🔗 Share this article

New Yorkers will find out who will be their next mayor this election day, in a race that will determine who runs and defends the country's largest city at a time when Donald Trump has threatened to send military troops to the urban center.

Against that backdrop, New York has experienced a mayoral election that has pitted two very different Democratic figures against each other. The contest has turned into an increasingly bitter showdown, marked by alleged racial bias and Islamophobia, but it is the political differences between the two leading candidates that could have significant consequences for how the Democratic party performs in next year's congressional races.

The Rising Progressive

On the left side is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old progressive candidate whose rapid ascent and grassroots campaign has brought global notice. Representing the old guard 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.

With days to go, it is the progressive, the former longshot who defeated Cuomo in the party primary who is solidly positioned as the leading candidate. The candidate, who has campaigned on a platform of affordability and promised to freeze rent for about 2 million New Yorkers, has led his rival by significant margins in every poll conducted in October, and it is very much the progressive's race to lose.

A Bitter Contest

However, the former governor, who resigned as governor in recent years amid accusations of sexual harassment, has stated clearly he will battle to the end, and not necessarily in an fair fashion. He has criticized Mamdani's objectives as unachievable, and in the final stretch chuckled along as a broadcaster made anti-Muslim comments about Mamdani, who is Muslim. Recently, Cuomo was strongly criticized as bigoted after sharing an artificial intelligence video that featured a series of racial caricatures and showed his opponent freeing a convicts.

This represents a rather grubby end to an race that could be key to the direction that the party, floundering in its response to the former president's authoritarian grabs, takes in the near future.

Broader Consequences

If Mamdani secures a clear victory, the party establishment who have refused to endorse his bid will be forced to reckon with a platform that has appealed to voters' anger at inequality, soaring price rises and the establishment. It would be hard for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries not to adopt at least some of Mamdani's progressive proposals about economic justice, given the newcomer has generated an excitement within the Democratic ranks perhaps not witnessed since Bernie Sanders ran for president eight years ago.

Conversely, should the former governor, who had been predicted to win easily in the Democratic primary, achieve a remarkable comeback win, it could cement national Democrats' current model of considered, uninspiring opposition – a strategy that has infuriated the party base. A New York rejection of Mamdani's optimistic platform could convince party leaders that the best plan is to stick to the center – even as surveys show the present version of the party is deeply unpopular nationwide.

Campaign Energy

Voters in the city appear to favor the Mamdani vision. Surveys show that Mamdani supporters are much more excited about their choice than Cuomo backers, something that has been apparent during the race. Mamdani's engaging content on social media, his optimistic vision for New York and his readiness to actually venture out and connect with voters in the city has drawn an army of over fifty thousand supporters, many of them young or first-time voters.

Personal Attacks

Yet, the former governor, 67, continues to fight. And with the risks against him, the former governor has resorted to negative campaigning in recent weeks.

After spending months throwing basically everything at Mamdani to see what might stick, the independent has narrowed his focus on targeting the candidate personally. He has called Mamdani, who was born in Uganda to Indian parents, an “extremist”, and appeared on conservative media for an interview with a rightwing host, where Cuomo claimed New York “will not survive” Mamdani as city leader. It reached a nadir last week, when Cuomo chuckled and said “that’s another problem” after a radio host said Mamdani would “cheer” another terrorist incident.

Campaign Dynamics

This strategy mirrors much of what Trump, who has deployed the national guard to Washington DC and threatened to take similar action to NYC, has said about the progressive, and perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise. A group of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who contributed to Trump in the last presidential race, have invested heavily into trying to elect Cuomo into office, as other powerful voices have urged the Republican candidate to withdraw from the contest.

Political Histories

As far as the Cuomo camp, and his wealthy backers, are worried, it should not have reached to this. When the assemblyman, one of 150 New York state assembly members, launched his campaign for mayor in last year, few had known him, and in reality, barely anyone even noticed.

The former governor, by comparison, eased his way into the contest in March 2025 and became the instant favorite. He was the big beast who apparently held all the advantages. The classic establishment figure, he had wed a Kennedy and worked in Bill Clinton’s administration. He assumed office as New York governor in 2011, 17 years after his father, Mario Cuomo, left office from the same position.

The progressive, who was elected to the New York state assembly in recently, does not have the comparable background. But his commitment to providing no-cost transit and affordable child services – along with the freeze-the-rent pledge – offer a more positive vision of the city's direction than Cuomo’s pessimistic predictions about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his promise to hire more police officers.

Campaign Controversies

Nevertheless, Mamdani has faced difficulties in recent days, after footage emerged suggesting him implying the NYPD and the Israel Defense Forces were intertwined.

“We have to make clear that when the pressure of the NYPD is on your throat, it’s been influenced by the IDF,” Mamdani said in the recording, filmed at a Democratic Socialists of America convention in recent years. Mamdani, a longtime critic of the Israeli government who has said the country is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, indicated he was criticizing joint training exercises between the city police and IDF.

Emotional Response

With the election nearing, Mamdani seems to have gained sympathy and support, however, for his reaction to Cuomo’s increasing rhetoric.

Mamdani responded to Cuomo’s terrorism comments in an emotional video. In it, the candidate remembered how, when he first ran for the legislature, a Muslim uncle suggested 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 taught “again and again”: “That security could only be found in the shadows of our city. That it is in those hidden spaces alone where Muslims could express their true selves, and that if we were to emerge from those shadows, then it is in those shadows that we must set aside our beliefs.”

Speaking to the actions of his opponents, who has alleged Mamd