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Just two days before the NYC mayoral election, Michael Lange issued a bold electoral prediction – not just the winner overall, and precinct by precinct. The analyst, an expert in elections born and raised 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 thorough analyses into city data and polling.

He published his extremely precise prediction map – which correctly forecast that Zohran Mamdani would win although failed to predict the independent candidate’s strong performance – on his newsletter, his platform. Lange possesses a talent for witty coinages. He highlighted, for instance, the split between the progressive stronghold, running from Park Slope to Bushwick to a third locale, where he predicted (correctly) that the left-wing candidate would triumph by large leads, and the conservative-leaning zone on affluent parts of Manhattan. In those areas, “the Free Press and financial newspapers surpass the mainstream paper” in readership and the majority of electors favored the independent, who ran as a conservative-courting independent.

Election Night Trends and Surprises

How was your election night?

It was necessary because they were adding approximately 200K ballots into the system frequently! I felt somewhat anxious at the beginning: The candidate led the initial ballots by a dozen percentage points, but came two big batches of votes that came in after that and his lead went from 12% to 8%. It was concerning.

Understand, it was possible where yesterday turned out kind of poorly for him, where Cuomo would have basically doubling his votes from the earlier contest. But the winner added half a million supporters to his initial base, and this was critical why he won. He went out and greatly broadened his base from the first round.

Coalition Building

Where did Mamdani gain those extra votes from?

He built the alliance that the left always wanted to build: diverse racially, it’s young, tenants and individuals facing cost pressures. He gained significantly with minority communities, everyday New Yorkers, compared to the primary. Additionally he further maximized his core of left-leaning activists, young leftists, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without making those significant inroads.

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

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

It’s definitely a real thing, limited to Hispanic laborers, Asian communities and Islamic voters. Voters in immigrant strongholds that went for Trump previously went for the progressive now. However it’s not that he was gaining Caucasian laborers and Maga voters.

Voter Participation and Impact

One of the big stories of the night was the record participation. Who benefited?

Both sides. Turnout was much greater than I had expected. I thought it could exceed 2 million, but it reached 2.3M – which is a lot of darn voters. Existed a decent anti-Mamdani block, energized, but his supporters was also motivated, and that sufficed to win.

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

Right now it appears he’s favored to surpass 50%. He has just over 50% but there’s still around 200,000 votes left to report as of Wednesday morning. Thus it’s not it’s definitive, but I think it’s likely, and I wish he achieves it so afterwards none can claim Sliwa was a disruptor.

Republican Collapse

Curtis Sliwa, the conservative contender, is the other big story. His vote completely collapsed.

He didn’t win any district in any borough. Not even one neighborhood in the borough, which is like an 88% Trump area. That really was unexpected. Cuomo kept Caucasian districts, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and plus gained many conservatives on Staten Island with a high participation. I believe occurred a lot of tactical voting by the Republicans. This happened prior to Trump endorsed for Cuomo, but it assisted. It might have changed the outcome if Mamdani’s coalition hadn’t grown.

The “Commie Corridor”

Regarding your often-discussed left-wing base – did backing for Mamdani dominant in those parts of the boroughs?

In my view there was some weakening of the commie corridor in some areas like neighborhoods that have older Caucasian residents. In Astoria, instance, the property owners and residents all went for the independent. So there was some opposition. But overall, largely the leftist base is a key factor why Zohran won – he scored between high percentages in specific neighborhoods.

Jewish Voters

Prior to the vote we reported on if the candidate was gaining ground with the community. Any indication that he did?

There are neighborhoods with a lot of secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – like specific locales – where he did well. However in the wealthy Jewish communities like the Upper East Side, his position on Israel definitely mattered there. Similarly in the moderate communities like Queens neighborhoods, or Bronx areas – they favored the independent. And also, you have newcomers from Eastern Europe in the borough, they were pretty staunchly supportive. Therefore I don’t know if existed major surprises on this one, but Mamdani retained more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and even parts of the another locale by big margins.

Political Impact

Did Mamdani redefine what New York represents in politics? Will progressive base become a launch pad for leftwing candidates?

Absolutely, it’s not accidental that key figures from progressives come from a few areas in the boroughs. I believe that we’ll see more of that – people will emerge from these neighborhoods to be elevated nationally.

But I believe that each urban center in the US could develop similar progressive hubs. Cities are the centers of progressive influence in the nation – because youth reside there, people rent and they represent locales where individuals struggle by the inequalities exist.