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Only 48 hours before the NYC mayoral election, Michael Lange issued a bold forecast – going beyond who would win overall, but precinct by precinct. Lange, a political analyst born and raised in New York City, devoted over a decade in progressive politics and has become a kind of well-known figure recently for his thorough analyses into city data and polling.

He released his highly detailed forecast map – accurately predicting that the progressive candidate would win although missing Andrew Cuomo’s solid showing – on his newsletter, the Narrative War. He possesses a talent for clever terms. He pointed out, for instance, the divide between the “commie corridor”, running from one neighborhood to Bushwick to Astoria, where he predicted (accurately) that the left-wing candidate would win by large leads, and the conservative-leaning zone on affluent parts of Manhattan. There, “the Free Press and Wall Street Journal surpass the mainstream paper” in readership and the majority of electors leaned toward Cuomo, who ran as a moderate alternative.

Voting Day Trends and Unexpected Results

What was your election night?

I had to do that since they were adding approximately 200K votes into the system frequently! I was actually 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 later and the advantage dropped from 12 to 8%. It was concerning.

You know, there was a world in which election day went kind of poorly for him, where Cuomo would have essentially doubling his votes from the Democratic primary. But the winner gained 500,000 votes to his primary coalition, and this was critical why he won. He went out and massively expanded his support from the primary.

Expanding Support

Where did Mamdani get additional support from?

He assembled the alliance that progressives always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, youthful, it’s renters and it’s people facing cost pressures. He improved significantly with minority communities, working- and middle-class voters, compared to the earlier election. Plus he further maximized his core of left-leaning activists, youthful radicals, and immigrant groups. Victory required without making those significant inroads.

He built the alliance that progressives long aimed for: multiracial, young, tenants and people squeezed by affordability

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

It is a real thing, confined to working-class Latinos, Asian communities and Muslims. Voters in ethnic enclaves that supported the former president last year went for Zohran this year. However it’s not that he was gaining Caucasian laborers and Trump loyalists.

Turnout and Impact

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

Each candidate. Turnout was much greater than I had expected. I thought we might exceed 2 million, but it reached 2.3M – which is a huge number of participants. There was a substantial opposition group, energized, but his supporters was equally driven, and that sufficed to secure victory.

You predicted he’d get over half the ballots. Is he on course for that?

Currently you would say he’s likely to surpass 50%. He’s at just over 50% but remain probably 200K ballots left to report as of Wednesday morning. So I don’t think certain, but I believe probable, and I wish he does because afterwards no one can say the Republican was a spoiler.

Republican Collapse

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

He didn’t win a single precinct in any borough. Including one neighborhood in the borough, similar to an highly conservative neighborhood. That really was unexpected. Cuomo held very white areas, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and then added all of these Republicans on Staten Island who had a high participation. I believe there was a lot of strategic balloting by GOP voters. This happened prior to the former president tweeted his support for the candidate, but it assisted. It might have changed the outcome if Mamdani’s coalition failed to expand.

The “Commie Corridor”

Regarding your much mentioned “commie corridor” – was support for the candidate overwhelming in those areas of Brooklyn and Queens?

I think there was some weakening of the progressive zone in some areas like Astoria or Greenpoint that have more older white ethnic folks. In Astoria, for example, the Greek landlords and residents supported the independent. Thus there existed a little resistance. But no, mostly the leftist base is another huge reason why Zohran prevailed – he was polling between high percentages in specific neighborhoods.

Community Support

In the lead-up to the election there was coverage on whether Mamdani was making inroads with Jewish New Yorkers. Is there any suggestion that he did?

There are neighborhoods with many secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – such as Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he performed strongly. However in the affluent districts such as the Manhattan area, his Middle East stance was influential there. Likewise in the moderate communities like Queens neighborhoods, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they all leaned the independent. And also, you have newcomers from the former Soviet Union in the borough, who were strongly supportive. Therefore it’s unclear if there were major surprises here, but he did hold more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and even parts of the Upper West Side with large leads.

Long-Term Significance

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

Absolutely, it’s not accidental that key figures from progressives come from a few areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I believe that there will be more of that – candidates will emerge from these areas to be promoted to higher office.

But I believe that each urban center in the US could develop their own commie corridor. Cities are the centers of leftwing power in America – because they’re young, people rent and they are places where people are crushed by the inequalities exist.