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Just two days before the New York mayoral election, Michael Lange issued a bold forecast – going beyond the winner overall, but precinct by precinct. The analyst, a political analyst who grew up in the city, has spent over a decade in progressive politics and emerged as a kind of well-known figure this year for his thorough analyses into municipal statistics and voter surveys.

He published his extremely precise forecast map – which correctly forecast that the progressive candidate would win while failed to predict the independent candidate’s strong performance – on his Substack, the Narrative War. Lange possesses a talent for clever terms. He pointed out, for instance, the split between the “commie corridor”, running from one neighborhood to another area to a third locale, where he predicted (correctly) that Mamdani would triumph by huge margins, and the conservative-leaning zone on Manhattan’s Upper East and Upper West Sides. In those areas, certain media outlets and financial newspapers outrank the New York Times” in audience and most voters leaned toward Cuomo, who ran as a moderate alternative.

Election Night Patterns and Surprises

What was your night?

I had to do that because they were dropping approximately 200K votes into the system every few minutes! I felt somewhat anxious initially: The candidate was ahead the early vote by a dozen percentage points, but came large groups of ballots added after that and the advantage dropped from 12 to 8%. I was worried.

You know, there was a world where yesterday turned out kind of poorly for Mamdani, where Cuomo was going to end up essentially doubling his votes from the earlier contest. But the winner gained half a million supporters to his primary coalition, and that’s a huge reason why he won. He went out and massively expanded his base from the primary.

Expanding Support

Where did Mamdani gain additional support from?

He built the alliance that the left always wanted to build: it’s multiracial, it’s young, it’s renters and it’s people facing cost pressures. He gained considerably with Black and Hispanic voters, working- and middle-class voters, relative to the earlier election. Plus he boosted his base of liberal progressives, youthful radicals, and immigrant groups. Victory required without making those significant inroads.

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

There were also a number of supporters of both candidates – is that a big trend?

It is a real thing, limited to working-class Latinos, Asian communities and Islamic voters. Electors in immigrant strongholds that went for Trump previously backed the progressive this year. However it’s not that he was winning over Caucasian laborers and Trump loyalists.

Voter Participation and Effects

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

Both sides. Participation was much greater than anticipated. I figured it could exceed 2 million, but it’s closer to 2.3M – that is a lot of darn voters. There was a decent anti-Mamdani block, energized, but the Mamdani base was equally driven, and that was enough to secure victory.

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

Right now you would say he’s likely to get over 50%. He’s at 50.4% but there’s still around 200,000 votes left to report at that time. Thus it’s not it’s definitive, but I believe it’s likely, and I hope he does so afterwards no one can say Sliwa was a spoiler.

GOP Decline

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, was another surprise. His vote completely collapsed.

He didn’t win any district in any borough. Not even Tottenville in the borough, similar to an highly conservative area. That really surprised me. The independent kept Caucasian districts, very wealthy areas and devout communities, and plus gained all of these Republicans on Staten Island who had a strong turnout. I believe there was a lot of tactical voting by GOP voters. They were doing it before Trump tweeted his support for Cuomo, but that definitely helped. It might have changed the outcome unless the winning alliance hadn’t grown.

The “Commie Corridor”

Regarding your much mentioned “commie corridor” – was support for Mamdani dominant in those areas of Brooklyn and Queens?

In my view existed some weakening of the commie corridor in certain places like Astoria or Greenpoint that have older Caucasian residents. In Astoria, for example, the Greek landlords and homeowners all went for Cuomo. So there was some opposition. However overall, largely the commie corridor is another huge reason why Mamdani won – he was polling between high percentages in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bushwick.

Jewish Voters

Prior to the vote there was coverage on whether the candidate was making inroads with the community. Any indication that he succeeded?

There are neighborhoods with a lot of non-religious and left-inclined voters – such as Park Slope and Morningside Heights – where he performed strongly. But in the affluent districts like the Manhattan area, his Middle East stance definitely mattered there. Similarly in the more middle-class Jewish areas including Forest Hills, Rego Park, or Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale – they favored Cuomo. And also, there are Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union in southern Brooklyn, who were pretty staunchly Cuomo. Therefore I don’t know if existed crazy narrative-busters on this one, but Mamdani did hold 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 become a launch pad for progressive contenders?

Absolutely, it’s not accidental that key figures from progressives hail from a handful of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. I believe that there will be more of that – candidates will come from these areas to be elevated nationally.

But I believe that every city in America could develop their own commie corridor. Cities are the centers of leftwing power in America – because they’re young, tenancy is common and they represent locales where individuals struggle by the disparities we face.