🔗 Share this article

New Yorkers will discover who will be their next mayor this election day, in a race that will determine who governs and defends the country's largest city at a moment when Donald Trump has vowed to deploy military troops to the city.

In this context, New York has witnessed a mayoral election that has matched two distinctly opposing Democrats against each other. The contest has become an increasingly bitter face-off, laced with alleged racial bias and Islamophobia, but it is the political differences between the two main candidates that could have major implications for how the Democratic party fares in next year's congressional races.

The Rising Progressive

On the left side is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose meteoric rise and people-powered movement has brought global notice. On the establishment side is the former governor, the ex- New York governor now running as an independent – and benefiting from the backing of wealthy contributors and big business.

With days to go, it is Mamdani, the one-time underdog who defeated Cuomo in the party primary who is solidly positioned as the leading candidate. The candidate, who has run on a agenda of economic justice and promised to halt rent increases for about two million New Yorkers, has outpaced Cuomo by double-digits across all surveys conducted in October, and it is very much the younger man's election to lose.

The Controversial Campaign

However, Cuomo, who resigned as the state's leader in 2021 amid allegations of misconduct, has made it clear he will battle to the finish, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt fashion. He has criticized Mamdani's objectives as unrealistic, and in recent days laughed as a radio host made Islamophobic remarks about the candidate, who is Muslim. Recently, the independent was strongly criticized as bigoted after sharing an AI-generated ad that included a slew of racial caricatures and showed his opponent releasing a group of criminals.

It's been a rather grubby conclusion to an race that could be critical to the path that the party, struggling in its response to Trump's authoritarian grabs, takes in the coming years.

National Implications

Should Mamdani wins convincingly, the establishment party leaders who have declined to support his campaign will be forced to reckon with a platform that has resonated with Americans' frustration at economic disparity, inflation and the establishment. It would be hard for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries not to embrace at least a portion of Mamdani's ambitious ideas about economic justice, given the fresh face has generated an enthusiasm within the party arguably not seen since the Vermont senator ran for president eight years ago.

Conversely, if the former governor, who had been predicted to win easily in the Democratic primary, complete a surprising riches-to-rags-to-riches win, it could cement the party's existing approach of cautious, lackluster opposition – a tactic that has angered the party base. A NYC defeat of Mamdani's optimistic platform could convince party leaders that the wisest course is to remain in the center – even as surveys show the current iteration of the Democratic party is widely disliked across the country.

Voter Enthusiasm

Voters in New York seem to prefer the progressive agenda. Polls show that his backers are far more enthusiastic about their choice than his opponent's supporters, something that has been apparent throughout the campaign. Mamdani's engaging content on social media, his optimistic vision for the city and his readiness to actually venture out and connect with voters in the metropolis has drawn an army of over fifty thousand volunteers, many of them young or first-time voters.

Negative Tactics

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

After spending months launching various attacks at Mamdani to see what might resonate, the independent has concentrated on attacking Mamdani personally. He has called Mamdani, who was born in Uganda to Indian parents, an “extremist”, and popped up on conservative media for an discussion with a rightwing host, where the candidate asserted the city “will not survive” his opponent as city leader. It reached a nadir last week, when the former governor laughed along and said “that’s another problem” after a broadcaster said Mamdani would “cheer” another 9/11-style incident.

Campaign Dynamics

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 Mamdani, and perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise. A set of wealthy residents, including some who donated to the Republican in the last presidential race, have invested heavily into trying to get the independent elected, as other influential figures have pressured Curtis Sliwa to withdraw from the race.

Candidate Backgrounds

As far as the his team, and his wealthy backers, are concerned, it should not have reached to this point. When the assemblyman, one of 150 state legislators, launched his mayoral bid in October 2024, few had known him, and in truth, few even paid attention.

The former governor, by contrast, entered smoothly into the race in this year and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the political heavyweight who apparently held every edge. The classic political insider, he had married a political dynasty member and worked in Bill Clinton’s administration. He became the state's leader in 2011, 17 years after his father, the former governor, left office from the same position.

The progressive, who was voted in to the New York state assembly in 2020, does not have the same political heritage. But his commitment to providing no-cost transit and free childcare – along with the freeze-the-rent pledge – 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.

Campaign Controversies

Nevertheless, Mamdani has encountered some challenges in the final phase, after video surfaced suggesting him suggesting the NYPD and the Israel Defense Forces were intertwined.

“We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the Israeli military,” the candidate said in the recording, filmed at a Democratic Socialists of America convention in recent years. Mamdani, a vocal opponent of the Israeli government who has said the nation is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, indicated he was questioning cooperative programs between the city police and IDF.

Emotional Response

With the election nearing, the candidate appears to have won empathy and backing, however, for his reaction to Cuomo’s increasing rhetoric.

The progressive addressed the independent's terrorism comments in an emotional video. In it, the candidate remembered how, when he first ran for state assembly, a family member suggested to him that he did not have to tell people about his Muslim faith. It was a realization, he said, that many Muslim New Yorkers had been taught “again and again”: “That security could only be found in the margins of our city. That it is in those shadows alone where followers of Islam could embrace their full identities, and that if we were to emerge from those shadows, then it is in those shadows that we must set aside our faith.”

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