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Just two days before the NYC race for mayor, Michael Lange made a significant electoral prediction – not just who would win overall, but block by block. Lange, an expert in elections born and raised in the city, devoted more than ten years in progressive politics and has become something of a local celebrity recently for his thorough analyses into municipal statistics and voter surveys.

He released his extremely precise prediction map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani would win although missing the independent candidate’s strong performance – on his Substack, his platform. Lange has a flair for witty coinages. He pointed out, as an example, the split between the progressive stronghold, running from Park Slope to Bushwick to a third locale, where he predicted (accurately) that the left-wing candidate would triumph by huge margins, and the “capitalist corridor” on Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides. In those areas, certain media outlets and Wall Street Journal outrank the mainstream paper” in audience and most voters favored Cuomo, who ran as a moderate alternative.

Election Night Trends and Unexpected Results

What was your election night?

I had to do that since they were dropping approximately 200K ballots into the system frequently! I was actually a little nervous initially: The candidate was ahead the early vote by 12 points, but came two big batches of ballots that came in after that and his lead dropped from 12% to 8%. I was worried.

Understand, it was possible in which election day turned out kind of poorly for Mamdani, where the opponent would have basically increasing his support from the Democratic primary. However the winner added 500,000 votes to his initial base, and that’s a huge reason why he succeeded. He went out and massively expanded his support from the primary.

Expanding Support

Where did Mamdani get those extra votes from?

He built the coalition that progressives long aimed for: it’s multiracial, it’s young, it’s renters and it’s people facing cost pressures. He gained considerably with Black and Hispanic voters, everyday New Yorkers, relative to the earlier election. Additionally he further maximized his core of liberal progressives, young leftists, and immigrant groups. Victory required without expanding his appeal.

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

There were also a number of Trump/Mamdani voters – is this significant?

It is a real thing, confined to Hispanic laborers, Asian communities and Islamic voters. Electors in ethnic enclaves that went for the former president previously backed Zohran this year. But I wouldn’t say he was gaining Caucasian laborers and Maga voters.

Turnout and Effects

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

Each candidate. Participation was significantly higher than anticipated. I thought we might go over two million, but it’s closer to 2.3M – that is a huge number of participants. There was a decent anti-Mamdani block, who were motivated, but his supporters was equally driven, and that was enough to secure victory.

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

Right now it appears he’s favored to surpass half. He has 50.4% but remain probably 200,000 votes uncounted at that time. So it’s not it’s definitive, but I think it’s likely, and I hope he does so afterwards no one can say the Republican was a spoiler.

Republican Collapse

The GOP candidate, the Republican candidate, was another surprise. His vote plummeted.

He lost a single precinct in any area. Not even one neighborhood in Staten Island, similar to an highly conservative neighborhood. That truly surprised me. Cuomo kept very white areas, very wealthy areas and very religiously Jewish areas, and plus gained all of these conservatives on the island with a strong turnout. I think there was a lot of strategic balloting by GOP voters. This happened before Trump endorsed for Cuomo, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome unless the winning alliance failed to expand.

Progressive Strongholds

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

I think existed some weakening 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 all went for Cuomo. So there was some opposition. However overall, mostly the leftist base is another huge reason why Zohran prevailed – he was polling between 77% and 83% in specific neighborhoods.

Jewish Voters

Prior to the vote we reported on whether the candidate was gaining ground with the community. Is there any suggestion that he succeeded?

There are neighborhoods with many secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – such as Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he did well. But in the wealthy Jewish communities such as the Upper East Side, his position on Israel was influential there. Likewise in the more middle-class Jewish areas like Queens neighborhoods, or Bronx areas – they favored the independent. Plus, you have Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in southern Brooklyn, they were strongly Cuomo. Therefore I don’t know if existed crazy narrative-busters here, but Mamdani retained more progressive Jewish neighborhoods and including sections of the another locale with large leads.

Political Impact

Has Mamdani rewritten what New York represents in politics? Will the progressive base become a launch pad for leftwing candidates?

Absolutely, it’s no coincidence that key political leaders from the left hail from a few areas in the boroughs. I’m sure that there will be more of that – people will come from these areas to be elevated nationally.

But I believe that each urban center in the US could develop their own commie corridor. Urban places are the epicenters of leftwing power in the nation – because youth reside there, tenancy is common and they are places where individuals struggle by the disparities exist.