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Just two days before the NYC race for mayor, Michael Lange issued a bold electoral prediction – going beyond who would win citywide, but block by block. Lange, an expert in elections who grew up in New York City, devoted over a decade in progressive politics and has become something of a local celebrity this year for his thorough analyses into city data and polling.

He published his extremely precise prediction map – accurately predicting that the progressive candidate would win while missing Andrew Cuomo’s strong performance – on his Substack, his platform. Lange possesses a talent for clever terms. He highlighted, as an example, the divide between the progressive stronghold, stretching from one neighborhood to another area to Astoria, where he forecasted (accurately) that Mamdani would triumph by large leads, and the conservative-leaning zone on Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides. In those areas, “the Free Press and Wall Street Journal surpass the New York Times” in readership and most voters favored the independent, campaigning as a moderate alternative.

Election Night Patterns and Surprises

How was your election night?

It was necessary since they were dropping approximately 200K votes into the tally every few minutes! I felt a little nervous at the beginning: Mamdani led the early vote by 12 points, but came two big batches of votes that came in after that and the advantage went from 12 to 8%. It was concerning.

You know, there was a world in which yesterday went somewhat badly for him, in which Cuomo was going to end up essentially increasing his support from the Democratic primary. But Mamdani gained 500,000 supporters to his primary coalition, and that’s a huge reason why he won. He campaigned and massively expanded his support from the first round.

Coalition Building

How did the mayor-elect get additional support from?

He built the coalition that progressives always wanted to build: diverse racially, youthful, it’s renters and individuals squeezed by affordability. He improved significantly with minority communities, everyday New Yorkers, compared to the earlier election. Plus he boosted his base of liberal progressives, youthful radicals, and immigrant groups. He couldn’t have won without making those significant inroads.

He created the coalition that the left always wanted to build: diverse, youthful, renters and people squeezed by affordability

Additionally, there were a number of supporters of both candidates – is this significant?

It’s definitely a genuine phenomenon, confined to working-class Latinos, Asian communities and Islamic voters. Voters in immigrant strongholds that supported the former president last year went for Zohran this year. But it’s not that he was gaining Caucasian laborers and Trump loyalists.

Voter Participation and Effects

A major development of the night was the record turnout. Who did that help?

Each candidate. Turnout was significantly higher than I had expected. I figured we might exceed 2 million, but it reached 2.3 million – that is a lot of darn voters. There was a substantial anti-Mamdani block, who were motivated, but the Mamdani base was also motivated, and that was enough to secure victory.

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

Currently you would say he’s likely to surpass half. He has just over 50% but there’s still around 200K ballots uncounted at that time. So it’s not certain, but I believe probable, and I hope he achieves it because afterwards no one can say Sliwa was a disruptor.

Republican Collapse

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

He lost any district in any borough. Not even Tottenville in Staten Island, which is like an highly conservative neighborhood. That truly surprised me. The independent kept Caucasian districts, affluent zones and very religiously Jewish areas, and then added all of these conservatives on the island who had a high participation. I believe occurred significant strategic balloting by the Republicans. This happened before the former president tweeted his support for the candidate, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome if the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

Progressive Strongholds

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

In my view there was some weakening of the commie corridor in certain places like Astoria or Greenpoint that have more older white ethnic folks. There, for example, the Greek landlords and residents all went for the independent. So there existed some opposition. But overall, mostly the commie corridor is a key factor why Mamdani prevailed – he was polling between high percentages in specific neighborhoods.

Jewish Voters

In the lead-up to the election there was coverage on whether Mamdani was gaining ground with the community. Any indication that he did?

Exist areas with a lot of non-religious and left-inclined voters – such as specific locales – where he did well. But in the wealthy Jewish communities like the Upper East Side, his Middle East stance definitely mattered there. Similarly in the more middle-class Jewish areas like Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they all leaned the independent. And also, there are newcomers from Eastern Europe in the borough, they were pretty staunchly supportive. So I don’t know if existed crazy narrative-busters on this one, but he retained left-leaning areas and including sections of the another locale by big margins.

Political Impact

Has Mamdani rewritten what the city represents in politics? Will the commie corridor serve as a springboard for progressive contenders?

Yes, it’s not accidental that key figures from progressives come from a handful of neighborhoods in the boroughs. I’m sure that we’ll see additional examples – people will emerge from these neighborhoods to be promoted to higher office.

However I believe that every city in America can have their own commie corridor. Cities are the centers of leftwing power in America – since youth reside there, tenancy is common and they are places where people are crushed by the disparities exist.