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Only 48 hours before the NYC race for mayor, Michael Lange made a bold forecast – not just the winner overall, but precinct by precinct. The analyst, an expert in elections who grew up in New York City, has spent over a decade in progressive politics and emerged as a kind of local celebrity recently for his deep dives into municipal statistics and voter surveys.

He released his highly detailed forecast map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani was victorious while missing Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his Substack, the Narrative War. Lange has a flair for clever terms. He highlighted, as an example, the divide between the progressive stronghold, stretching from Park Slope to Bushwick to Astoria, where he forecasted (correctly) that Mamdani would triumph by large leads, and the conservative-leaning zone on affluent parts of Manhattan. There, “the Free Press and Wall Street Journal surpass the New York Times” in readership and the majority of electors leaned toward the independent, campaigning as a moderate alternative.

Voting Day Patterns and Unexpected Results

How was your night?

It was necessary since they were dropping approximately 200K votes into the system frequently! I felt somewhat anxious initially: The candidate was ahead the initial ballots by a dozen percentage points, but came large groups of votes that came in later and the advantage dropped from 12% to 8%. It was concerning.

Understand, there was a world where election day went somewhat badly for him, in which Cuomo would have basically increasing his support from the Democratic primary. However the winner added half a million votes to his initial base, and this was critical why he won. He went out and greatly broadened his support from the primary.

Coalition Building

Where did Mamdani get those extra votes from?

He built the alliance that progressives long aimed for: it’s multiracial, it’s young, tenants and individuals facing cost pressures. He gained significantly with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, compared to the earlier election. Plus he further maximized his base 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 the left always wanted to build: diverse, young, renters and people struggling with costs

Additionally, there were some Trump/Mamdani voters – is that a big trend?

It’s definitely a real thing, limited to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Voters in ethnic enclaves that went for the former president last year went for the progressive this year. But I wouldn’t say he was gaining Caucasian laborers and Maga voters.

Turnout and Impact

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

Both sides. Participation was significantly higher than I had expected. I thought we might exceed two million, but it reached 2.3 million – that is a huge number of participants. There was a decent anti-Mamdani block, energized, but his supporters was also motivated, and that was enough to win.

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

Currently you would say he’s favored to get over 50%. He has just over 50% but remain around 200,000 votes left to report as of Wednesday morning. Thus it’s not it’s definitive, but I think probable, and I wish he achieves it because then no one can say the Republican was a disruptor.

GOP Decline

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

He lost a single precinct in any borough. Including Tottenville in Staten Island, similar to an highly conservative neighborhood. That really was unexpected. Cuomo held very white areas, very wealthy areas and very religiously Jewish areas, and then added all of these Republicans on the island who had a strong turnout. I think occurred a lot of strategic balloting by GOP voters. This happened before Trump tweeted his support for Cuomo, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome if the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

Progressive Strongholds

What about your much mentioned left-wing base – did backing for Mamdani dominant in those parts of Brooklyn and Queens?

I think existed a little dilution of the commie corridor in some areas like Astoria or Greenpoint that have older Caucasian residents. In Astoria, for example, the property owners and residents supported Cuomo. Thus there was some opposition. But overall, mostly the leftist base is a key factor why Zohran prevailed – he scored between high percentages in specific neighborhoods.

Community Support

Prior to the election we reported on if Mamdani was making inroads with Jewish New Yorkers. Is there any suggestion that he succeeded?

There are areas with a lot of secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – like Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he performed strongly. However in the affluent districts such as the Upper East Side, his position on Israel definitely mattered there. Likewise in the more middle-class Jewish areas including Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they favored the independent. And also, you have newcomers from Eastern Europe in the borough, who were strongly Cuomo. Therefore I don’t know if there were crazy narrative-busters here, but Mamdani retained more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and including sections of the Upper West Side with large leads.

Long-Term Significance

Has Mamdani rewritten what New York means politically? Will progressive base serve as a springboard for leftwing candidates?

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

However I think that every city in America can have similar progressive hubs. Cities are the centers of leftwing power in America – since youth reside there, people rent and they are places where people are crushed by the disparities exist.