🔗 Share this article

New Yorkers will learn who will be their new city leader this Tuesday, in a race that will determine who runs and protects the country's most populous metropolis at a time when the former president has vowed to send military troops to the city.

Against that backdrop, New York has experienced a mayoral election that has pitted two very different Democratic figures against each other. The election has turned into an increasingly bitter showdown, laced with accusations of racism and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two leading candidates that could have major implications for how the Democratic party performs in next year's midterm elections.

The Rising Progressive

In the progressive corner is the democratic socialist, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose meteoric rise and people-powered movement has brought global notice. Representing the old guard is the former governor, the former New York governor now running as an independent – and enjoying the backing of wealthy contributors and big business.

With days to go, it is the progressive, the one-time underdog who beat his opponent in the Democratic primary who is solidly positioned as the leading candidate. Mamdani, who has campaigned on a platform of economic justice and pledged to freeze rent for about two million New Yorkers, has led Cuomo by double-digits across all surveys taken in October, and it is very much the progressive's election to lose.

The Controversial Campaign

However, Cuomo, who resigned as governor in recent years amid allegations of sexual harassment, has made it clear he will battle to the end, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt manner. He has criticized Mamdani's goals as unrealistic, and in recent days laughed as a broadcaster made Islamophobic remarks about Mamdani, who is a Muslim. Two weeks ago, Cuomo was strongly criticized as bigoted after posting an artificial intelligence video that included a slew of racist stereotypes and showed Mamdani freeing a group of criminals.

It's been a particularly ugly conclusion to an race that could be critical to the path that the Democratic party, floundering in its response to the former president's authoritarian grabs, takes in the coming years.

National Implications

If Mamdani wins convincingly, the establishment party leaders who have refused to endorse his campaign will be forced to reckon with a message that has appealed to voters' frustration at inequality, soaring price rises and the political elite. It would be hard for the Senate leader and Hakeem Jeffries not to embrace at least some of Mamdani's ambitious ideas about affordability, given the fresh face has created an enthusiasm within the party perhaps not witnessed since the Vermont senator campaigned for the White House in 2016.

However, if Cuomo, who had been predicted to sail to victory in the Democratic primary, achieve a surprising comeback victory, it could reinforce the party's existing approach of cautious, lackluster opposition – a tactic that has angered the party base. A New York rejection of Mamdani's optimistic platform could persuade party leaders that the wisest course is to remain in the political center – even as surveys show the present version of the Democratic party is widely disliked across the country.

Voter Enthusiasm

Residents of the city appear to favor the Mamdani vision. Surveys show that Mamdani supporters 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 social media, his hopeful outlook for New York and his readiness to actually venture out and connect with voters in the city has drawn an army of more than 50,000 supporters, many of them young or new participants.

Personal Attacks

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

Following extensive throwing basically everything at his opponent to see what might resonate, Cuomo has narrowed his focus on targeting Mamdani personally. He has called his rival, who was of Ugandan origin to Indian parents, an "radical", and appeared on conservative media for an interview with a rightwing host, where Cuomo claimed New York “will not survive” his opponent as mayor. It hit bottom last week, when the former governor chuckled and said “that’s another problem” after a broadcaster said Mamdani would “cheer” another terrorist incident.

Political Landscape

The line of attack mirrors much of what Trump, who has deployed the military reserves to the capital and warned to do the same to New York, has said about Mamdani, and perhaps that is expected. A group of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who contributed to Trump in the last presidential race, have pumped millions into trying to elect the independent 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 wealthy backers, are concerned, it should not have reached to this point. When the assemblyman, one of 150 New York state assembly members, started his campaign for mayor in last year, few had known him, and in reality, barely anyone even noticed.

Cuomo, by comparison, entered smoothly into the race in this year and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the political heavyweight who apparently held all the advantages. The classic establishment figure, he had wed a political dynasty member and served in Bill Clinton’s administration. He became New York governor in 2011, seventeen years after his parent, Mario Cuomo, stepped down from the identical role.

The progressive, who was elected 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 freeze-the-rent pledge – present a brighter outlook of the future than Cuomo’s dire warnings about “mayhem” and rising criminal activity, and his vow to increase police presence.

Recent Challenges

Nevertheless, Mamdani has faced difficulties in recent days, after footage surfaced suggesting him implying the NYPD and the IDF were intertwined.

“We have to make clear that when the pressure of the police 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 2023. The progressive, a longtime critic of the Israeli government who has said the country is engaging in atrocities in Gaza, suggested he was questioning joint training exercises between the NYPD and Israeli forces.

Powerful Moment

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

The progressive addressed the independent's terrorism comments in an emotional video. In it, Mamdani remembered how, when he first campaigned for the legislature, a family member 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 told “again and again”: “That security could only be found in the shadows of our community. That it is in those shadows alone where followers of Islam could embrace their true selves, 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 actions of his opponents, who has claimed Mamd