🔗 Share this article

Residents of the Big Apple will learn who will be their next mayor this election day, in a race that will decide who runs and protects the nation's largest city at a moment when Donald Trump has vowed to send armed forces to the city.

In this context, New York has experienced a mayoral election that has pitted two distinctly opposing Democrats against one another. The contest has turned into an increasingly bitter face-off, marked by accusations of racial bias and Islamophobia, but it is the political differences between the two main contenders that could have major implications for how the Democratic party performs in next year's congressional races.

The Progressive Challenger

On the left side is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old progressive candidate whose meteoric rise and grassroots campaign has attracted global notice. On the establishment side is Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic New York governor now running as an independent – and enjoying the support of ultra-rich donors and big business.

As the election approaches, it is the progressive, the one-time underdog who beat Cuomo in the party primary who is firmly installed as the frontrunner. The candidate, who has campaigned on a platform of economic justice and pledged to freeze rent for about two million city residents, has led Cuomo by significant margins in every poll taken in October, and it is very much the younger man's race to throw away.

A Bitter Contest

Yet, the former governor, who resigned as the state's leader in recent years amid accusations of sexual harassment, has made it clear he will fight to the end, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt fashion. He has criticized Mamdani's goals as unachievable, and in recent days chuckled along as a radio host made Islamophobic remarks about Mamdani, who is Muslim. Recently, Cuomo was widely condemned as bigoted after sharing an AI-generated ad that included a slew of racial caricatures and showed Mamdani releasing a convicts.

It's been a particularly ugly end to an race that could be critical to the direction that the Democratic party, struggling in its response to Trump's power moves, takes in the near future.

National Implications

If Mamdani secures a clear victory, the establishment party leaders who have declined to support his bid will be forced to reckon with a message that has resonated with voters' anger at economic disparity, soaring price rises and the establishment. It would be difficult for Chuck Schumer and the House leader not to embrace at least a portion of the candidate's ambitious ideas about affordability, given the newcomer has created an excitement within the Democratic ranks arguably not seen since Bernie Sanders ran for president eight years ago.

However, should Cuomo, who had been expected to win easily in the Democratic primary, achieve a remarkable riches-to-rags-to-riches victory, it could reinforce the party's current model of cautious, lackluster opposition – a tactic that has infuriated the party base. A New York defeat of Mamdani's optimistic platform could persuade party leaders that the wisest course is to remain in the center – even as surveys show the current iteration of the Democratic party is deeply unpopular across the country.

Campaign Energy

Residents of the city appear to favor the Mamdani vision. Surveys show that Mamdani supporters are far more enthusiastic about their candidate than his opponent's supporters, something that has been apparent throughout the campaign. The candidate's snappy videos on social media, his hopeful outlook for the city and his readiness to actually get out and meet people in the city has attracted an force of more than 50,000 volunteers, many of them youth or first-time voters.

Negative Tactics

However, the former governor, 67, isn't giving up. And with the stakes against him, the former governor has resorted to ugly messaging in the final days.

After spending months throwing basically everything at Mamdani to see what might stick, Cuomo has concentrated on targeting Mamdani directly. He has labelled his rival, who was of Ugandan origin to South Asian heritage, an “extremist”, and appeared on Fox Business for an interview with Maria Bartiromo, where Cuomo asserted New York “will not survive” his opponent as mayor. It reached a nadir last week, when the former governor laughed along and said “that’s another problem” after a radio host said the candidate would “cheer” another 9/11-style incident.

Political Landscape

The line of attack echoes much of what the former president, who has sent the military reserves to Washington DC and threatened to do the same to New York, has said about Mamdani, and perhaps that is expected. A group of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who contributed to Trump in the 2024 election, have invested heavily into trying to elect the independent elected, as other influential figures have urged the Republican candidate to withdraw from the race.

Political Histories

As far as the his team, and his billionaire supporters, are worried, it should not have reached to this. When the assemblyman, one of 150 state legislators, launched his mayoral bid in October 2024, not many had known him, and in truth, few even noticed.

Cuomo, by contrast, entered smoothly into the race in this year and became the instant favorite. He was the political heavyweight who seemingly held every edge. The classic political insider, he had married a political dynasty member and served in a Democratic presidency. He became New York governor in 2011, 17 years after his father, the former governor, left office from the identical role.

Mamdani, who was elected to the New York state assembly in 2020, does not have the same political heritage. But his dedication to providing free buses and affordable child services – along with the rent control promise – present a brighter outlook of the future than Cuomo’s pessimistic predictions about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his vow to hire more police officers.

Recent Challenges

Nevertheless, Mamdani has faced difficulties in recent days, after footage surfaced suggesting him implying the New York police department and the Israel Defense Forces were connected.

“We have to make clear that when the pressure of the police is on your neck, it’s been laced by the Israeli military,” the candidate said in the recording, recorded at a DSA convention in 2023. The progressive, a longtime critic of Israel who has said the country is engaging in atrocities in Gaza, suggested he was criticizing cooperative programs between the NYPD and Israeli forces.

Emotional Response

As the race closes, the candidate seems to have gained sympathy and support, however, for his reaction to his opponent's increasing rhetoric.

The progressive addressed the independent's 9/11 remarks in an heartfelt recording. In it, Mamdani recalled how, when he first ran for the legislature, a Muslim uncle advised to him that he did not have to tell people about his religion. It was a lesson, he said, that many Muslim New Yorkers had been told “again and again”: “That safety could only be found in the shadows of our community. That it is in those hidden spaces alone where followers of Islam could embrace their true selves, and that if we were to step out from those shadows, then it is in those silence that we must leave our faith.”

Speaking to the behavior of Cuomo and Sliwa, who has claimed Mamd