🔗 Share this article

New Yorkers will discover the identity of their next mayor this election day, in a race that will determine who runs and defends the nation's largest city at a moment when the former president has threatened to deploy armed forces to the urban center.

Against that backdrop, New York has experienced a mayoral election that has matched two very different Democrats against one another. The election has turned into an acrimonious showdown, laced with alleged racial bias and Islamophobia, but it is the political differences between the two leading contenders that could have major implications for how the Democratic party fares in next year's midterm elections.

The Rising Progressive

In the progressive corner is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose meteoric rise and grassroots campaign has brought international attention. Representing the old guard is the former governor, the former New York governor now campaigning independently – and enjoying the backing of ultra-rich donors and corporations.

With days to go, it is the progressive, the one-time underdog who defeated his opponent in the party primary who is solidly positioned as the leading candidate. Mamdani, who has campaigned on a platform of affordability and pledged to halt rent increases for about two million city residents, has led his rival by double-digits across all surveys taken in October, and it is very much the younger man's race to lose.

The Controversial Campaign

However, Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid allegations of misconduct, has stated clearly he will fight to the finish, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt manner. He has criticized his opponent's objectives as unrealistic, and in recent days chuckled along as a broadcaster made anti-Muslim comments about Mamdani, who is a Muslim. Two weeks ago, Cuomo was strongly criticized as bigoted after sharing an AI-generated ad that featured a series of racist stereotypes and showed Mamdani releasing a convicts.

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

National Implications

Should the progressive wins convincingly, the establishment party leaders who have declined to support his bid will be forced to reckon with a platform that has appealed to voters' anger at inequality, inflation and the establishment. It would be hard for Chuck Schumer and the House leader not to adopt at least some of Mamdani's ambitious ideas about economic justice, given the newcomer has generated an excitement within the Democratic ranks perhaps not seen since the Vermont senator ran for president in 2016.

However, if the former governor, who had been predicted to win easily in the June primary, achieve a remarkable riches-to-rags-to-riches victory, it could cement national Democrats' current model of cautious, uninspiring resistance – a strategy that has angered grassroots members. A New York rejection of the progressive's optimistic platform could persuade Schumer and Jeffries that the best plan is to stick to the political center – even as polls show the current iteration of the party is deeply unpopular across the country.

Campaign Energy

Residents of New York appear to favor the Mamdani vision. Polls show that his backers are far more enthusiastic about their candidate than his opponent's supporters, something that has been evident throughout the campaign. Mamdani's engaging content on digital platforms, his optimistic vision for the city and his willingness to actually venture out and meet people in the city has drawn an army of more than 50,000 supporters, many of them youth or first-time voters.

Personal Attacks

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

Following extensive launching various attacks at his opponent to see what might resonate, the independent has concentrated on targeting the candidate personally. He has labelled Mamdani, who was born in Uganda to Indian parents, an "radical", and popped up on Fox Business for an discussion with a rightwing host, where Cuomo asserted the city “will not survive” Mamdani as city leader. It reached a nadir last week, when Cuomo laughed along and said “that’s another problem” after a radio host said the candidate would “cheer” another terrorist attack.

Campaign Dynamics

This strategy echoes much of what the former president, who has sent the national guard to Washington DC and warned to do the same to NYC, has said about Mamdani, and perhaps that is expected. A group of wealthy residents, including some who donated to the Republican in the last presidential race, have invested heavily into trying to elect the independent into office, as other powerful voices have urged Curtis Sliwa to withdraw from the race.

Candidate Backgrounds

As far as the his team, and his billionaire supporters, are concerned, it should never have come to this. When the assemblyman, one of 150 New York state assembly members, started his campaign for mayor in October 2024, not many had known him, and in reality, barely anyone even paid attention.

The former governor, by comparison, eased his way into the race in March 2025 and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the big beast who apparently held every edge. The classic establishment figure, he had wed a Kennedy and served in Bill Clinton’s administration. He became New York governor in 2011, seventeen years after his parent, Mario Cuomo, left office from the same position.

The progressive, who was elected to the New York state assembly in 2020, does not have the same political heritage. But his commitment to providing no-cost transit and affordable child services – along with the rent control promise – offer a more positive vision of the city's direction than his opponent's dire warnings about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his promise to increase police presence.

Recent Challenges

Still, Mamdani has faced some challenges in the final phase, after footage surfaced appearing to show 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 laced by the Israeli military,” Mamdani said in the recording, filmed at a DSA gathering in 2023. The progressive, a longtime critic of Israel who has said the nation is engaging in atrocities in the Palestinian territory, indicated he was questioning joint training exercises between the city police and Israeli forces.

Emotional Response

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

Mamdani responded to Cuomo’s terrorism comments in an emotional video. In it, the candidate remembered how, when he first campaigned for state assembly, a family member advised to him that he did not have to tell people about his Muslim faith. It was a realization, Mamdani said, that many local Muslims 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 full identities, and that if we were to step out from those seclusion, then it is in those shadows that we must leave our beliefs.”

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