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Only two days before the New York mayoral election, Michael Lange made a significant forecast – going beyond the winner citywide, but block by block. Lange, an expert in elections who grew up in New York City, has spent more than ten years in left-leaning activism and emerged as something of a well-known figure recently for his deep dives into municipal statistics and polling.

He released his highly detailed forecast map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani would win while missing Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his newsletter, the Narrative War. He has a flair for clever terms. He highlighted, for instance, the divide between the “commie corridor”, stretching from one neighborhood to another area to Astoria, where he predicted (accurately) that the left-wing candidate would win by huge margins, and the “capitalist corridor” on affluent parts of Manhattan. In those areas, certain media outlets and financial newspapers outrank the New York Times” in readership and the majority of electors favored the independent, who ran as a moderate alternative.

Voting Day Trends and Surprises

How was your election night?

I had to do that because they were dropping around 200,000 votes into the tally frequently! I felt somewhat anxious initially: Mamdani was ahead the initial ballots by a dozen percentage points, but came two big batches of votes that came in after that and the advantage dropped from 12% to 8%. It was concerning.

Understand, there was a world where election day turned out somewhat badly for Mamdani, in which the opponent was going to end up basically doubling his votes from the Democratic primary. However the winner gained 500,000 votes to his initial base, and this was critical why he won. He went out and massively expanded his base from the first round.

Coalition Building

How did Mamdani gain additional support from?

He built the alliance that progressives always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, it’s young, it’s renters and it’s people squeezed by affordability. He improved significantly with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the primary. Plus he further maximized his base of liberal progressives, young leftists, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without expanding his appeal.

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

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

It is a genuine phenomenon, confined to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Electors in immigrant strongholds that supported the former president previously backed Zohran now. But it’s not that he was gaining white working-class voters and Trump loyalists.

Voter Participation and Effects

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

Both sides. Turnout was much greater than I had expected. I figured it could go over two million, but it’s closer to 2.3M – that is a lot of darn voters. There was a substantial opposition group, energized, but the Mamdani base was also motivated, and that was enough to secure victory.

You forecasted he’d exceed half the ballots. Is he on course for that?

Right now you would say he’s favored to surpass half. He has 50.4% but there’s still probably 200,000 votes left to report at that time. So I don’t think certain, but I think probable, and I wish he does so afterwards no one can say Sliwa was a disruptor.

GOP Decline

The GOP candidate, the conservative contender, is the other big story. His vote completely collapsed.

He lost any district in any borough. Not even one neighborhood in Staten Island, similar to an 88% Trump area. That truly surprised me. The independent kept very white areas, very wealthy areas and devout communities, and then added many conservatives on Staten Island with a strong turnout. I believe occurred a lot of strategic balloting by the Republicans. They were doing it prior to the former president endorsed for Cuomo, but that definitely helped. It could have even turned the tide if the winning alliance failed to expand.

The “Commie Corridor”

What about your often-discussed left-wing base – did backing for the candidate dominant in those parts of the boroughs?

In my view there was a little dilution of the commie corridor in certain places like neighborhoods that have older Caucasian residents. There, for example, the Greek landlords and homeowners all went for the independent. Thus there existed a little resistance. But no, mostly the commie corridor is another huge reason why Mamdani prevailed – he was polling between high percentages in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bushwick.

Community Support

In the lead-up to the election there was coverage on whether the candidate was making inroads with the community. Any indication that he did?

There are neighborhoods with a lot of secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – such as specific locales – where he performed strongly. But in the affluent districts such as the Manhattan area, his position on Israel was influential there. Likewise in the moderate communities like Queens neighborhoods, or Bronx areas – they favored the independent. Plus, you have Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the borough, who were pretty staunchly supportive. So it’s unclear if existed crazy narrative-busters here, but Mamdani did hold more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and even parts of the Upper West Side by big margins.

Long-Term Significance

Has Mamdani rewritten what the city represents in politics? Will the commie corridor become a launch pad for leftwing candidates?

Yes, it’s not accidental that key figures from progressives come from a handful of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I believe that we’ll see additional examples – people will come from these areas to be elevated nationally.

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