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Just 48 hours before the NYC mayoral election, Michael Lange made a significant electoral prediction – not just the winner overall, but block by block. The analyst, a political analyst born and raised in the city, has spent over a decade in progressive politics and has become something of a well-known figure this year for his deep dives into city data and voter surveys.

He published his extremely precise forecast map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani would win 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 split between the “commie corridor”, stretching from one neighborhood to another area to Astoria, where he predicted (correctly) that Mamdani would triumph by huge margins, and the conservative-leaning zone on affluent parts of Manhattan. In those areas, “the Free Press and financial newspapers outrank the mainstream paper” in audience and the majority of electors favored Cuomo, who ran as a conservative-courting independent.

Election Night Trends and Surprises

What was your election night?

It was necessary since they were adding around 200,000 ballots into the system every few minutes! I felt somewhat anxious at the beginning: The candidate led the early vote by 12 points, but there were two big batches of ballots added later and the advantage dropped from 12 to 8%. I was worried.

Understand, there was a world in which yesterday turned out kind of poorly for Mamdani, in which the opponent was going to end up basically doubling his votes from the earlier contest. But the winner gained half a million votes to his initial base, and that’s a huge reason why he succeeded. He campaigned and massively expanded his base from the primary.

Expanding Support

Where did the mayor-elect get additional support from?

He built the alliance that progressives always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, it’s young, it’s renters and individuals facing cost pressures. He improved considerably with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, compared to the primary. Plus he boosted his core of left-leaning activists, young leftists, and immigrant groups. Victory required without expanding his appeal.

He created the coalition that the left always wanted to build: multiracial, young, renters and people struggling with costs

Additionally, there were a number of Trump/Mamdani voters – is this significant?

It’s definitely a real thing, limited to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Muslims. Voters in ethnic enclaves that supported Trump last year backed Zohran this year. But it’s not that he was winning over white working-class voters and Trump loyalists.

Turnout and Effects

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

Each candidate. Turnout was much greater than anticipated. I thought it could go over 2 million, but it reached 2.3M – that is a huge number of participants. Existed a decent anti-Mamdani block, who were motivated, but the Mamdani base was equally driven, and that sufficed to win.

You forecasted he’d exceed 50% of the vote. Is he likely for that?

Currently you would say he’s likely to get over half. He’s at 50.4% but remain around 200,000 votes left to report at that time. So I don’t think certain, but I think it’s likely, and I hope he does because then no one can say the Republican was a spoiler.

Republican Collapse

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

He didn’t win a single precinct in any borough. Including Tottenville in the borough, which is like an 88% Trump neighborhood. That really was unexpected. The independent kept very white areas, very wealthy areas and devout communities, and plus gained many conservatives on Staten Island who had a high participation. I think occurred significant strategic balloting by GOP voters. They were doing it prior to Trump endorsed for the candidate, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome unless the winning alliance failed to expand.

Progressive Strongholds

What about your much mentioned left-wing base – did backing for the candidate overwhelming in those areas of the boroughs?

In my view there was a little dilution of the commie corridor in some areas like Astoria or Greenpoint that have older Caucasian residents. In Astoria, instance, the property owners and homeowners supported the independent. Thus there was some opposition. However overall, largely 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 vote we reported on whether the candidate was gaining ground with the community. Any indication that he did?

There are areas with many secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – such as Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he performed strongly. However in the wealthy Jewish communities like the Manhattan area, his position on Israel definitely mattered there. Similarly in the moderate communities including Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Bronx areas – they all leaned the independent. Plus, you have newcomers from the former Soviet Union in southern Brooklyn, they were strongly Cuomo. So it’s unclear if existed major surprises here, but Mamdani did hold left-leaning areas and even parts of the Upper West Side by big margins.

Political Impact

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

Absolutely, it’s no coincidence that some of the biggest figures from progressives come from a few areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I’m sure that we’ll see additional examples – candidates will emerge from these areas to be promoted to higher office.

However I think that each urban center in the US can have their own commie corridor. Urban places are the centers of progressive influence in the nation – because youth reside there, people rent and they are places where individuals struggle by the inequalities exist.