🔗 Share this article

Just 48 hours before the NYC race for mayor, Michael Lange made a significant forecast – not just the winner overall, but block by block. Lange, an expert in elections who grew up in the city, has spent more than ten years in left-leaning activism and emerged as a kind of local celebrity this year for his deep dives into city data and voter surveys.

He published his extremely precise prediction map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani was victorious although failed to predict the independent candidate’s solid showing – on his Substack, the Narrative War. Lange possesses a talent for witty coinages. He highlighted, as an example, the split between the “commie corridor”, stretching from Park Slope to Bushwick to Astoria, where he forecasted (correctly) that Mamdani would win by huge margins, and the “capitalist corridor” on Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides. In those areas, “the Free Press and financial newspapers surpass the mainstream paper” in readership and most voters leaned toward the independent, campaigning as a conservative-courting independent.

Voting Day Patterns and Surprises

What was your night?

I had to do that because they were adding approximately 200K ballots into the system every few minutes! I was actually a little nervous at the beginning: The candidate led the initial ballots by a dozen percentage points, but came large groups of ballots that came in later and the advantage went from 12 to 8%. I was worried.

You know, it was possible where yesterday turned out kind of poorly for Mamdani, in which Cuomo would have basically increasing his support from the Democratic primary. But Mamdani gained 500,000 supporters to his initial base, and this was critical why he won. He went out and greatly broadened his support from the primary.

Expanding Support

How did Mamdani get additional support from?

He built the alliance that progressives long aimed for: it’s multiracial, it’s young, it’s renters and individuals squeezed by affordability. He improved significantly with minority communities, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the earlier election. Additionally he further maximized his core of left-leaning activists, young leftists, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without expanding his appeal.

He created the coalition that progressives long aimed for: diverse, youthful, tenants and residents struggling with costs

There were also a number of supporters of both candidates – is that a big trend?

It’s definitely a real thing, limited to working-class Latinos, Asian communities and Islamic voters. Electors in immigrant strongholds that supported Trump last year went for Zohran this year. However it’s not that he was winning over Caucasian laborers and Maga voters.

Voter Participation and Effects

A major development of the election was the sky-high participation. Who benefited?

Both sides. Turnout was much greater than anticipated. I thought it could exceed 2 million, but it reached 2.3 million – that is a huge number of participants. Existed a decent opposition group, energized, but his supporters was equally driven, and that was enough to win.

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

Currently you would say he’s favored to get over 50%. He has 50.4% but remain around 200K ballots uncounted at that time. Thus it’s not it’s definitive, but I think it’s likely, and I hope he achieves it so then no one can say Sliwa was a spoiler.

Republican Collapse

Curtis Sliwa, the conservative contender, is the other big story. His support plummeted.

He lost a single precinct in any area. Including Tottenville in Staten Island, similar to an highly conservative neighborhood. That really was unexpected. Cuomo held Caucasian districts, very wealthy areas and very religiously Jewish areas, and then added many conservatives on the island who had a high participation. I believe there was a lot of tactical voting by GOP voters. This happened prior to the former president endorsed for the candidate, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome unless the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

Progressive Strongholds

Regarding your often-discussed left-wing base – was support for the candidate dominant in those areas of the boroughs?

In my view there was some weakening of the progressive zone in certain places like Astoria or Greenpoint that have more older white ethnic folks. There, for example, the property owners and residents supported Cuomo. Thus there was some opposition. However overall, largely the commie corridor is a key factor why Mamdani prevailed – he was polling between high percentages in specific neighborhoods.

Community Support

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

There are neighborhoods with a lot of secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – such as specific locales – where he did well. But in the wealthy Jewish communities such as the Manhattan area, his position on Israel was influential there. Similarly in the moderate communities like Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they all leaned the independent. And also, there are newcomers from the former Soviet Union in southern Brooklyn, they were pretty staunchly supportive. So it’s unclear if there were crazy narrative-busters here, but Mamdani did hold left-leaning areas and including sections of the another locale with large leads.

Long-Term Significance

Has Mamdani rewritten what the city means politically? Will the progressive base serve as a springboard for progressive contenders?

Yes, it’s not accidental that some of the biggest figures from the left hail from a handful of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I’m sure that we’ll see additional examples – candidates will come from these areas to be elevated nationally.

However I think that each urban center in America could develop their own commie corridor. Urban places are the centers of leftwing power in the nation – because they’re young, tenancy is common and they represent locales where people are crushed by the disparities we face.