🔗 Share this article

Residents of the Big Apple will learn who will be their new city leader this Tuesday, in a contest that will decide who runs and protects the nation's most populous metropolis at a moment when the former president has vowed to send military troops to the city.

In this context, New York has experienced a race for mayor that has pitted two very different Democratic figures against each other. The contest has become an increasingly bitter showdown, laced with alleged racial bias and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two main contenders that could have major implications for how the 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 rapid ascent and people-powered movement has attracted international attention. Representing the old guard is the former governor, the former Democratic New York governor now campaigning independently – and enjoying the backing of ultra-rich donors and big business.

With days to go, it is the progressive, the former longshot who defeated Cuomo in the party primary who is firmly installed as the leading candidate. The candidate, who has run on a agenda of affordability and promised to halt rent increases for about 2 million New Yorkers, has outpaced Cuomo by double-digits in every poll taken in the fall, and it is very much the younger man's election to throw away.

The Controversial Campaign

However, Cuomo, who stepped down as the state's leader in 2021 amid accusations of sexual harassment, has made it clear he will fight to the finish, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt manner. He has trashed his opponent's goals as unrealistic, and in the final stretch chuckled along as a radio host made anti-Muslim comments about the candidate, who is a Muslim. Two weeks ago, Cuomo was widely condemned as racist after sharing an AI-generated ad that featured a series of racial caricatures and showed his opponent freeing a group of criminals.

It's been a rather grubby end to an election that could be critical to the path that the Democratic party, struggling in its reaction to Trump's authoritarian grabs, adopts in the near future.

Broader Consequences

If the progressive wins convincingly, the establishment party leaders who have declined to support his bid will be compelled to address a platform that has resonated with voters' anger at inequality, 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 Democratic ranks perhaps not witnessed since the Vermont senator ran for president in 2016.

Conversely, should the former governor, who had been predicted to sail to victory in the Democratic primary, achieve a surprising riches-to-rags-to-riches win, it could reinforce the party's existing approach of cautious, lackluster opposition – a strategy that has angered grassroots members. A New York defeat of Mamdani's optimistic platform could convince Schumer and Jeffries that the wisest course is to remain in the center – even as polls show the current iteration of the party is widely disliked nationwide.

Campaign Energy

Voters in the city seem to prefer the Mamdani vision. Polls show that his backers are far more enthusiastic about their candidate than Cuomo backers, something that has been apparent throughout the campaign. Mamdani's snappy videos on digital platforms, his hopeful outlook for New York and his readiness to actually venture out and meet people in the metropolis has drawn an force of more than 50,000 volunteers, many of them youth or first-time voters.

Personal Attacks

Yet, the former governor, in his late sixties, isn't giving up. And with the stakes stacked against him, the former governor has resorted to ugly messaging in recent weeks.

Following extensive launching various attacks at his opponent to see what might resonate, the independent has concentrated on targeting the candidate directly. He has called his rival, who was of Ugandan origin to Indian parents, an “extremist”, and popped up on conservative media for an discussion with a rightwing host, where Cuomo claimed New York “will not survive” Mamdani as city leader. It hit bottom recently, when the former governor chuckled and said “that’s another problem” after a radio host said the candidate would “cheer” another 9/11-style incident.

Campaign Dynamics

This strategy mirrors much of what Trump, who has deployed the national guard to Washington DC and warned to do the same to New York, has said about the progressive, and maybe that is expected. A set of wealthy residents, including some who donated to the Republican in the 2024 election, have invested heavily into trying to elect Cuomo elected, as other powerful voices have pressured Curtis Sliwa to drop out from the contest.

Candidate Backgrounds

As far as the Cuomo camp, and his billionaire supporters, are worried, it should not have reached to this point. When Mamdani, one of 150 New York state assembly members, started his mayoral bid in October 2024, not many had heard of him, and in reality, barely anyone even noticed.

The former governor, by contrast, entered smoothly into the contest in this year and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the big beast who apparently held all the advantages. The quintessential establishment figure, he had wed a Kennedy and worked in Bill Clinton’s administration. He became New York governor in 2011, 17 years after his father, the former governor, stepped down from the same position.

The progressive, who was voted in to the state legislature in 2020, does not have the comparable background. But his commitment to providing free buses and free childcare – along with the rent control promise – offer a brighter outlook of the future than his opponent's dire warnings about “mayhem” and rising criminal activity, and his vow to increase police presence.

Campaign Controversies

Still, Mamdani has encountered difficulties in the final phase, after video emerged appearing to show him implying the New York police department and the IDF were intertwined.

“We have to make clear that when the pressure 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. The progressive, a longtime critic of the Israeli government who has said the country is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, suggested he was questioning cooperative programs between the city police and IDF.

Emotional Response

As the race closes, the candidate appears to have won empathy and backing, however, for his response to Cuomo’s escalating attacks.

Mamdani responded to the independent's 9/11 remarks in an heartfelt recording. In it, the candidate remembered how, when he first campaigned for state assembly, a Muslim uncle advised to him that he did not have to tell people about his Muslim faith. It was a lesson, he said, that many Muslim New Yorkers had been taught “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 express their full identities, and that if we were to step out from those seclusion, then it is in those silence that we must set aside our faith.”

Addressing the behavior of Cuomo and Sliwa, who has alleged Mamd