🔗 Share this article

New Yorkers will discover the identity of their new city leader this election day, in a contest that will decide who governs and defends the country's largest city at a time when the former president has vowed to send armed forces to the urban center.

In this context, New York has experienced a race for mayor that has pitted two distinctly opposing Democrats against each other. The election has become an acrimonious face-off, laced with alleged racism and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two main contenders that could have significant consequences for how the party fares in next year's midterm elections.

The Rising Progressive

In the progressive corner is the democratic socialist, the young progressive candidate whose meteoric rise and grassroots campaign has brought global notice. On the establishment side is Andrew Cuomo, the ex- Democratic New York governor now running as an independent – and enjoying the support of wealthy contributors and corporations.

With days to go, it is the progressive, the one-time underdog who beat Cuomo in the party primary who is solidly positioned as the leading candidate. Mamdani, who has run on a agenda of affordability and promised to freeze rent for about 2 million city residents, has outpaced Cuomo by double-digits in every poll conducted in the fall, and it is very much the younger man's election to throw away.

A Bitter Contest

Yet, Cuomo, who stepped down as the state's leader in recent years amid allegations of sexual harassment, has made it clear he will fight to the finish, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt fashion. He has trashed his opponent's goals as unachievable, and in the final stretch laughed as a radio host made anti-Muslim comments about the candidate, who is Muslim. Recently, the independent was widely condemned as racist after sharing an artificial intelligence video that included a series of racial caricatures and showed Mamdani freeing a convicts.

It's been a particularly ugly conclusion to an election that could be key to the direction that the party, struggling in its reaction to Trump's power moves, takes in the near future.

National Implications

If Mamdani wins convincingly, the establishment party leaders who have declined to support his bid will be compelled to address a message that has appealed to Americans' frustration at economic disparity, inflation and the political elite. It would be hard for the Senate leader and Hakeem Jeffries not to adopt at least some of Mamdani's progressive proposals about affordability, given the newcomer has generated an excitement within the party perhaps not witnessed since the Vermont senator ran for president in 2016.

However, should Cuomo, who had been predicted to sail to victory in the Democratic primary, achieve a remarkable riches-to-rags-to-riches win, it could cement the party's current model of considered, lackluster opposition – a strategy that has infuriated the party base. A NYC defeat of Mamdani's optimistic platform could convince Schumer and Jeffries that the best plan is to remain in the political center – even as polls show the current iteration of the party is deeply unpopular across the country.

Voter Enthusiasm

Residents of New York appear to favor the Mamdani vision. Surveys show that Mamdani supporters are much more excited about their candidate than his opponent's supporters, something that has been apparent during the race. The candidate's snappy videos on digital platforms, his hopeful outlook for New York and his readiness to actually venture out and connect with voters in the metropolis has attracted an force of more than 50,000 volunteers, many of them youth or new participants.

Negative Tactics

Yet, Cuomo, in his late sixties, continues to fight. And with the stakes stacked against him, the ex-leader has resorted to negative campaigning in recent weeks.

After spending months launching various attacks at his opponent to see what might resonate, Cuomo has concentrated on targeting Mamdani directly. He has called his rival, who was of Ugandan origin to Indian parents, an "radical", and appeared on Fox Business for an interview with Maria Bartiromo, where the candidate claimed New York “will not survive” his opponent as mayor. It reached a nadir recently, when Cuomo laughed along and said “that’s another problem” after a radio host said the candidate would “cheer” another 9/11-style attack.

Political Landscape

This strategy mirrors much of what the former president, who has sent the military reserves to Washington DC and warned to take similar action to New York, has said about the progressive, and maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise. A group of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who donated to the Republican in the 2024 election, have pumped millions into trying to elect Cuomo elected, as other influential figures have urged Curtis Sliwa to drop out from the race.

Candidate Backgrounds

For the his team, and his wealthy backers, are worried, it should never have come to this. When the assemblyman, one of one hundred fifty state legislators, launched his campaign for mayor in October 2024, few had heard of him, and in truth, few even noticed.

Cuomo, by contrast, eased his way into the contest in March 2025 and became the instant favorite. He was the big beast who apparently held every edge. The classic political insider, he had married a Kennedy and served in a Democratic presidency. He assumed office as the state's leader in 2011, seventeen years after his parent, Mario Cuomo, stepped down from the identical role.

The progressive, who was elected to the state legislature in 2020, does not have the same political heritage. But his commitment to providing free buses and affordable child services – along with the freeze-the-rent pledge – offer a more positive vision of the future than his opponent's dire warnings about “mayhem” and rising criminal activity, and his promise to hire more police officers.

Campaign Controversies

Still, the candidate has faced some challenges in the final phase, after footage surfaced suggesting him suggesting the New York police department and the IDF were connected.

“We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your throat, it’s been influenced by the IDF,” Mamdani said in the recording, filmed at a DSA gathering in recent years. The progressive, a vocal opponent of the Israeli government who has said the country is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, suggested he was questioning joint training exercises between the NYPD and Israeli forces.

Powerful Moment

As the race closes, Mamdani seems to have gained sympathy and support, however, for his response to his opponent's escalating attacks.

Mamdani addressed Cuomo’s terrorism comments in an heartfelt recording. In it, the candidate recalled how, when he first campaigned for the legislature, a family member advised to him that he did not have to tell people about his religion. It was a realization, he said, that many local Muslims had been told “again and again”: “That safety could only be found in the shadows of our city. That it is in those hidden spaces alone where followers of Islam could embrace their full identities, and that if we were to emerge from those seclusion, then it is in those silence that we must leave our beliefs.”

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