Residents of the Big Apple will find out the identity of their new city leader this election day, in a contest that will decide who governs and defends the nation's largest city at a moment when Donald Trump has threatened to deploy military troops to the city.
In this context, New York has witnessed a mayoral election that has matched two distinctly opposing Democratic figures against each other. The contest has become an increasingly bitter face-off, laced with accusations of racial bias and anti-Muslim sentiment, but it is the ideological divide between the two main candidates that could have major implications for how the party fares in next year's midterm elections.
In the progressive corner is the democratic socialist, the 34-year-old progressive candidate whose meteoric rise and people-powered movement has attracted international attention. On the establishment side is Andrew Cuomo, the ex- New York governor now campaigning independently – and enjoying the backing of ultra-rich donors and corporations.
As the election approaches, it is Mamdani, the former longshot who beat his opponent in the party primary who is solidly positioned as the frontrunner. Mamdani, who has campaigned on a platform of affordability and pledged to freeze rent for about 2 million city residents, has led Cuomo by double-digits in every poll conducted in October, and it is very much the progressive's race to throw away.
However, the former governor, who resigned as governor in recent years amid accusations of sexual harassment, has stated clearly he will fight to the finish, and not necessarily in an fair manner. He has criticized Mamdani's objectives as unachievable, and in recent days laughed as a broadcaster made Islamophobic remarks about the candidate, who is a Muslim. Two weeks ago, the independent was widely condemned as racist after sharing an artificial intelligence video that included a slew of racist stereotypes and showed Mamdani releasing a convicts.
This represents a particularly ugly end to an race that could be critical to the path that the party, floundering in its reaction to the former president's power moves, adopts in the near future.
Should the progressive secures a clear victory, the establishment party leaders who have refused to endorse his bid will be compelled to address a message that has resonated with Americans' anger at inequality, inflation and the establishment. It would be hard for Chuck Schumer and the House leader not to embrace at least a portion of the candidate's ambitious ideas about affordability, given the fresh face has created an excitement within the party perhaps not witnessed since Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2016.
However, should Cuomo, who had been predicted to sail to victory in the June primary, complete a surprising comeback win, it could cement national Democrats' existing approach of cautious, uninspiring resistance – a strategy that has angered the party base. A New York defeat of the progressive's progressive, positive message could convince party leaders that the wisest course is to remain in the center – even as surveys show the current iteration of the party is deeply unpopular nationwide.
Residents of the city appear to favor the progressive agenda. Surveys show that his backers are much more excited about their candidate than his opponent's supporters, something that has been apparent throughout the campaign. Mamdani's engaging content on social media, his optimistic vision for New York and his readiness to actually get out and meet people in the city has drawn an army of more than 50,000 supporters, many of them young or new participants.
However, the former governor, 67, isn't giving up. And with the stakes stacked against him, the ex-leader has turned to ugly messaging in the final days.
After spending months launching various attacks at his opponent to see what might resonate, the independent has concentrated on targeting Mamdani directly. He has labelled Mamdani, who was born in Uganda to Indian parents, an "radical", and appeared on conservative media for an interview with a rightwing host, where the candidate asserted the city “will not survive” his opponent as city leader. It hit bottom last week, when Cuomo chuckled and said “that’s another problem” after a broadcaster said Mamdani would “cheer” another terrorist incident.
This strategy mirrors much of what the former president, who has sent the military reserves to Washington DC and threatened to take similar action to NYC, has said about Mamdani, and perhaps that is expected. A group of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who contributed to the Republican in the last presidential race, have pumped millions into trying to get Cuomo elected, as other powerful voices have pressured the Republican candidate to drop out from the contest.
As far as the Cuomo camp, and his wealthy backers, are concerned, it should not have reached to this. When the assemblyman, one of one hundred fifty state legislators, started his mayoral bid in October 2024, few had heard of him, and in truth, few even paid attention.
Cuomo, by contrast, entered smoothly into the contest in this year and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the big beast who apparently held every edge. The quintessential political insider, he had wed a political dynasty member and served in Bill Clinton’s administration. He assumed office as the state's leader in 2011, seventeen years after his parent, the former governor, stepped down from the same position.
The progressive, who was elected to the state legislature in 2020, 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 – present a brighter outlook of the city's direction than his opponent's dire warnings about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his promise to increase police presence.
Nevertheless, the candidate has faced difficulties in recent days, after video surfaced suggesting him implying the New York police department and the IDF were intertwined.
“We have to make clear that when the boot of the police is on your throat, it’s been influenced by the Israeli military,” the candidate said in the recording, filmed at a DSA convention in 2023. Mamdani, a longtime critic of Israel who has said the nation is engaging in atrocities in Gaza, indicated he was questioning cooperative programs between the city police and IDF.
With the election nearing, Mamdani appears to have won sympathy and support, however, for his reaction to his opponent's escalating attacks.
The progressive addressed Cuomo’s terrorism comments in an emotional video. In it, Mamdani remembered how, when he first ran for state assembly, a Muslim uncle advised to him that he did not have to disclose 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 margins 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 step out from those shadows, then it is in those silence that we must leave our faith.”
Speaking to the behavior of his opponents, who has alleged Mamd
