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Just 48 hours prior to the NYC mayoral election, Michael Lange made a bold forecast – going beyond who would win overall, but precinct by precinct. The analyst, a political analyst born and raised in the city, has spent over a decade in left-leaning activism and has become a kind of well-known figure recently for his thorough analyses into city data and voter surveys.

He published his extremely precise forecast map – accurately predicting that Zohran Mamdani was victorious while failed to predict Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his Substack, his platform. Lange has a flair for clever terms. He highlighted, for instance, the divide between the “commie corridor”, running from Park Slope to Bushwick to Astoria, where he forecasted (correctly) that the left-wing candidate would triumph by large leads, and the conservative-leaning zone on affluent parts of Manhattan. There, certain media outlets and Wall Street Journal outrank the mainstream paper” in audience and most voters favored Cuomo, campaigning as a conservative-courting independent.

Voting Day Trends and Unexpected Results

What was your election night?

I had to do that because they were dropping around 200,000 votes into the tally every few minutes! I felt somewhat anxious initially: Mamdani led the early vote by a dozen percentage points, but there were large groups of ballots that came in later and his lead dropped from 12 to 8%. It was concerning.

You know, it was possible where election day went somewhat badly for him, where Cuomo would have basically doubling his votes from the Democratic primary. But Mamdani gained half a million supporters to his initial base, and this was critical why he won. He campaigned and massively expanded his base from the first round.

Expanding Support

Where did Mamdani get additional support from?

He assembled the alliance that the left always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, youthful, it’s renters and individuals squeezed by affordability. He improved considerably with minority communities, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the primary. Additionally he boosted his base of left-leaning activists, young leftists, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without making those significant inroads.

He built the alliance that the left always wanted to build: multiracial, young, renters and residents struggling with costs

There were also some supporters of both candidates – is this significant?

It’s definitely a genuine phenomenon, confined to working-class Latinos, south Asians and Islamic voters. Voters in immigrant strongholds that supported the former president last year went for Zohran this year. However I wouldn’t say he was gaining white working-class voters and Maga voters.

Turnout and Impact

One of the big stories of the night was the record turnout. Who did that help?

Each candidate. Turnout was significantly higher than I had expected. I thought we might go over two million, but it reached 2.3M – which is a huge number of participants. Existed a decent opposition group, who were motivated, but his supporters was equally driven, and that sufficed to win.

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

Right now it appears he’s favored to get over half. He has just over 50% but there’s still around 200K ballots uncounted as of Wednesday morning. Thus I don’t think it’s definitive, but I believe probable, and I wish he does because afterwards none can claim the Republican was a disruptor.

GOP Decline

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, is the other big story. His vote completely collapsed.

He didn’t win any district in any area. Not even Tottenville in the borough, similar to an highly conservative area. That truly was unexpected. Cuomo held very white areas, very wealthy areas and very religiously Jewish areas, and plus gained all of these conservatives on the island with a high participation. I believe there was significant strategic balloting by GOP voters. This happened before the former president endorsed for the candidate, but it assisted. It might have changed the outcome if the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

Progressive Strongholds

What about your much mentioned “commie corridor” – did backing for the candidate dominant in those areas of the boroughs?

I think existed some weakening of the progressive zone in certain places like neighborhoods that have older Caucasian residents. There, instance, the property owners and residents supported Cuomo. So there existed a little resistance. But no, largely the leftist base is a key factor why Zohran prevailed – he scored between 77% and 83% in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bushwick.

Community Support

In the lead-up to the vote there was coverage on if the candidate was making inroads with the community. Is there any suggestion that he succeeded?

There are areas with a lot of non-religious and left-inclined voters – like Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he performed strongly. However in the wealthy Jewish communities such as the Manhattan area, his Middle East stance definitely mattered in those places. Similarly in the moderate communities including Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they all leaned the independent. And also, there are newcomers from Eastern Europe in southern Brooklyn, who were pretty staunchly supportive. Therefore I don’t know if existed major surprises on this one, 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 means politically? Will the progressive base serve as a springboard for leftwing candidates?

Absolutely, it’s no coincidence that key political leaders from the left come from a few areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I believe that there will be more of that – people will emerge from these areas to be promoted to higher office.

However I think that every city in America can have similar progressive hubs. Cities are the centers of progressive influence in America – since they’re young, tenancy is common and they represent locales where people are crushed by the disparities exist.