsurprisingly declined.

Several others may be on the outside looking in…

When Liam Elkind announced that he would be running against Jerry Nadler, it was under the pretense of challenging the gerontocracy. Now, with Nadler out and a plethora of younger candidates on deck, the rationale behind Elkind’s bid has evaporated (along with any goodwill in Jerry-world). He’ll need to find a compelling message, quickly, because thus far I have not seen one. Elkind, who resides in the 69th Assembly District (represented by Lasher) is rumored to be considering dropping down and running for State Legislature. Suraj Patel has already run for Congress three times (challenging Maloney in 2018, 2020, and 2022). Could the fourth time be the charm? The rationale, in a split field, would be simple: “If I get the people who already voted for me to vote for me again, I’ll win.” However, it doesn’t help Patel’s case that, in the interim between campaigns, he has acquired a reputation as being relatively absent from the district.

In the mix…

West Side City Council Member Erik Bottcher’s problem is one of geography, as relatively few votes in NY12 can be traced to his district, based in Hells Kitchen and Chelsea (which includes a noticeable portion in the neighboring 10th Congressional District). Indeed, any conceivable path-to-victory runs through the Upper East or Upper West Side; however, both sides of Central Park are poised to have their own standard bearers. While Bottcher easily won his Council seat, much of his success was owed to being Chief of Staff to Corey Johnson (the Speaker and outgoing incumbent); four years later, it is unclear how Bottcher’s institutional support and fundraising would scale up against more battle-tested opponents. One of the only openly-gay candidates in the running, Bottcher’s record on LGBTQ+ rights will boost him along the West Side, but identity appeals alone will not singlehandedly deliver the district’s significant gay population — just ask Mondaire Jones. Angling for Brad Hoylman’s soon-to-be-vacant State Senate seat or Tony Simone’s Assembly seat (both of which have no term limits) seems wiser.

Cynthia Nixon parlayed her award-winning acting career into thirty-four percent of the vote versus Governor Andrew Cuomo, over-performing in the well-heeled neighborhoods that would eventually become New York’s 12th Congressional District. A proud leftist, who was endorsed by NYC-DSA and the Working Families Party during her insurgent run for Governor, Nixon was one of the first to back Zohran Mamdani’s longshot bid for Mayor. Across the spectrum of progressive politics in New York City, Nixon has buy-in from activists, influential organizations, and the next generation of elected officials, many of whom she has helped raise money for. Were the left, emboldened in the Mamdani Era, to dream of a democratic socialist winning a plurality in the wealthiest district in the United States, many would first look to Nixon.

President Kennedy’s only grandson, Jack Schlossberg, has already formed an exploratory committee. Raised on the Upper East Side, the son of Caroline Kennedy has spoken at the previous two Democratic National Conventions, while writing about politics for Vogue, TIME, and New York Magazine. Undoubtedly, the Harvard Law School graduate would be the most prolific “poster” in the race, and seems well suited for the short-form, vertical video era. One can imagine Schlossberg organically building enthusiasm with younger voters on social media, provided his campaign reflects the left-leaning values of his peers, while greeting older voters alongside mother Caroline at street fairs and farmer’s markets, as the national press hangs on every word. Schlossberg’s greatest asset and most pronounced weakness is that, save for his revered double-barrelled name, the Kennedy heir remains a relatively blank canvas. In a district that prides itself on substance, he will be tested early.

Will he be the next Zohran Mamdani or Dianne Morales?

MSNBC political analyst Molly Jong Fast was “thinking about challenging Nadler” in February. Nonetheless, in an interview with POLITICO, Jong Fast stressed that her preference was for someone else to run: “If a good communicator and a serious Democrat runs for that seat, then I absolutely will not.” With Nadler out of the picture, and a crowded field rife with establishment politicos, a well-known legacy media figure with press connections remains an intriguing archetype. In fact, someone capable of seizing attention, expanding the electorate, with a pre-existing grassroots base could transcend the district’s West—East binary.

That candidate, in every respect, was Lina Khan.

What began as nothing more than Twitter musing took on a life of its own in the days after Nadler announced his retirement — and for good reason. Khan, who lives a few blocks north of the district (there are no residency requirements for Congress), is beloved across the progressive left — hosting town halls with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani. Yet, it was her technocratic bona fides, embodied by her widely-celebrated tenure as Chair of the Federal Trade Commissioner during the Biden Administration, that made her an intriguing candidate for higher office, capable of coalition-building across ideology and class. The Mamdani Coalition: Millennial and Gen-Z progressives, cost-conscious renters, and the growing number of South Asian and Muslim voters — more than fifty-five thousand first place votes in the Twelfth District — would have been Khan’s for the taking. However, the former FTC Chair unequivocally shut down the idea on The Bulwark podcast last week: “I’m not a politician… running for Congress is not something I am interested in.” Now, many of those lower-propensity voters (think younger, more “anti-establishment”) will have fewer incentives to vote, let alone volunteer or donate in what promises to be a more “traditional” electorate.

The Inner Circle

Khan’s withdrawal narrows the top contenders list, at this very early juncture, to only two candidates. In a sign of generational change, neither held public office as little three years ago. Personally, I know both quite well: they are my past, and present, representatives in the State Assembly, Alex Bores and Micah Lasher.

Their legislative districts mirror the nuances and ideological differences across a Congressional seat that split down the middle between Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo. Lasher’s 69th Assembly District — spanning Morningside Heights, Manhattan Valley, and the Upper West Side (north of 81st Street) — voted for Mamdani by seventeen points; Bores’ 73rd Assembly District — the oldest and wealthiest in New York State, includes the Upper East Side’s most affluent corridor (Park, Madison, Fifth) and Midtown East — voted for Cuomo, a resident of tony Sutton Place, by almost twenty-seven percent.

First elected in 2022, Bores out-hustled a crowded field and prevailed by less than five hundred votes. Bypassed by progressive organizations (the Working Families Party endorsed Kellie Leeson), spurned by older institutions (the atrophying Lexington Democratic club backed Russell Squire), nor the favorite of moneyed elites (who supported Adam Roberts), Bores was widely considered the underdog. He bridged the gap with work ethic: greeting commuters outside subway stations, standing on street corners, and handing out literature at green markets and street fairs. At the #6 train station on 77th Street, I saw him no less than five times (as did my family). Without a doubt, he loves tried-and-true retail politics, and the elbow grease paid off handsomely; Bores still credits his tireless glad-handing as the reason he ultimately won. To this day, whenever I see Bores in public, our conversations are inevitably interrupted because he is greeted by constituent passersby. Undoubtedly, he understands the personal, relationship-based aspect of politics very well. Nor is this ethic confined to the Upper East Side: I’ve seen Bores at Claire Valdez’s inauguration in Sunnyside and Yusef Salaam’s victory celebration in Harlem. Since he won his Assembly seat, those appearances have included trips to the Upper West Side…

Bores, 34, has already eyed higher office once before, flirting with a run for Manhattan Borough President, only to ultimately decline. With Keith Powers termed-out of office, the Maloney dynasty either too young or too old, and Julie Menin, at least for now, preoccupied with the City Council Speaker’s race, the deck of elected officials on the East Side appears clear for Bores to run for Congress.

Even so, the two-term Assembly Member would face an uphill climb. For one, while Bores would perform well within his district, the whims of his constituents — older, wealthier, more moderate and pro-Israel — are an imperfect proxy for the rest of the Congressional District. The other half of the Upper East Side, Yorkville, is less politically homogenous and more ideological; liberal West Siders Nadler and Hoylman-Sigal picked up many votes there versus “local” East Side candidates Maloney and Powers. Farther south, both Nadler and Mamdani, decidedly to the left of their opponents, enjoyed comparable success in Murray Hill, Kips Bay, and Stuyvesant Town — undoubtedly affluent, but also younger and more renter-focused. Furthermore, there are (historically) more Democratic votes to be found along the West Side; not to mention more established political infrastructure and institutional cohesion. Both Nadler and Hoylman-Sigal only lost one precinct — a public housing development in Chelsea — between West 15th Street and West 100th Street, more than four miles worth of votes. In the contest to succeed Nadler, power brokers on the Upper West Side are lining up behind one of their own: Micah Lasher.

Lasher, 43, has been enmeshed in New York City politics for over two decades. As a teenager, he graduated from magician to “political wunderkind,” helping a plethora of candidates up and down the West Side of Manhattan. From his dorm room at NYU, the Stuyvesant High School alum founded the firm that later became consulting giant SKDKnickerbocker. On September 11th, Lasher was crisscrossing Lower Manhattan, managing the City Council campaign of Brad Hoylman before the primary was abruptly cancelled as the Twin Towers were attacked. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s chief negotiator in Albany, Lasher earned a laudatory New York Times profile at the tender age of twenty-eight. Running for office was a question of when, not if. A shoe-in for City Council in the late 2000’s, term limit extensions foiled his plan to run. Campaigning for a highly-coveted (and gerrymandered) State Senate seat along the West Side several years later, Lasher fell short by three-hundred votes. A key advisor to both Scott Stringer and Eric Schneiderman, a top position in City Hall or Albany was inevitable, until personal scandal leveled both of their careers. As Micah Lasher turned forty, his political odyssey had been defined by a series of what ifs.

Perhaps it was not meant to be? Lasher, Governor Kathy Hochul’s policy director, resigned himself to a future behind-the-scenes. Then, without warning, State Assembly Member “Danny” O’Donnell — Lasher’s representative in Albany — retired from politics. The magician had pulled a rabbit out of the hat.

Lasher may not have been an incumbent, but his institutional support was incumbent-esque. Almost every local elected official endorsed him. He raised more than half a million dollars. The many local Democratic clubs backed him by landslide votes. After helping countless others reach their dream of elected office, Lasher was on the precipice of achieving his own. However, Eli Northrup did not accept his coronation.

Northrup, a public defender supported by the progressive Working Families Party, lacked the institutional connections of his opponent. Rather than make peace with a second place finish, he did the unthinkable: criticize Lasher’s record, which included work for the Republican Bloomberg and the Charter School lobby. A compare and contrast mailer, disseminated by the Northrup campaign, ruffled feathers. Bristling at the mailer's “negativity,” the episode revealed a vulnerability on Lasher’s political left. Instead of standing pat and ignoring the criticism, the frontrunner pushed in his chips. A call was placed to his allies, Jerry Nadler and Ruth Messinger. Soon thereafter, Democrats across the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights opened their mailboxes, only to be greeted with an 8.5 x 22 brochure mailer: “What is happening now in the Assembly race to succeed Danny O’Donnell is so disheartening. One of the candidates, Eli Northrup, has begun sending negative attack mailings that distort Micah Lasher’s record and paint a picture of him that is fundamentally dishonest and unfair.” This was no magic trick; it was the art of power in politics. He won easily.

As of today, only nine months into his first term in the state legislature, Micah Lasher is the early favorite to succeed his mentor, Jerry Nadler. Yet, for those who followed the Lasher–Northrup race, particularly the mailer saga, the outgoing Congressman’s signal of support in the upcoming Primary comes as no surprise. While the blessing of Nadler alone cannot guarantee victory, no institution can, it will cohere the West Side — Hoylman-Sigal, Levine, Rosenthal, Abreu — behind Lasher, one of their own.

To say Lasher, a methodical operator who has worked on dozens of campaigns over the past twenty-five years, is prepared for this moment would be an understatement.

He may need every bit of that readiness to prevail. During Lasher’s twenty-five years in local politics, let alone the past twelve months, the ground has shifted. Federal politics once took a backseat to local fiefdoms, but as Donald Trump runs roughshod over liberal institutions, voters are anxiously search for fighters, not folders. Staunch support for the Israel government was considered a pre-requisite for any Manhattan candidate, not a political albatross. Now, as the Netanyahu regime continues its “war of annihilation,” support for Palestine polls forty-percent higher than Israel among Democrats in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. An experienced, older candidate would thrash an unknown leftist across the many silk-stocking neighborhoods of the Twelfth District. Yet, Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim democratic socialist, edged former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Primary for Mayor.

In New York City, the age of the institution is coming to a close. The Twelfth District, a rich tapestry of culture and media, is at the center of this political cross-current. Simultaneously one of the oldest and youngest communities in the United States, much of what’s left off the local institutions — clubs, newspapers, elected officials — will be with West Side Assemblymen. But will that be enough in 2026?

A hallmark of Lasher’s career has been an ability to adapt: an acolyte of Michael Bloomberg in Zohran Mamdani’s inner circle. A principled and savvy coalition-builder? An opportunistic politician reading the tea lives? Or a lifelong Upper West Sider in-touch with the whims of his neighbors? Yet, the through line of Lasher’s career is Jerry Nadler; from mentee to potential successor. More than a quarter century after breaking onto the political scene, Micah Lasher’s dream is alive. Can he realize it?

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Zohran Mamdani's upset polarized segments of the Democratic Party establishment. Some, quietly impressed for months with the insurgent’s campaign, hopped on the Democratic nominee’s bandwagon, acknowledging the will of the voters. Others, apoplectic and defiant following Andrew Cuomo’s collapse, vowed to fight through the bitter end to November. Most, like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer — both constituents come January — and the House and Senate Democratic leaders, respectively, have resorted to distance. Not Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, who spoke with Mamdani at length after the primary, a previously undisclosed conversation reported by Mara Gay of The New York Times.

David Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist and senior adviser, offered effusive, on-the-record praise of the campaign’s “determined, upbeat idealism“ before offering a warning to those who “scare the hell out of people to get them to vote for [their] deficient politics.” In the telling of his allies, Mamdani’s ability to inspire young voters, a hallmark of Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, resonated with the former President. Already, the comparison between the two has been echoed by top New York Democrats, including Letitia James and Jerry Nadler. And, while the contours of their conversation are anyone's guess, it is undeniable that Barack Obama and Zohran Mamdani have much in common:

Mamdani, ironically, is what the political right always accused Obama of being: an African-born, Muslim socialist. Both cut their teeth as community organizers, and their respective political odysseys began in urban, working-class neighborhoods. Early defeats shaped their worldviews and, ultimately, set them on the path to power. Amidst their ascendance, both demonstrated unique oratory skills and impressed audiences despite their lack of experience. At the pulpit on Sunday morning, each invoke their father’s story. In victory, Obama and Mamdani laid claim to a political movement — nonetheless years in the making, but in need of a leader.

However, when one reaches the summit, what comes next?

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Hard Lessons

Before he turned forty years old, Barack Obama was already a multi-term State Senator in the Illinois Legislature who had been the first Black President… of the Harvard Law Review. A published author (his book was nonetheless out of print) with a background in local community organizing, Obama’s resume was laden with Ivy League acclaim. Itching for political advancement, the professor from Hyde Park set his sights on Congressman Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther representing Chicago’s South Side, reeling following a landslide defeat in the Mayoral race the year prior.

From the beginning of his career, Obama was tapped as a multi-racial coalition builder. Beloved in Hyde Park, the gentrifying neighborhood encompassing the University of Chicago, the law professor encompassed the new and old of the community: a transplant to the South Side, but one who planted roots, raising his own middle-class family. Illinois’ first Congressional District stretched farther south, encompassing low-income, racially-homogenous Black communities. On the campaign trail, the lightskinned professor lectured his prospective constituents about the need to “work with” whites and Hispanics. However, such ideals fell on deaf ears amongst the Black working-class, whose worldview had been shaped by the racial polarization long synonymous with everyday life in Chicago. Rush, a mainstay of Sunday church services and gun violence protests, had accumulated decades of goodwill across the South Side; whereas the Hyde Park interloper did not. Lacking neighborhood relationships and shunned by local institutions, Obama struggled to connect, particularly with seniors. The biracial Obama saw his “blackness” frequently questioned by Rush and his allies, who asserted his college talk lacked utility on South Michigan Avenue.

Everyday for months, Obama woke up knowing defeat was imminent. While his run may have been egotistical and naive, circumstances beyond his control sealed his fate: Rush’s son was murdered months before the primary, prompting an outpouring of support for the grief-stricken incumbent; soon thereafter, Obama missed an important vote on a gun violence bill in the Illinois State Legislature, unable to return home from vacation in Hawaii on time (his youngest daughter was ill). Obama had often charged that the incumbent was ineffective and out-of-touch, but Rush, who once served six months in jail on a weapons charge, had always been respected on gun violence issues. Here, Obama was glaringly absent, while Rush was leading on the South Side’s most important issue. Edward McClelland wrote, “Obama’s path to power went through Columbia and Harvard, Bobby Rush learned politics on the street — his entire life had been a series of escapes from the fates that destroyed so many Black men of his generation.”

Obama lost by thirty percent. He considered retiring from politics altogether.

Zohran Mamdani never faced a comparable failure, but his career was shaped by the defeats of his allies. Raised in Morningside Heights (New York City’s parallel to Hyde Park), Mamdani’s early years were academic-focused: his father was an esteemed professor at Columbia University (where Obama attended undergrad), while the son graduated from Bronx Science, one of the city’s most sought-after specialized public high schools. Mamdani would not pursue law school, but an amateur rap career, before cutting his political teeth on the streets of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Astoria, Queens: Italian, Irish, and Greek neighborhoods gradually diversifying in the twenty-first century. During his mid-twenties, in-between campaign cycles, Mamdani worked as a community organizer, helping cash-poor homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Yet, it was in the heat of political battle where Mamdani demonstrated a wisdom beyond his years. Under the tutelage of Khader El-Yateem, paternally known as “Father K,” Mamdani not only found his voice, but made a lasting impact on others. A voracious door knocker with a charismatic and easygoing demeanor, he would be training the other canvassers in no time. Against a more well-funded and politically connected opponent, Mamdani saw how the campaign’s “field” program, predicated on enthusiastic volunteers talking to voters over-and-over again, helped the insurgent effort keep pace. Here, the aspiring leftist was introduced to NYC-DSA, the rapidly-growing socialist organization that would be the engine of his election to the state legislature (and, eventually, the Mayoralty). While Mamdani excelled at connecting with voters, his kinship with El-Yateem — a Palestinian Lutheran minister born in the West Bank, whose parish on 4th Avenue doubled as a conduit for Arab Christian refugees — was special. Mamdani, whose upbringing in New York City coincided with increased discrimination and unchecked surveillance against Muslim and Arab communities following September 11th, saw himself in El-Yateem: “He gave me a sense of belonging in a city that I had always loved, but one in which I had not known if my politics had a clear place.”

Mamdani left the campaign with many believers. Among them was Ross Barkan, a journalist who had taken note of the insurgency that was the talk of his neighborhood. “Who was organizing the canvassers that always came to my door?” the lifelong Brooklynite mused while plotting his own run for office, “I should hire them.” The two formed an instant bond: Mamdani the talented upstart eager to experience life beyond the urban core, Barkan the outer borough striver trying to secure his big break. Their division of labor was simple, Barkan handled comms (pitching articles, raising money, and writing emails), while Mamdani drove the field program (recruiting volunteers). There was little “down time” between the duo: mornings were spent soliciting strangers at subway stations, evenings were spent knocking doors (in three to four hour shifts), with phone calls to volunteers, prospective small dollar donors, and allies sandwiched in the middle. Absent institutional support, Mamdani’s talent for “getting the most out of people,” proved invaluable. In search of votes, they criss-crossed Southern Brooklyn together, knocking doors in Russian-dominated Manhattan Beach, Italian and Irish Marine Park, and Arab Christian northern Bay Ridge. Here, Mamdani learned the importance of showing up everywhere. But sweat stained shirts and worn out sneakers could not alone guarantee victory. Under Mamdani’s guidance, Barkan’s campaign struggled to keep pace financially. Nor did Mamdani send mail, a critical error in a district dominated by seniors. He invested in an alternative to NGP VAN, the standard Democratic Party voter file, that proved unreliable and rife with bugs. Mamdani’s innovative spirit and relentless work ethic was always there, but required some troubleshooting. Most notably, they failed to win an endorsement from NYC-DSA, who instead channeled their organizing muscle into Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Julia Salazar, both victorious. Hard work and field organizing, without a movement campaign, had their limits. Yet, even in defeat, Barkan extolled Mamdani’s future: “I had no doubt he would eventually run for office.”

But where? Mamdani set his sights on Astoria, Queens — a neighborhood similar in aesthetic to Bay Ridge, whose population trends (more young professionals, fewer older white ethnics) were fifteen years ahead, owed to greater proximity to Manhattan. Promptly, he threw himself into the next DSA campaign: a longshot challenge for Queens District Attorney. Mamdani worked on behalf of Tiffany Cabán, a public defender from Richmond Hill who embraced ending cash bail in the mold of reformer Larry Krasner. Her opponent, Borough President Melinda Katz, was the hand-pick of the once-vaunted, but now reeling “Queens Machine.” If elected, Cabán promised that she would decline to prosecute marijuana cases, turnstile jumping, prostitution, trespassing, disorderly conduct, loitering, drug possession, and welfare fraud. For months, the campaign struggled to attract the sort of viral attention that would become synonymous with Mamdani’s Mayoral bid, while churning through staff due to a lack of fundraising. Nonetheless, armed with “a large number of young people who, for the right candidate, would be willing to work very hard for free,” they possessed an invaluable competitive advantage. Mamdani was one of those young people hustling in the shadows. During the final month, the ground began to shift in Cabán’s favor. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, five months into her first term, endorsed the insurgent in late May. The Working Families Party, less labor-oriented and more ideological, helped Cabán expand her staff. It was the first campaign where AOC, DSA and WFP, the three pillars of progressive organizing, were united behind the same candidate. “This coalition could remake politics in New York City,” Mamdani thought. In a lower turnout, split-primary field (several more moderate candidates were also running, eating into Katz’s margins in homeowner-heavy Eastern Queens), the enthusiasm gap would play a deciding role. If the electorate was expanded enough, Cabán would win. On Election Night, it appeared Cabán had pulled off an improbable upset.

Such euphoria was premature, as mail-in-ballots undid the insurgent, who lost by a meager fifty-five votes. Yet, amidst the disappointment, there was reason to believe the future was bright. NYC-DSA was ascendant, especially in Astoria. In fact, Cabán won more than seventy-five percent in Mamdani’s Assembly District. The base had rallied for a sleepy, off-year election — imagine what could be done in a larger, macro-political moment?

As Mamdani reviewed the results, the democratic socialist saw avenues for improvement. Bangladeshis in Jamaica Hills. Punjabi Indians and Indo Caribbeans in Richmond Hill. Muslims in Jackson Heights. Over the years, he had met many folks like this, slowly getting to know their neighborhoods. Mamdani knew that these communities, particularly intra-generational renter households, would be receptive to an anti-establishment, left-leaning message centering economics. Overlooked by the political class, Mamdani sensed an opportunity to expand the electorate with some of the fastest growing immigrant populations in New York City. In Astoria, Muslim and South Asian voter turnout was half that of the overall electorate.

The revolution must reach them too.

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The Juice

In diagnosing his thirty-point blowout to Bobby Rush, Obama learned his natural constituency “was not inner-city Blacks but well-educated eggheads of all races.” He had considered Congress a stepping stone to becoming Mayor of Chicago, where Obama aspired to build a multi-racial coalition in the vein of Harold Washington. Now, his standing with the Black community on the South Side was damaged, the professor’s ego humbled.

Obama set his sights on the United States Senate, a statewide election where he could credibly compete for the votes of urban Blacks, suburban liberals, and rural whites. Television advertising, provided the State Senator could raise the requisite funds, would highlight Obama’s capacity to inspire. Most importantly, the talented upstart would not be facing off against a local institution like Rush, nor competing across a handful of neighborhoods well-traveled by the incumbent. In an open primary, the diversity and breadth of Illinois would help Obama construct the coalition he had always envisioned.

Interestingly, the man who would soon redefine fundraising in the Democratic Party was broke. Lacking a grassroots small dollar donor base, Obama turned to Chicago’s business community — first Black professionals, then white liberals. He cultivated an alliance with the Speaker of the Illinois Legislature, who redistricted his Senate seat, at Obama’s direction, to include the affluent Lakefront neighborhoods, while shedding lower-income Black communities. Oprah Winfrey was now a constituent of State Senator Obama, eventually becoming an invaluable surrogate during the Presidential election. He overhauled his stump speech: fewer local issues, more inspirational rhetoric. A friend recounted the Archbishop of Boston once telling John F. Kennedy to be “more Irish and less Harvard.” Obama took the story to heart.

White liberals, enthralled with Obama’s early stand against the Iraq War, were already on board early. The Black political class, while unhappy with Obama’s campaign versus Rush, recognized his unique coalition-building potential, in the mold of Harold Washington, and desperately wanted one of their own in the United States Senate. Atop the pulpit, Obama shed the professor’s robe and donned the preacher’s gown: “the new Obama had studied his audience—hardworking, churchgoing Blacks—studied their aspirations, and the way they liked to hear those aspirations expressed every Sunday morning. This was going to be a sermon, not a lecture. It was going to quote Jesus, not the Brookings Institute," wrote McClelland. On the South Side of Chicago, Obama practiced the lines he would eventually deliver as the keynote speaker at the Democratic convention. Every Sunday, he visited a minimum of five churches.

The quality (or lack thereof) of Obama’s opponents aided him greatly. Blair Hull was poised to be the leading contender — an anti-corporate progressive, veteran, and card-carrying union member (who outspent the entire field) — before imploding after his divorce records were publicized, revealing a history of domestic violence. That left only Dan Hynes, the uninspiring and colorless State Comptroller, a nepo baby whose father was a powerful ward boss. His ties to the nascent political machine were no match for Obama’s compelling personal narrative. “Hynes represented Chicago’s provincial past—political dynasties, ethnic loyalties, unadulterated Irishness, precinct captains ringing doorbells for a kid from the neighborhood. Obama reflected the modern Chicago, a cosmopolitan city made so by migrants like himself“ wrote McClelland. Over the final six weeks, Obama surged. His rallies were getting larger and louder, as more and more politicians, sensing the momentum, jumped on the bandwagon. His closing advertisement, fittingly titled “Hope,” reflected the multi-racial coalition Obama strived to build, featuring clips of the late Paul Simon (a liberal icon) and Harold Washington (Chicago’s first Black Mayor). On Election Day, Barack Obama did just that.

Overnight, Obama became a political celebrity of the highest order. National reporters flew into Chicago to profile the future of the Democratic Party. Four years earlier, when Obama arrived at the Democratic National Convention, he was broke. When he tried to rent a car, his credit card declined. Unable to get a floor pass (“sorry, we’re getting a lot of requests”), he watched the proceeding from the concourse. Defeated, he returned home early, before Al Gore was nominated. Now, Obama would deliver the keynote address in primetime. “They would give me an African name, believing in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success,” Obama said of his parents. The lines Obama first spoke at Black churches on the South Side of Chicago were now broadcasted into the homes of millions of Americans.

“He walked onto the stage as a State Senator, and walked off the next President of the United States.”

When it was Zohran Mamdani’s time to run for office, he was ready.

Three campaigns in as many years had given him the tools to turn his ambition into reality. On a brisk morning in mid-October, Mamdani (who celebrated his birthday the day prior) and friends launched his campaign in Queensbridge Park, the site of a twenty-thousand person comeback rally for Bernie Sanders, who had been off the campaign trail recovering from a heart attack. As Sanders implored the audience, in his trademark Brooklyn accent, to “fight for someone you don’t know,” Mamdani canvassed the crowd, urging the smallest of donations to his own campaign. “I’m running on Bernie’s platform in Astoria,” he said with a smile. Watching Sanders, flanked by Ocasio-Cortez and Cabán, the emotional momentum was palpable. Over the holidays, Mamdani went to Iowa to knock on doors for Sanders. When he returned to Queens, the insurgent carried the same energy through the winter, and appeared destined to knock off Aravella Simotas, the inoffensive left-liberal incumbent. Mamdani’s commitment to expanding the electorate was evident even then: the campaign knocked on the doors of Muslim Independent voters in an effort to re-register them as Democrats so they could eventually vote for one of their own. "Bringing forth Bernie Sanders' vision,” Mamdani said, “means not only fighting for a political revolution but transforming the electorate.” Everything was going according to plan.

Until the pandemic. Within an instant, life in New York City was upended. In Queens, “the epicenter of the epicenter,” all campaigning was forced inside. Mamdani’s greatest assets, volunteer door knocking and in-person interaction, were eliminated per public health guidance. Now, instead of dispatching dozens of canvassers from the office to knock on doors, masked volunteers, one-by-one, would pick up mutual aid for socially distanced distribution. By Ramadan, the campaign was distributing six hundred meals every day. Amidst months of sequester, the campaign stepped up their online presence: Mamdani filmed several savvily produced direct-to-camera videos in Astoria Park, where one can see echoes of the future. Every Sunday afternoon, he went live on Instagram: talking to guests, clipping videos, and posting them on Twitter. Establishing a clear-contrast with Simotas, an inoffensive incumbent who had been hailed for her work combatting sexual harassment, was a difficult endeavor. City & State published an article, which included some laundered opposition research against Mamdani, with the subtitle: “Aravella Simotas and DSA-backed Zohran Mamdani compete over the same platform in Astoria.” However, it was here where the painful lessons— shortcomings that had prevented El-Yateem, Barkan, and Cabán from crossing the finish line — were honed by Mamdani and his team, some of whom had gone through those battles alongside him. The campaign methodically worked to draw distinctions. Every thread of Simotas' relationship to the increasingly-unpopular “Queens Machine” was pulled. No vote taken, on the state budget or otherwise, dating as far back as a decade, was safe. As progressive backlash to law enforcement crested in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Mamdani highlighted his opponents’ contributions from police unions, taking a victory lap when Simotas returned the money. Mamdani would Defund The Police; his opponent would not. Nonetheless, the insurgent’s closing argument foreshadowed what was to come: “They said staying home would save lives, but you can’t stay home if you don’t have one.”

The final result was not known until July, given the closeness of the Election Day vote and the prohibitive volume of absentee ballots which needed processing via the Board of Elections. On the steps of Queens Borough Hall, Mamdani was pronounced victorious — by a margin of 423 votes.

Amidst the narrative of a political tug-of-war between the young, college-educated renters and their white ethnic, homeowning counterparts — a crucial piece of Astoria’s fabric was left out. Since the 1970s, thousands of Arabs and Muslims had immigrated to the neighborhood, establishing a commercial corridor along Steinway Street, the same street where the NYPD illegally surveilled Muslims on the basis of their faith after September 11th. When Mamdani prevailed with a razor-thin margin, his best precinct, which delivered the Muslim democratic socialist more than two-thirds of the vote, included the “Little Egypt” blocks of Steinway Street.

Young People. Renters. Muslims. South Asians. Five years later, those would be the building blocks for Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for Mayor.

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Movement versus Machines

2008 was the consummate change election. The Democratic Party, after almost eight years of the Bush administration, was desperate to turn the page. The base was fired up, particularly as the Iraq War further metastasized, but there remained a discernible appetite for bipartisanship and “uniting the country.” Such optimism was scant during the early months of 2025 — Trump’s return to power — as the Democratic rank-and-file were not only steaming mad at the President, but their own Party’s lack of leadership. Each produced a stunning referendum on the status quo.

To dethrone a vaunted political machine, a talented principal is not enough. Without a steady and complimentary right-hand guiding the most important campaign of their respective lives, victory would have eluded Barack Obama and Zohran Mamdani. Luckily for both, they had just that — and then some. During his Senate race, Obama enlisted David Axelrod, a former journalist turned well-known consultant. Unlike the big wigs of Washington D.C. and New York City, Axelrod was based in Chicago. He took an immediate liking to the ambitious Obama, “those who worked with both men considered them equals in discipline, intelligence, and temperament.” Unlike Axelrod, who worked on multiple Presidential campaigns and was an industry staple, Elle Bisgaard-Church had never been a campaign manager — let alone steered a Mayoral race in the nation’s largest city. Whip smart and even-keeled, Bisgaard-Church was hired as Mamdani’s Chief of Staff when he was elected to the state legislature. A policy wonk at heart with a keen eye for detail, Elle was the perfect compliment to Zohran, capable of translating his ideas into action. Despite her perceived campaign inexperience, Mamdani and Bisgaard-Church shared the most important intangibles: trust and work ethic.

Both Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo were tapped as fallible, but nonetheless formidable frontrunners. More dreadnought than juggernaut, they filled the proverbial vacuum with “experience,” decades of institutional support, and a vast network of wealthy donors. Much rested on the double-edged sword of “inevitability” combined with a notorious streak of revenge, fear which kept Party insiders in line. However, there was fatigue: Hillary had high negatives, and the Clinton White House (following the Monica Lewinsky affair) ended on a sour note; Cuomo was forced to resign as Governor following thirteen substantiated allegations of sexual harassment, and was long regarded as a cruel bully. Both supported increasingly unpopular foreign wars: Clinton voted in favor of invading Iraq; Cuomo parroted Benjamin Netanyahu’s talking points with respect to Gaza. On the outside, their “machine” appeared almost-invincible — on the inside, they were rife with dysfunction and dissent. Neither were keen on apologizing, ever. “People want to be brought together and unified, yet we are seen as polarizing. They crave authenticity, but we are seen as plastic,” warned an internal Clinton memo as Obama crept up in the polls. The same could have been said for Andrew Cuomo, seventeen years later. When Obama spoke to Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader regaled him with a story about a young boxer who had once defied long odds, concluding “you can get people motivated, especially young people, minorities, even middle-of-the-road people.” The author, in a piece published months before the election (when Cuomo appeared almost inevitable), unknowingly offered the same comparison: recounting the story of how Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammed Ali) had miraculously felled the over-confident (and hobbled) heavyweight champion, Sonny Liston. In the case of both Clinton and Cuomo, personal hubris and decades of intra-party polarization proved to be an especially damning combination. This collective desire to forsake the status quo was harnessed to build a far wider coalition than Obama and Mamdani had ever anticipated.

Barack Obama, already a best-selling author, well-known United States Senator, whose viral keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention earned him acclaim across the country, was not the underdog Zohran Mamdani, a three-term state legislator who began at one-percent in the polls, largely unknown beyond the political class and cadre network of left-leaning organizations, was. Nonetheless, flush with scores of young people inspired by the prospect of change, both turned to the grassroots to bridge the institutional gap: thousands of volunteers knocked doors, made phone calls, and gave small dollar donations. The youthful age of their supporters was derided by opponents; a Clinton aide quipped, “they look like Facebook,” in reference to Obama’s increasingly enthusiastic (and large) crowds.

In the Iowa Caucuses, Obama famously expanded the electorate, more than doubling voter turnout from four years prior, primarily from “lower propensity,” younger voters. Mamdani did the same in New York City, spurring a record number of Gen-Z and Millennial voters to the polls. Both eschewed traditional campaign orthodoxy in creating their respective “voter universes.” Obama not only focused on young people, but courted Independents and Republicans, eligible to vote under Caucus rules; Mamdani reached out to South Asians and Muslim voters, cohering voting blocs the political class had overlooked. A willingness to engage, take risks, and appear everywhere became a hallmark of each insurgent campaign.

Both saw their racial and ethnic backgrounds (Obama as a Black man, Mamdani as a Muslim) targeted by right-wing media and the Democratic Party establishment: Cuomo’s Super PAC darkened Mamdani’s skin and lengthened his beard, while Senator Kirsten Gillibrand went on an unhinged and Islamophobic rant following his victory; Bill Clinton sought to diminish Obama by comparing his victory in South Carolina to that of Jesse Jackson, and constantly complained to the press that the Obama campaign was “playing the race card.”

However, Obama chose not to focus on socio-economic class to the extent Mamdani did: the former built an unprecedented small dollar-donor network, but still relied upon the Billionaire class for campaign contributions; whereas the latter, benefiting from a generous matching funds program, eschewed the backing of real estate developers and corporations. Mamdani explicitly spoke of the need to decrease costs-of-living, and introduced several policy proposals to do just that; Obama invoked the need for generational change, but was nonetheless embraced by the institutional and financial elite.

Their respective victories lacked strong support from core voting blocs once considered a prerequisite to prevail in the Democratic Primary: Obama struggled with white working-class voters; whereas Mamdani lost the Black vote by double-digits. Nonetheless, each over-performed with the fastest growing demographics within the electorate. Obama's "Coalition of the Ascendant" relied upon racial minorities, millennials and college-educated women; whereas Mamdani's "Coalition of the In-Between" fused millennials (now older, but still confined to the renter class), Muslims, and college-educated liberals. In both, the Democratic Party’s educational realignment is evident, yet the preeminent thread that binds them is historical support from younger and lower-propensity voters.

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But what became of Obama’s movement?

A historic landslide ushered in Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. In the mold of Abraham Lincoln, Obama assembled a “Team of Rivals” cabinet, eager to usher in the post-partisan era he had promised. The Affordable Care Act was passed, Wall Street recovered, and Main Street slowly bled out. Talk of unity fell flat, polarization deepened, and Obama’s appeals to decency lacked any utility when dealing with the modern GOP. Without the President on the ballot, Democrats were annihilated in the midterm elections, instantly rendering Obama's agenda dead on arrival over his final six years. Despite many of the fundamentals being tilted against him, Obama was re-elected in 2012, once more earning an outright majority of the popular vote. The “Coalition of the Ascendant” carried the day, as Obama dominated amongst younger voters, Hispanics, and Asians — the fastest growing demographics in the United States, particularly in the Southwest. His support in the Black community was almost unanimous (one election district in Bedford Stuyvesant cast 612 votes for Obama and 0 for Romney). The Republican Party entered a period of soul-searching that culminated in Donald Trump’s hostile takeover. John McCain, Obama’s opponent in 2008, announced he would cast a write-in ballot because of Trump’s “locker room talk.” Nevermind that the President could not convince Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire or confirm Antonin Scalia’s replacement due to the GOP-controlled Senate; for Obama’s hand-picked successor, Hillary Clinton, would surely win. However, amidst a tidal wave of white working-class backlash, she did not. Obama had withstood these very currents, embodied by the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus, because of his singular political talent, but many of his contemporaries in the Democratic Party, Clinton included, were not so lucky. The real estate mogul whom the President had gleefully roasted at the White House Correspondents Dinner would inherit the Oval Office. The working-class of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania who had twice voted for Barack Hussein Obama as an avatar of change saw Donald Trump in a similar vein. In some of the poorest counties in America, many crossed over or stayed home.

As Obama left the White House, there was little infrastructure to rebuild from. It didn’t have to be this way. Organizing for America, a small-dollar donor magnet, supplanted the moribund DNC as Obama’s primary campaign apparatus during his Presidency: “Obama reasoned that he could become the party, his dynamic and charismatic personality carrying it at the national level.” However, the Democratic Party shed one thousand seats across the country during Obama’s Presidency. Four years later, the shadow of the former President loomed large over the Democratic Primary field. Every candidate met with Obama multiple times, who dabbled between party elder and power broker, content to step back and let the process play out. At least, until Bernie Sanders emerged as the favorite to capture the nomination.

The Millennial Generation, more so than any other, was indelibly linked to Obama: packing his rallies, knocking doors in Iowa, and anchoring the largest volunteer network in American history, proving fundamental to his insurgent victory in 2008 and his re-election in 2012. However, over time, disillusionment crept in. Obama, personally, would always be revered, but his platitudes and trust of institutions could only deliver so much, especially as income inequality deepened following the financial crisis. The cost of college, owed to administrative bloat, ballooned. The Affordable Care Act, while impactful (particularly for those on their parent’s insurance), felt like a drop in the bucket as the healthcare insurance industry banked record profits. Homeownership, the quintessential American building block, was rendered out-of-reach for the youngest generation. In debt and permanently confined to the renter class, fewer Millennials started families. Bernie Sanders understood this malaise, so much so that he briefly mulled a primary challenge to the sitting President. After Obama left office, despite his wishes to the contrary, Millennials gravitated to more class-based, unabashedly progressive candidates. In both 2016 and 2020, they flocked to the Vermont Independent. The salience of Sanders revealed an appetite for the Democratic Party to do more than simply return to the pre-Trump status quo; an implicit judgement of the Obama era, an admission that all was not well, and what came next was not an accident.

Sanders had been surging, earning the most votes in Iowa, winning New Hampshire, and delivering a landslide in Nevada. Cable news pundits were apoplectic. Were Sanders to win South Carolina, the nomination would be sewn up. However, the democratic socialist stumbled with the Palmetto State’s predominantly Black electorate; Joe Biden, on the ropes following a disastrous run in the first three states, dominated, owed in large part to his close relationship with the first Black President. With blood in the water and Biden’s fortunes resurrected, Obama, thus far reluctant to engage in the Primary, pushed in his chips, nudging Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar out of the race, consolidating support for his Vice President. In one week, Sanders went from the favorite to win the nomination to stumbling into Super Tuesday. Unable to broker a deal with Senator Elizabeth Warren, Sanders failed to court the liberal left and routinely excoriated the mainstream press. “That was the rub with Sanders,” observers mused, “he can’t build broad coalitions.” In every state with a significant Black population, Sanders was crushed. Like Obama, Sanders had created a movement, but failed to build a lasting organization that went beyond himself.

In spite of his victory in November, Obama’s original doubts about Biden eventually proved correct. Determined to run for re-election despite a majority of Americans opining, repeatedly, that he was too old, Biden eschewed the torch passing he had once promised. Democratic over-performance in the midterm elections — fallout from Dobbs, atrocious GOP candidates, and the Party’s realignment towards higher-propensity voters — proved to be a mirage, insulating Biden from calls to not run for re-election. Despite slagging approval ratings, the incumbent went virtually unchallenged in the Democratic Primary, as a declining Biden hurtled towards the first Presidential debate. Biden’s performance, a ninety minute livestream of senility, was so disastrous that the Democratic Party did something unprecedented: force out the incumbent President on the eve of an election, rather than face a catastrophic wipeout in November. Some of Obama’s top allies (George Clooney, Pod Save America) were among the first to sound the alarm, and the former President did little to pacify the mounting public pressure. Biden, mortally wounded, stepped aside weeks later. In keeping with Obama era tradition, the torch was passed to the Vice President. However, Obama was also skeptical of Kamala Harris, reportedly preferred a ticket of Gretchen Whitmer and Wes Moore, but was disarmed by Biden’s endorsement, which preceded an onslaught of institutional support. So it was that Harris, the former prosecutor and early supporter of Obama, who ran for President already and flopped, would be tasked with preserving his coalition.

Harris campaigned alongside Liz Cheney, playing to the bi-partisan themes of Obama’s first campaign. She elevated Mark Cuban as a top surrogate, despite his hostility towards Lina Khan for insufficiently placating the business community during her tenure as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Most importantly, the Vice President refused to distance herself (in any respect) from the unpopular President. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote easily, only losing because of the Comey letter. Her defeat had been a fluke. Joe Biden won the most votes in the history of the United States. Kamala Harris was not Donald Trump, and that would be enough. Until it wasn’t.

Harris lost all seven swing states. The multi-racial coalition was in tatters, as Hispanics and Asians defected to Trump in droves. Young men had not only abandoned the Democratic Party, but rebuked it. It was not just the white working-class in the industrial Midwest, but the black and brown working poor in the Bronx and Queens. A movement — one that had elevated Obama to two terms, anointed Clinton his successor, resurrected Biden, and spawned Harris — had been reduced to ashes, if it ever existed at all.

As it was all slipping away, Obama appeared at Harris’s campaign office in Pittsburgh. Her slagging poll numbers among Black voters, specifically the working-class urban dwellers Obama had once intimately known from his days as a community organizer, was top of mind. “I’m going to speak some truths, if you don’t mind.” Black enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for Harris, seemed “to be more pronounced with the brothas.” With only weeks left to salvage the operation, time was of the essence. Obama chided Black men for making “excuses,” insinuating their reticence to support Harris was solely based on her gender: “part of it makes me think that you just aren’t feeling having a woman President.” At that moment, Obama did not sound like the first Black President who had inspired millions, but rather the lecturing professor from Hyde Park, struggling to connect with his working-class audience on the South Side of Chicago. Gone was the soaring, post-partisan rhetoric of the past. No hope and change, only accusations and shame.

In stark contrast was Zohran Mamdani, the thirty-three year old State Assemblyman from Queens, who emerged from the algorithmic abyss as the Democratic Party contemplated its future. The longshot Mayoral candidate took to Hillside Avenue and Fordham Road in the wake of Trump’s victory — two working-class thoroughfares that swung dramatically towards the Republican nominee — to ask voters why. The political unknown seldom spoke beyond asking questions. Instead of reciting a tired monologue, he listened to the concerns of each voter before sharing his own policy prescriptions for addressing costs-of-living. “Are these policies you would vote for,” he closed, providing a real-time model for how Democrats should approach the Trump-curious. “Absolutely,” several replied. In the Democratic Primary, many immigrant-heavy neighborhoods did just that.

Mamdani, who earned the most votes in the history of New York City primary elections, is still enjoying the honeymoon phase. On pace to win the General Election convincingly, the Democratic nominee will campaign for two more months before setting his sights on transitioning to City Hall. The Constitution forbids Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, from serving as President of the United States, a blessing in disguise. At age thirty-four, Mamdani will have no higher office to angle for. Nor will he be marooned in the swampland of Washington DC, forced to answer pedantic questions everyday about twenty-twenty-eight. Instead, Mamdani can focus on governing, and leave it to others to learn the many lessons of his campaign.

What happens to Mamdani’s coalition will define his legacy. While the youth movement was years in the making — forged in the hyper-politicized era of Obama, Sanders and Trump — Mamdani harnessed their energy better than any one of his contemporaries. Instead of “generational change” platitudes, he spoke directly to the costs of living crisis. Many of his Millennial supporters tell me this: “I first canvassed for Obama and felt so moved, but I quickly grew disillusioned. He ran as anti-war and anti-establishment, but closed the door when he became President.” Now, they look to Mamdani for hope and change, and so much more. The democratic socialist has also built bridges to the liberal-left, winning the enthusiastic support of Brad Lander and Micah Lasher, in a way Bernie Sanders never could (or seemed interested in doing). Most importantly, the Zohran Coalition went beyond one man.

Mamdani will enter City Hall with a smorgasburg of left-leaning organizations eager to help. Many, like NYC-DSA (the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America) and Drum Beats (Desis Rising Up and Moving), have been in Mamdani’s corner since the beginning, and were tantamount to expanding the electorate. The Working Families Party, owed to their ballot line, is bound by separate (and more lenient) campaign finance regulations, and has become the local left’s counterweight in the Super PAC era. Of course, Mamdani’s victory strengthened these organizations — increasing membership, spurring donations, creating earned media — but each had already been building power, independent of the candidate, for years. These are not the infamous “groups” oft-invoked by the pundit class, but civic minded local institutions whose views are well-represented within the electorate. Nevertheless, they still comprise a fraction of Mamdani’s volunteer base (NYC-DSA has ten-thousand members, Mamdani has sixty-thousand volunteers). The Democratic nominee’s ability to consistently engage the fifty thousand volunteers not tethered to any year-round organizing apparatus will be tantamount to his success.

Some may be tempted to ask: what if the fickle youth, with their limited attention spans, eventually discard Mayor Mamdani, a TikTok trend that has run its course, particularly if he struggles to deliver on his ambitious agenda? Perhaps, after an adulthood spent being kicked in the teeth by politicians, young people are just grateful that someone, finally, is at least trying. The tens of thousands of volunteers who flocked to the Mamdani campaign were animated by class-consciousness and cutting-edge social media, but they returned — day-after-day, week-after-week — to climb fifth floor walk ups and talk to strangers, because of a sense of belonging.

“In Obama’s telling, external pressures—the Republicans, the press—always nudge him toward loneliness. The salve—in many ways, the theme of his story—is comradeship.” (The New Yorker)

Without a doubt, Zohran Mamdani has that in spades.

Connect With Me:

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelLangeNYC

Email me at Michael.James.Lange@gmail.com

The Democratic Party has the lowest approval rating in thirty-five years.

Ever since Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris last November, the first Republican to win the popular vote in twenty years, Democrats have been soul-searching with respect to their Party’s future. Amidst this wilderness, several figures have attempted to fill the vacuum and chart a course forward. Bernie Sanders launched the Fight Oligarchy tour, naming the corporate elite as the villains hallowing out the working-class and capturing the political establishment. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson co-authored Abundance, which detailed how well-intentioned liberal regulations have stonewalled public infrastructure, while providing a roadmap for how Democrats can pivot into a Party of builders, drawing rave reviews from the institutional elite. Yet, there were remarkably few “big ideas” coming from top Democrats, let alone innovative recipes on how to win elections in this new era.

Then came Zohran Mamdani.

Mamdani, a Muslim democratic socialist from Western Queens, toppled former Governor Andrew Cuomo, the scion of a New York political dynasty. Charismatic and disciplined, Mamdani rose from one-percent in the polls, fusing social media savvy with an unabashedly economic populist message, to realign the Democratic electorate across the five boroughs. In the process, the insurgent weathered thirty-five million dollars in negative advertisements from Real Estate and Pro-Israel forces, ultimately receiving the most votes in the history of New York City primary elections.

However, the reaction to Mamdani’s stunning victory among Democratic Party leaders, particularly those in New York, has been one of distance. Thus far, neither Hakeem Jeffries nor Chuck Schumer — both constituents come January — and the House and Senate Democratic leaders respectively, have not endorsed Mamdani. National Democrats appear intent to cherry-pick elements of Mamdani’s appeal, limiting their praise to “affordability” and relatable vertical-videos. While both were integral to Mamdani’s success, they represent a fraction of his breakthrough. Perhaps the brilliance of Mamdani is that his triumph cannot be attributed to any one “thing,” but a confluence of multiple factors: some replicable, some entirely unique.

Undoubtedly, I am not the first on the scene. The “What can Democrats Learn from Mamdani” article genre is already a saturated and intensely debated market. Each piece is unique and interesting, but none, in my estimation, have captured the totality of Mamdani’s success — much less attempted to differentiate what can and cannot be reproduced.

Here, I will break down my “Mamdani Model” with an eye to how Democrats can build on his success elsewhere. My friends on the left may be disappointed that this piece does not wholeheartedly endorse every aspect of Mamdani’s democratic socialist ideology as the most consequential engine behind his victory; the candidate’s own evolution on policing, necessary and ultimately successful, in service of cultivating greater support from working-class voters is evidence of this. However, for establishment-aligned moderates, there will be harsher lessons: namely the pending alienation of the next generation of Democrats, who are significantly to the left of Party leadership with respect to economic remedies and Palestine. One slick video cannot undo decades of eroded institutional trust. Just ask Andrew Cuomo.

Notably, my blueprint is not solely designed for candidates running in urban Democratic primaries, but those facing competitive General elections well beyond New York City. In the interest of transparency, I will also detail four important factors that I believe are less replicable from Mamdani’s victory: specific to him, his opponents, macro political conditions, and the five boroughs themselves. Lastly, each lesson should not be taken one-by-one. They are complementary, greater than the sum of their parts.

So, what can we learn from the Democratic-nominee so many Party leaders are afraid to endorse?

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Table of Contents

Most Replicable

• Message: Bread and Butter Economics (“Affordability”)

• Ethos: Work Ethic & Affirmative Vision

• Dissemination: The Social Network

• Trust & Authenticity: The Palestine Answer

• Roots: Local Infrastructure

• Ambition: Expanding the Electorate

Least Replicable

• Attention Economy Hegemony: New York City, off-year election

• Macro Political Conditions: Trump 2.0

• Candidate Quality: The Generation Talent vs. Scandal-Scarred Status Quo

• New York City’s Diversity

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Most Replicable

Message: Bread and Butter Economics (“Affordability”)

From the onset of his campaign, Zohran Mamdani relentlessly focused on affordability and costs-of-living: rising rents, expensive groceries, unaffordable childcare.

The notion, while simple and obvious in hindsight, was a stroke of genius at the time. In the nation’s most expensive city, income inequality has been a potent political message for decades, famously a cornerstone of Bill de Blasio’s “Tale of Two Cities” campaign twelve years ago. During COVID, as crime spiked following a steady, multi-year decline, public safety rose in salience; while costs-of-living (specifically rent), was pushed to the back burner, the consequence of temporary outmigration that momentarily softened the housing market. As New York City’s population rebounded and post-pandemic inflation spiked, those “in-between,” namely the infinitely diverse and increasingly young renter class, were hit the hardest.

On June 24th, this cohort formed the bedrock of the Zohran Coalition.

While one may disagree with the efficacy of Mamdani’s proposed solutions, few can debate the effectiveness of how the democratic socialist packaged his ideas.

• Freeze The Rent.

• Fast and Free Buses.

• Universal Childcare.

• Municipal Grocery Stores.

Not only did each plank address the four greatest costs of living (housing, transportation, childcare, food), every slogan — no more than three words — was simple in nature and easy to digest; a far cry from the large policy plans Democrats intro’d during the 2020 Presidential race. So discernible was the Mamdani platform that enthusiastic canvassers could repeat it on command.

Can anyone name a solution that Andrew Cuomo championed during the primary?

An Affirmative Vision

It would have been easy for Zohran Mamdani to fall into the trap of constantly going negative on Andrew Cuomo. After all, there was not a lack of material to draw from.

Yet, while Mamdani occasionally traded barbs with the former Governor, he always did so in contrast, never letting said sparring dilute his own message.

In the final weeks of the campaign, operatives opined that the race, once a referendum on Cuomo, had shifted to a referendum on Mamdani — presenting a last-minute obstacle for the insurgent. However, the more voters saw Zohran Mamdani, the more they liked him.

Why? Because the charismatic assemblyman was not running as solely an anti-Cuomo vessel content to exclusively bash the frontrunner, but an authentic new leader with bold and innovative ideas.

Democrats learned the hard way in 2016 and 2024: merely running against your opponent, no matter how repulsive they are, does not guarantee victory. Constant criticism not only gives the opponent more attention, but simultaneously deprives the candidate of a chance to articulate and build consensus for their own vision.

Mamdani actively practiced joy on the campaign trail — the candidate’s radiant smile, lighthearted laugh, and warm demeanor were a staple of every interaction — while conveying a genuine love of place. Cuomo routinely painted the city as a hell-hole, despite living in the suburbs for thirty years prior, and rarely campaigned upon his return.

Andrew Cuomo played to New Yorkers’ resentments, while Zohran Mamdani appealed to their aspirations. For working-class Americans, each day carries the prospect of stress and anxiety. While today’s news media ecosystem, particularly with respect to politics, feeds off fear and depression, the best candidates inspire hope, rather than despair. The essence of Mamdani’s vision was just that: “let’s address costs-of-living so neighborhoods can endure and all residents — natives, immigrants, and transplants — can remain in their homes.”

Hard Work

The final day of the primary campaign, where temperatures peaked at one hundred degrees, was a metaphor for the entire race. Zohran Mamdani began the day with a sunrise press conference in Astoria Park: “A young man running through the tape, up against an old man paying and pressing people to push his message,” journalist Harry Siegel aptly observed.

Andrew Cuomo did not publicly appear until a little before noon. He voted at his polling location in the tony Manhattan neighborhood of Sutton Place (despite endorsements from Jessica Ramos and Whitney Tilson, the former Governor only ranked himself), before speeding away in his Dodge Charger, not to be seen again until after the polls closed. Amidst the worst heat wave of the year, Mamdani criss-crossed the municipality while Cuomo was sequestered by aides, intent to reduce his exposure and run out the clock.

Even before Mamdani was on the precipice of history, the little-known Assemblyman made a point of showing up everywhere. Quite literally, in a city of almost nine million, that would have been impossible, but where Mamdani could not be present in-person, he multiplied himself digitally, while his volunteer army (exceeding fifty-thousand) filled in the gaps physically.

Dissemination: The Social Network

Zohran Mamdani’s breakout moment was less than 180 seconds.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory last November, Mamdani took to Hillside Avenue in Queens and Fordham Road in the Bronx — two working-class thoroughfares that swung dramatically towards the Republican nominee — to ask several Trump voters WHY.

Not only did Mamdani’s video go viral (the first of many such instances), an early breakout moment for the unknown underdog, the candidate seldom spoke beyond asking questions — a rarity in politics. Instead of reciting a tired monologue, Mamdani listened to the concerns of each voter before sharing his own policy prescriptions for addressing costs-of-living.

“Are these policies you would vote for,” he closed, providing a real-time model for how Democrats should approach (and attempt to win back) the Trump-curious. “Absolutely,” several replied.

Over the next nine months, Zohran Mamdani and his excellent team (Andrew Epstein, Donald Borenstein, Debbie Saslaw, Olivia Becker and Anthony DiMieri) produced dozens of acclaimed videos, both short and long.

Halalflation. Something Different on the Menu. Freeze The Rent. Will you be my Democrat? Keep the Meter running. Free Mahmoud Khalil. Why we walked the length of Manhattan. Small Business, Big Priority. Zohran x Mero. Indeed, there’s something for everyone, and the list goes on…

While covering a variety of topics, each video naturally fits Mamdani’s personality. Undoubtedly, the thirty-three year old (and his millennial-heavy staff) were native to social media to an extent his opponents were not. The campaign’s paid media strategist, Morris Katz, told New York Magazine: “A lot of times, the consultant approach is you have your playbook and you’re jamming these candidates into your playbook. With Zohran, it’s the other way around… That’s our campaign motto: ‘Let Zohran cook.’” And cook he did.

Slowly but surely, Mamdani’s presence became ubiquitous to young voters, omnipresent on the mediums they frequented for both news and leisure. Mamdani filmed videos in Spanish, Urdu, and Bangla; commensurate with the insurgent’s commitment to reach out to historically-overlooked voting blocs. The force multiplication of such an effort (every retweet, Instagram story, and Whatsapp message) became exponential by the race’s conclusion. One video at a time, Zohran Mamdani not only defined himself to voters, but broadened the electorate in the process; inoculating the democratic socialist from a flurry of attack ads that blanketed the airwaves over the race’s closing weeks.

Ironically, Andrew Cuomo of all people should have internalized the value of maintaining a seen-at-all-times media presence, given the apex of his popularity coincided with his daily pandemic briefings. Five years later, the former Governor was nowhere to be found on the campaign trail.

However, even the slickest social media will be set up to fail if they lack an interesting and potent message. Cuomo, attempting an ill-fated Independent bid ahead of the November Election, is now accompanied by his own film crew, while his New York Post-parody Twitter account has been handed over to a snappy staffer. He will be one of many candidates across the country destined to learn this lesson the hard way.

Yet, perhaps Mamdani’s greatest competitive advantage came from the scores of volunteers (the campaign estimates fifty-thousand plus), who donated their time to knock doors, make phone calls, and speak to their neighbors — over-and-over again. They did so not out of pressure but principle, believing not only in Mamdani, but in the impact of one conversation.

One of Mamdani’s colleagues in Albany told me: “When I ran for office, [my opponent] had one person on his staff who was an incredible campaigner. Knew his positions, knew his bio, was great with people, and fought for every vote on the street. He won a lot of votes for [my opponent]. Zohran had tens of thousands of those people. Cuomo had none.”

In the days of Mario Cuomo, the Democratic Party had real organizations. Precinct captains went from “block-to-block whipping votes, inserted themselves into neighborhood struggles, and ensured their local clubs were packed with volunteers.” Residents wanted to belong to a sort of civic life, and the machines fulfilled that modest wish. Today, “these organizations carry on as phantoms, as after-images of a different age.” In the vacuum of neighborhood, special interests filled the void, bankrolling Andrew Cuomo.

On the contrary, Zohran Mamdani tapped into something far greater than himself. Of course, the fifty-thousand volunteers who flocked to the democratic socialist were animated by class-consciousness and cutting-edge social media, but they returned — day-after-day, week-after-week — to climb those fifth floor walk ups and talk to strangers, because of a sense of belonging, one that has not existed in local politics, at this scale, in a long time. Knocking doors “was not something to be endured,” recounted one senior campaign official. Indeed, volunteers would return from shifts eagerly asking, “when can we do this again?” Mamdani laid claim to a movement that connected people; Cuomo only cared about resuscitating his own career.

Obviously, not every campaign can achieve fifty-thousand volunteers, but the Mamdani Model of (1) an affirmative, solution-driven vision with (2) a relentless focus on costs-of-living that (3) inspires younger generations via new media can build proportional grassroots support.

However, that thesis alone is incomplete without authenticity and trust, and one issue has become the litmus test for both among the youngest generations of Democrats: Palestine.

Trust & Authenticity: The Palestine Answer

During the first debate, each candidate was asked: “What country would you visit first as Mayor?" Several, almost reflexively, said “Israel” or “The Holy Land.” However, Mamdani’s response, “I plan to stay in New York,” rankled both his opponents and the moderators.

Melissa Russo pressed him: “Mr. Mamdani, do you believe Israel has a right to exist?”

“I believe Israel does have a right to exist,” he responded, “as a state with equal rights.”

Mamdani’s response, and the exchange altogether, was a watershed moment in the Democratic Primary.

In the immediate aftermath, the political and pundit class cried foul, contending Mamdani had made a tactical blunder. However, the voting public overwhelmingly sided with Mamdani, as many left the exchange asking themselves: “What does Israel have to do with managing New York City?”

Indeed, the political overton window has shifted so much that Nate Cohn is writing in The New York Times: “[progressives] can criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank with confidence that Democratic primary voters are sympathetic to their views. In doing so, they would put many mainstream Democratic politicians in a difficult spot… Affordability and Israel give them new opportunities and put mainstream Democrats in a challenging spot.”

Public polling has shifted as well. Seventy-eight percent of Democratic Primary voters in New York City believe Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. Looking ahead to the General Election in November, Mamdani enjoys a commanding margin with both “reform and secular” Jews (+33) and Jewish voters under-45, where Mamdani leads with sixty-seven percent of the vote.

The War in Gaza, amidst the backdrop of the Pro-Israel lobby’s influence in Washington, has been the pre-eminent fault line in the Democratic Party since October 7th. For over a year, opposition to arming the Israeli government was confined almost exclusively to the party’s leftmost flank, despite the indiscriminate killing of civilians continuing unabating. However, in recent weeks, as the widespread famine in Gaza reached the tipping point of mass starvation, the Democratic Party’s tone on Israel has shifted. “A vast majority of left-leaning voters under 50 take a dim view of Israel, and that trend will only accelerate in the coming years. The median American liberal sees almost nothing to celebrate with Israel since right-wing parties have dominated the Jewish State’s politics for a generation,” writes Ross Barkan. Two weeks ago, twenty-seven Democratic Senators supported Bernie Sanders’ resolution blocking arms sales to Israel (both New York Senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, voted “no”). Nor is the outrage confined to the Democratic Party, as various factions of the MAGA-verse, most prominently “America First” conservatives (from Thomas Massie to Marjorie Taylor Greene), have become increasingly incensed at what has been, up until recently, the bi-partisan consensus.

Unquestionably, a willingness (or not) to stand up to the Israeli government doubles as a litmus test for a candidate’s integrity and ability to withstand pressure. Even for voters with little opinion on the conflict, a politician caving in the face of stringent opposition from the Pro-Israel lobby signals to the public that other inevitable pressures from special interests would be comparably effective. This issue, perhaps more starkly than any other, pits the whims of the donor class directly against that of the constituents.

As such, it will be almost impossible for any Democrat to win a non-infinitesimal share of young voters in the 2028 Presidential Primary without pledging a radical departure from the US-Israel status quo. Anything less may be an irrevocable liability in the General Election as well, with Gallup finding a majority of Americans disapprove of Israel's actions, with astonishingly low marks among people of color (-53), Independents (-43), high school graduates (-35), and low-income voters (-39), the demographics that experienced the most pronounced shifts toward Donald Trump last November.

Given Zohran Mamdani — who pledged to arrest Netanyahu for war crimes and has consistently asserted the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza — just won the Democratic Primary in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world: what excuse does any politician have for denying the atrocities, funded by US tax dollars, unfolding before our eyes?

The next generation of Democrats are surely taking notice.

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Roots: Local Infrastructure

Allow me to be a stubborn New York City native for one second.

The vast majority of Zohran Mamdani’s “Inner Circle” are native or longstanding residents of New York City. Most importantly, the candidate himself was raised in Manhattan, went to high school in the Bronx, ran successive campaigns in Brooklyn, and represents Queens in the State Legislature. Contrast that with the opposition. Melissa DeRosa lives in Warren County, while Rich Azzopardi resides in Albany. Andrew Cuomo was a resident of Westchester County and Albany for the three decades prior to his campaign. More than one hundred and seventy-five thousand primary voters were not born the last time Cuomo resided in New York City.

This was reflected in each campaign’s attitude towards New York City.

The former Governor painted the subways as unsafe, the streets overrun by the mentally-ill and homeless, and the wealthy tax base fleeing en masse. Cuomo’s characterization of New York City felt akin to suburban scolding; more commensurate with a purple district reactionary from Nassau County than someone auditioning to lead the infinitely-nuanced five borough mosaic. Whereas Mamdani was cast as the “Happy Warrior,” celebrating the city for its virtues, while consistently playing to the viewer's curiosity about their own backyard (re: visiting City Island). This intuition was best embodied by Mamdani’s seventeen mile walk of Manhattan, which took place the Friday before the Primary. As Mamdani strode down Amsterdam and Broadway — cars rolled down their windows and honked their horns, while passersby stopped for photos on almost every block — the scene was reminiscent of those which accompanied beloved Mayors of old, such as liberal reformer John Lindsay and the Little Flower himself, Fiorello Laguardia.

A tepid connection to New York City, rooted in a bygone era, made the Cuomo campaign more reliant on political institutions whose trust was eroding and influence waning. Cuomo advisor Chris Coffey told CNN: “Had we run a perfect campaign, I’m not sure the outcome would have been different… the senior leadership team helped bring on board most big unions, electeds, every business group, top-notch donors and supporters like Mike Bloomberg, mended fences with and turned out Hasidic Jews, helped every editorial board to be for us or against our opposition.” Indeed, such was the traditional playbook — financial elite, labor unions, elected endorsements — for success in New York City’s municipal elections.

However, with each passing decade, those respective institutions were gradually losing their foothold within the Democratic electorate, the consequence of neglect and macro political forces. Avowedly left-leaning movements, most notably NYC-DSA, filled the vacuum; appealing directly to the next generation of Democrats, and consistently expanding their influence and infrastructure since 2016. The Working Families Party has been battling Cuomo for years, and helped to cohere the non-Cuomo candidates into a pseudo non-aggression pact. DRUM Beats (Desis Rising Up and Moving) backed Mamdani from Day #1, contributing invaluable organizing and expertise across the city’s countless South Asian enclaves. D-R-E-A-M (“Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor”) became an effective guerrilla communications campaign that was borne of these movements. Said mass-member organizations are not only capable of marshalling hundreds of volunteers to knock on doors, a significant competitive advantage in any downballot campaign, but also serve as year-round hubs for aspiring and talented organizers, many of whom had known Mamdani for years and subsequently worked on his campaign.

Against the financial largess of Andrew Cuomo’s Super PAC, which enjoyed unchecked hegemony on the airwaves during the race’s final weeks, Mamdani’s local infrastructure — pounding the pavement, blanketing the algorithm — helped inoculate the insurgent from the onslaught of attacks. Most importantly, said infrastructure was not explicitly political, taking on a social aspect as well; force multiplied through every tweet, Instagram story, and Whatsapp text. While the youngest generations of New Yorkers may have lacked a discernible connection to the political institutions of yore, their social networks proved invaluable in disseminating Mamdani’s message directly to the masses, organically building enthusiasm and virality.

Across the country, institutional trust has reached an all-time nadir, further compromising the political infrastructure of the past. Big money, while still a Goliath capable of buying attention on television, sees diminishing returns in high-salience campaigns (President, New York City Mayor, Battleground Senate), particularly with civically-engaged partisans and younger voters.

Of course, Zohran Mamdani rewrote the playbook, but he took advantage of trends already in place.

Ambition: Expanding The Electorate

Through all of the above, Zohran Mamdani changed the Democratic electorate in New York City.

That was not an accident, but the culmination of a well-executed, multi-month plan by the Mamdani campaign. Nor was it easy, requiring early resource investment (volunteers, money) in segments of the electorate written off by the political class, given their historically lower turnout.

Mamdani staked his campaign on mobilizing progressive young voters, rent stabilized tenants, South Asians and Muslims like never before — betting they would flock to the polls if given something to vote for. The gamble paid off handsomely, and foregrounds the importance of viewing the electorate as malleable and ever-evolving, rather than set in stone.

As extensively detailed by Aaron Fernando, this effort began with the creation of the voter “universe,” the collection of Democrats the campaign focuses on talking to, which centered on those four aforementioned blocs. While “progressive” precincts and voter ages are relatively easy to identify, the infinite nuance of ethnic enclaves are less so, particularly given that campaign databases are severely lacking on this front. Thus, the Mamdani campaign undertook a rigorous last name analysis of every Democratic voter in the city, to ensure no prospective voter was missed. Traditionally in Democratic Primaries, the universe skews heavily towards “triple prime” voters, shorthand for those who have voted in the three most recent primary elections; come hell or high water, these folks can be counted on to show up at the polls. However, the Mamdani campaign eschewed this orthodoxy: “Our final universe was equal parts triple prime and zero prime, with large numbers of Muslim and South Asian voters in addition to recent registrants.”

This targeted ground game, when combined with Mamdani’s social media prowess — the candidate spoke Spanish, Bangla, and Urdu — proved to be remarkably effective. The video recorded days before the registration deadline for the Democratic Primary (which neatly coincided with Valentine's Day) inspired thirty-five thousand additional registrants; presumably motivated solely by a desire to eventually cast a ballot for Mamdani. Four days before the Primary, campaign volunteers visited an eye-popping 135 mosques across the five boroughs for Friday Prayers; whereas Cuomo, when asked by Erroll Louis why, during his more decade-long tenure as Governor, he had failed to publicly visit a mosque, unconvincingly responded, “I believe I have,” though he “couldn’t remember where, when, or with whom.”

Mamdani won many neighborhoods where his campaign never canvassed, a testament to this layered outreach. Not only did the insurgent harness mediums whose reach his opponents failed to understand, he courted voting blocs they overlooked; multiplying his support where it was already strong, and building name recognition where he was previously unknown.

The results are hard to dispute. Zohran Mamdani not only expanded the electorate in key progressive areas, the democratic socialist coalesced an unprecedented level of support, routinely crushing Cuomo by between forty and sixty percent across several neighborhoods spanning the now-infamous Commie Corridor. In the Palestinian precincts of Bay Ridge, Bangladeshi blocks of Kensington and Jamaica Hills, and Muslim enclaves of Brighton Beach and Westchester Square, Mamdani thoroughly routed the competition. In working-class neighborhoods where the left had previously failed, many of which swung dramatically towards Donald Trump last November, Mamdani broke through. And, while the insurgent lost Black voters overall (the lone racial demographic Cuomo won), in the handful of neighborhoods with a large share of Black Millennials (Bed-Stuy, Flatbush, Crown Heights), Mamdani blew the doors off Cuomo. All told, a record number of young and “low propensity” voters had participated in the Democratic Primary — spurred by the charismatic underdog they had come to believe in.

When the results came in, Andrew Cuomo had won more votes than Eric Adams four years prior. He lost by one-hundred and thirty thousand ballots.

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Least Replicable

Zohran Mamdani was the right candidate in the right place at the right time.

Attention Economy Hegemony: New York City, off-year election

Undoubtedly, Zohran Mamdani was aided by the where and when of his campaign.

Indeed, Mamdani was running for Mayor of the largest city in America; at the heart of both capitalism (Wall Street) and elite media (The New York Times). Furthermore, the political calendar, following last November’s Presidential election, was relatively bare of competition: the sole other Democratic Primary of note was in neighboring New Jersey (where Rep. Mickie Sherill routed her opponents). While national Democrats opined about the Party’s future, Zohran Mamdani stepped into the Attention Economy vacuum.

On this front, Mamdani also benefited from the shortcomings of his opponents. His chief foil, Andrew Cuomo, was not only anonymous on the campaign trail, but lacked any presence whatsoever on the internet; content to inundate cable news and broadcast television. Brad Lander, the left-liberal Comptroller who allied with Mamdani in the race’s final days, also tried his hand at videos following Mamdani’s successes, but his efforts came across as less organic and more copycat. Indeed, the importance of playing to the candidate’s strength, and finding the appropriate medium to convey their message, cannot be overlooked. As such, Mamdani enjoyed attention hegemony among younger voters due to his ubiquitous presence on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok:

“If you’re online, he seems to be the only candidate with Wi-Fi.”

However, Democrats across the country should not expect to replicate Mamdani’s chokehold on attention, the scarcest and most valuable resource in politics. As the vertical video era commences, candidates will inevitably oversaturate the internet in midterm and presidential election years, making it difficult for those outside large media markets without significant pre-existing social media followings to break out from the crowded pack.

So what’s the best hope of differentiating oneself? Message Quality.

Fertile Macro Political Conditions: Trump 2.0

How would the race for New York City Mayor have changed if Kamala Harris was President?

The return of Donald Trump to power fundamentally destabilized the Democratic Party establishment. As the latter’s approval eroded in the early days of Trump 2.0, the ground for insurgency, barren during the Biden administration, was fertile once again. With the Party increasingly defined by the “Fighter vs. Folder” axis, rather than explicitly ideological lines, the insurgent bid of Zohran Mamdani benefited. Andrew Cuomo — an acolyte of the Clinton family felled by sexual harassment scandals — neatly embodied the status quo Democrats have come to revile. Mamdani not only represented a clean break from the past, but an affirmative vision for the future: bringing down costs-of-living, fighting for human rights, showing up everywhere.

While macro political conditions are fleeting, their impact is too often overlooked in post-election analysis. Over the next three years — peaking with federal elections next year, before culminating in the 2028 Presidential Primary — I do not anticipate the appetite for significant change (which can take on many forms) at the core of the Democratic Party will abate.

Strike while the iron is hot.

Candidate Quality Gap:

The Generation Talent vs. The Scandal-Scarred Status Quo

Zohran Mamdani, in every sense of the word, is a generational political talent. The son of a famous filmmaker and renowned academic, he is not only telegenic and brilliant, but personable and charismatic. Having cut his teeth on underdog campaigns in the outer boroughs, Mamdani possesses a deep understanding of not only New York City, but electoral politics. Crucially, his curiosity extends beyond insular political class chatter, or the boundaries of his own district. While Mamdani has the cerebral mind to remember important data, he maintains the limbic instincts to not get bogged down in numbers. Mamdani’s meta analysis of the five borough zeitgeist proved proficient. He did not tail opinion polling or elite opinion, which dictated that progressives were doomed on public safety and that support for Palestine was an electoral liability; rather, the democratic socialist stuck to his principles, framed the race around economic issues, and helped shift public opinion. Politics is emotional, voters want to feel heard by those vying to represent them. Zohran understands that as well as anyone I’ve ever met.

Mamdani’s youth and relative inexperience, derided as negatives by his corny opponents, were ultimately his greatest asset. The thirty-three year old was not only native to the countless mediums where young people consume the news, but understood the political appetite of his peers: left-leaning economics and a clear-break from the status quo. Having been in the Assembly for only four years, Mamdani had more institutional knowledge than the median insurgent, but retained enough distance from the establishment that he could diagnose their weaknesses. In the dead of winter polling at one-percent, Mamdani hustled as he would in June on the precipice of a historic upset — relentlessly. The manner in which Robert Caro described Lyndon Johnson, whose boundless energy helped carry the Hill Country-native to the Oval Office, was how I felt watching Zohran Mamdani campaign.

Whereas Caro’s words about Robert Moses proved a more apt comparison for Andrew Cuomo.

Amidst ever-worsening costs of living and an increasingly polarized national environment, the Cuomo campaign remained flat-footed and overly cautious, intent to stick to a bygone twentieth century script that never came close to meeting the political moment. While Mamdani rewrote the playbook altogether, Cuomo outsourced his paid media and field organizing to an allied Super PAC, whose coffers were filled by Real Estate and Pro-Israel megadonors. Having been forced to resign following thirteen allegations of sexual harassment and multiple investigations into a potential coverup of nursing home deaths by his administration, Cuomo was persona non grata to vast swaths of the Democratic electorate. Afraid of being asked about his scandal-scarred history, the former Governor was a ghost on the trail, rarely making public appearances (beyond a weekly appearance at a Black church) or speaking to journalists; despite said “Rose Garden” strategy hurting both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The notion that young people would support Andrew Cuomo was inconceivable.

While Mamdani was actively expanding the electorate, reaching “non-prime” voters written off by the consultant class; Cuomo was relying on nothing fundamentally changing from four years prior, seemingly unable to comprehend that each candidate had an obligation to motivate their respective supporters. As such, Mamdani’s base (young voters of all races and classes, white-collar professionals, South and East Asians, Muslims) voted at significantly higher rates than four years ago; whereas Cuomo’s support, compared to Eric Adams, either declined or plateaued. The pronounced enthusiasm gap was evidenced by thousands of excited canvassers pounding the pavement for Zohran Mamdani compared to halfhearted union workers forced by leadership to attend Andrew Cuomo’s rallies.

Zohran Mamdani was an excellent new-age candidate with a well-oiled machine behind him; inversely, Andrew Cuomo was a flawed avatar of the past buoyed by an out-of-touch operation.

New York City’s Diversity

The Democratic Primary electorate in New York City is uniquely diverse (White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters each exceed ten-percent), college-educated (over half the electorate), and young (fifty-one percent of primary voters were under-50).

Compare the five boroughs with the national Democratic Primary electorate and differences become stark: New England is heavily indexed towards upper-middle class, predominantly white suburbs and rurals; Black voters are a decided majority in the South; the Rust Belt is heavily-unionized with a significant white working-class population; the Sun Belt is increasingly young with a growing Hispanic population. In fact, only a handful of states (California, Illinois, New Jersey) can match New York’s diversity. Nationally, the Democratic Party is anchored by Black voters in the rural South and urban North combined with white, college-educated suburbanites. Indeed, one cannot win a Presidential Primary without a majority of support from either group. The cosmopolitan class, for which the Party’s brand is so closely associated due to their stranglehold on elite media and institutions, has little electoral foothold outside a handful of white-collar neighborhoods on each coast. While Mamdani was forced to navigate the politics of all three contingents (suburban, swing-district Democrats have kept him at arms length; Black voters broke decisively for Cuomo; as did the elite upper-crust), his path to victory was paved through the Sleeping Giant of New York City’s mosaic: an overlapping combination of young people, renters, Muslims and South Asians. While Mamdani performed well among white voters (+5), his best numbers came with Hispanic (+8) and Asian (+18) voters, enough for a thirteen point rout of Andrew Cuomo, despite the former Governor’s advantage with Black voters (+16).

Indeed, the uniqueness of Mamdani’s coalition does not lend itself to a simple copy-paste.

The United States as a whole remains relatively segregated by race. In the Democratic Primary, Mamdani performed well in the most “integrated” and multi-racial precincts, while Andrew Cuomo did best in the most racially homogenous election districts (either 90%+ Black or White). Housing was a preeminent factor in the election: Mamdani dominated among middle-income tenants, those most squeezed by rising rents; while Cuomo performed best with the homeowner class, more insulated from market-rate increases. According to The New York Times, renters were approximately seventy-percent of the electorate, and won by Zohran Mamdani by fourteen percent. However, outside of a select few urban areas, renters seldom outnumber homeowners by forty-percent in any electorate, given the stability afforded by the latter is historically commensurate with increased civic participation. Yet, as the housing market continues to contract across the Northeast Corridor, the permanent renter class is growing by the day.

Hence, the million dollar question: would the result of the Primary have changed were the setting different? Was Mamdani’s historic triumph solely a function of New York City? Or is democratic socialism coming to a district near you? The answer lies somewhere in-between.

I will leave you with an insightful quote from esteemed CUNY professor John Mollenkopf, a leading scholar on demographics, sociology, and urban politics:

“[New York City] represents what the United States will be like once native-born, non-Hispanic whites are no longer a majority of the population or even the potentially eligible electorate. We have significant representations of every constituency that is present across the country.”

Perhaps sooner than we think, the United States will look more and more like New York City.

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