🔗 Share this article

Only two days before the NYC mayoral election, Michael Lange made a bold forecast – going beyond the winner citywide, and precinct by precinct. Lange, an expert in elections who grew up in the city, has spent more than ten years in left-leaning activism and emerged as something of a local celebrity this year for his deep dives into municipal statistics and voter surveys.

He released his extremely precise forecast map – which correctly forecast that Zohran Mamdani was victorious although missing the independent candidate’s strong performance – on his Substack, the Narrative War. He has a flair for witty coinages. He highlighted, for instance, the divide between the “commie corridor”, stretching from Park Slope to Bushwick to a third locale, where he predicted (accurately) that the left-wing candidate would triumph by large leads, and the “capitalist corridor” on Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides. In those areas, “the Free Press and financial newspapers surpass the mainstream paper” in readership and the majority of electors favored the independent, who ran as a moderate alternative.

Election Night Trends and Surprises

What was your night?

I had to do that since they were adding around 200,000 ballots into the system frequently! I was actually a little nervous at the beginning: The candidate was ahead the early vote by 12 points, but there were two big batches of votes added later and his lead went from 12 to 8%. I was worried.

You know, it was possible in which yesterday turned out kind of poorly for him, in which Cuomo was going to end up essentially increasing his support from the earlier contest. However the winner added 500,000 votes to his initial base, and that’s a huge reason why he won. He campaigned and massively expanded his support from the first round.

Expanding Support

Where did Mamdani gain those extra votes from?

He built the coalition that the left always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, it’s young, tenants and individuals squeezed by affordability. He improved significantly with minority communities, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the primary. Additionally he boosted his base of left-leaning activists, youthful radicals, and Muslims and south Asians. He couldn’t have won without expanding his appeal.

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

Additionally, there were some Trump/Mamdani voters – is that a big trend?

It’s definitely a real thing, limited to working-class Latinos, Asian communities and Muslims. Voters in immigrant strongholds that supported the former president previously backed the progressive now. But it’s not that he was winning over white working-class voters and Trump loyalists.

Voter Participation and Impact

One of the big stories of the night was the sky-high turnout. Who benefited?

Each candidate. Participation was much greater than anticipated. I figured it could 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, energized, but his supporters was also motivated, and that was enough to secure victory.

You predicted he’d exceed 50% of the vote. Is he on course for that?

Currently it appears he’s likely to surpass 50%. He’s at just over 50% but there’s still probably 200,000 votes left to report at that time. Thus it’s not certain, but I think it’s likely, and I hope he does because then no one can say the Republican was a disruptor.

Republican Collapse

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

He lost any district in any borough. Including one neighborhood in Staten Island, similar to an highly conservative area. That really was unexpected. The independent kept very white areas, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and plus gained all of these conservatives on the island who had a strong turnout. I believe there was a lot of tactical voting by the Republicans. This happened before the former president tweeted his support for Cuomo, but it assisted. It could have even turned the tide if the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

Progressive Strongholds

Regarding your much mentioned left-wing base – did backing for Mamdani dominant in those parts of the boroughs?

In my view existed a little dilution of the progressive zone in some areas like neighborhoods that have older Caucasian residents. There, for example, the Greek landlords and homeowners all went for the independent. Thus there was a little resistance. But overall, mostly the leftist base is a key factor why Mamdani won – 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 if Mamdani was gaining ground with the community. Any indication that he succeeded?

There are areas with many secular and more progressive-leaning Jews – such as specific locales – where he performed strongly. But in the wealthy Jewish communities such as the Manhattan area, his position on Israel was influential there. Likewise in the more middle-class Jewish areas like Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they all leaned the independent. And also, you have Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union in southern Brooklyn, who were strongly Cuomo. Therefore I don’t know if there were crazy narrative-busters here, but he retained left-leaning areas and even parts of the another locale with large leads.

Political Impact

Did Mamdani redefine what the city represents in politics? Will commie corridor serve as a springboard for leftwing candidates?

Yes, it’s no coincidence that some of the biggest figures from progressives hail from a handful of neighborhoods in the boroughs. I’m sure that we’ll see more of that – people will emerge from these neighborhoods to be elevated nationally.

But I believe that every city in America could develop their own commie corridor. Urban places are the centers of progressive influence in America – because they’re young, people rent and they are places where people are crushed by the inequalities we face.