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Just 48 hours prior to the NYC race for mayor, political analyst Michael Lange made a bold electoral prediction – going beyond who would win overall, but block by block. Lange, an expert in elections born and raised in New York City, devoted over a decade in left-leaning activism and has become a kind of local celebrity this year for his thorough analyses into city data and polling.

He released his highly detailed prediction map – accurately predicting that the progressive candidate was victorious while failed to predict Andrew Cuomo’s solid showing – on his Substack, the Narrative War. He possesses a talent for witty coinages. He pointed out, for instance, the split between the “commie corridor”, stretching from Park Slope to Bushwick to Astoria, where he forecasted (accurately) that the left-wing candidate would triumph by large leads, and the “capitalist corridor” on affluent parts of Manhattan. There, “the Free Press and Wall Street Journal surpass the New York Times” in readership and most voters leaned toward the independent, campaigning as a conservative-courting independent.

Voting Day Patterns and Unexpected Results

What was your night?

I had to do that since they were adding around 200,000 ballots into the tally every few minutes! I felt somewhat anxious initially: Mamdani led the initial ballots by a dozen percentage points, but there were large groups of ballots added after that and the advantage dropped from 12% to 8%. It was concerning.

Understand, it was possible where election day turned out kind of poorly for him, in which the opponent was going to end up basically increasing his support from the earlier contest. However Mamdani gained half a million supporters to his initial base, and that’s a huge reason why he succeeded. He campaigned and massively expanded his support from the primary.

Expanding Support

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

He assembled the alliance that progressives always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, youthful, tenants and it’s people squeezed by affordability. He improved significantly with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the primary. Additionally he further maximized his base of left-leaning activists, youthful radicals, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without making those significant inroads.

He created the coalition that progressives always wanted to build: diverse, young, tenants and people struggling with costs

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

It’s definitely a real thing, confined to Hispanic laborers, Asian communities and Islamic voters. Voters in immigrant strongholds that went for the former president last year went for the progressive now. But it’s not that he was gaining white working-class voters and Maga voters.

Voter Participation and Impact

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

Each candidate. Turnout was significantly higher than I had expected. I figured it could go over 2 million, but it’s closer to 2.3M – that is a huge number of participants. Existed a decent anti-Mamdani block, who were motivated, but his supporters was equally driven, and that was enough to win.

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

Right now it appears he’s likely to surpass half. He has 50.4% but there’s still probably 200K ballots left to report as of Wednesday morning. Thus I don’t think certain, but I believe probable, and I wish he does so then no one can say the Republican was a spoiler.

GOP Decline

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

He didn’t win a single precinct in any area. Including one neighborhood in the borough, similar to an highly conservative area. That really surprised me. Cuomo held very white areas, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and plus gained all of these Republicans on Staten Island who had a strong turnout. I think there was a lot of tactical voting by the Republicans. This happened before the former president tweeted his support for the candidate, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome if Mamdani’s coalition hadn’t grown.

The “Commie Corridor”

What about your often-discussed “commie corridor” – was support for Mamdani dominant in those parts of Brooklyn and Queens?

I think existed some weakening of the progressive zone in certain places like Astoria or Greenpoint that have older Caucasian residents. There, for example, the property owners and homeowners supported Cuomo. So there existed a little resistance. But no, mostly the leftist base is a key factor why Mamdani won – he was polling between 77% and 83% in specific neighborhoods.

Jewish Voters

Prior to the election we reported on if the candidate was gaining ground with Jewish New Yorkers. Is there any suggestion that he did?

There are neighborhoods with many non-religious and left-inclined voters – such as Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he did well. However in the affluent districts such as the Upper East Side, his Middle East stance definitely mattered there. Likewise in the more middle-class Jewish areas including Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they all leaned Cuomo. And also, there are Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in southern Brooklyn, they were strongly supportive. Therefore it’s unclear if there were major surprises on this one, but Mamdani did hold more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and even parts of the Upper West Side by big margins.

Political Impact

Did Mamdani redefine what New York represents in politics? Will progressive base serve as a springboard for leftwing candidates?

Yes, it’s not accidental that some of the biggest political leaders from progressives hail from a few areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I’m sure that we’ll see more of that – people will emerge from these areas to be promoted to higher office.

However I believe that every city in America can have similar progressive hubs. Urban places are the centers of progressive influence in America – because youth reside there, tenancy is common and they represent locales where people are crushed by the inequalities we face.