🔗 Share this article

New Yorkers will learn who will be their next mayor this election day, in a race that will decide who governs and protects the nation's largest city at a moment when Donald Trump has vowed to deploy military troops to the city.

In this context, New York has experienced a mayoral election that has pitted two very different Democrats against one another. The election has turned into an acrimonious face-off, laced with alleged racism and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two main contenders that could have significant consequences for how the Democratic party fares in next year's congressional races.

The Rising Progressive

In the progressive corner is the democratic socialist, the 34-year-old progressive candidate whose meteoric rise and grassroots campaign has brought international attention. On the establishment side is Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor now running as an independent – and benefiting from the support of ultra-rich donors and big business.

With days to go, it is the progressive, the former longshot who beat Cuomo in the Democratic primary who is firmly installed as the frontrunner. Mamdani, who has campaigned on a agenda of economic justice and pledged to halt rent increases for about two million New Yorkers, has led Cuomo by significant margins in every poll taken in the fall, and it is very much the younger man's race to lose.

The Controversial Campaign

However, the former governor, who stepped down as the state's leader in recent years amid allegations of misconduct, has stated clearly he will fight to the finish, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt fashion. He has trashed Mamdani's objectives as unachievable, and in recent days laughed as a radio host made anti-Muslim comments about the candidate, who is Muslim. Recently, the independent was widely condemned as racist after posting an artificial intelligence video that included a series of racial caricatures and showed Mamdani freeing a group of criminals.

It's been a particularly ugly end to an election that could be key to the path that the party, floundering in its response to Trump's power moves, adopts in the coming years.

National Implications

If the progressive wins convincingly, the establishment party leaders who have declined to support his campaign will be compelled to address a platform that has resonated with Americans' anger at economic disparity, inflation and the political elite. It would be hard for the Senate leader and the House leader not to adopt at least a portion of the candidate's ambitious ideas about affordability, given the fresh face has generated an excitement within the Democratic ranks perhaps not seen since the Vermont senator campaigned for the White House in 2016.

However, if Cuomo, who had been expected to win easily in the Democratic primary, achieve a surprising riches-to-rags-to-riches win, it could reinforce national Democrats' current model of cautious, lackluster resistance – a tactic that has infuriated the party base. A NYC rejection of the progressive's progressive, positive message could convince party leaders that the best plan is to remain in the center – even as surveys show the current iteration of the Democratic party is deeply unpopular across the country.

Campaign Energy

Voters in New York seem to prefer the progressive agenda. Surveys show that his backers are much more excited about their choice than his opponent's supporters, something that has been evident during the race. The candidate's snappy videos on social media, his optimistic vision for the city and his willingness to actually get out and connect with voters in the city has attracted an army of more than 50,000 volunteers, many of them young 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 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 Mamdani personally. He has called his rival, who was of Ugandan origin to South Asian heritage, an "radical", and appeared on conservative media for an discussion with a rightwing host, where the candidate asserted the city “will not survive” his opponent as city leader. It reached a nadir recently, when Cuomo chuckled and said “that’s another problem” after a broadcaster said the candidate would “cheer” another terrorist incident.

Campaign Dynamics

This strategy mirrors much of what the former president, who has sent the national guard to the capital and warned to take similar action to NYC, has said about Mamdani, and maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise. A set of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who donated to the Republican in the last presidential race, have invested heavily into trying to get the independent into office, as other powerful voices have urged the Republican candidate to withdraw from the contest.

Political Histories

For the his team, and his wealthy backers, are concerned, it should never have come to this point. When the assemblyman, one of 150 New York state assembly members, launched his mayoral bid in last year, few had known him, and in truth, few even noticed.

The former governor, by contrast, entered smoothly into the race in March 2025 and became the instant favorite. He was the big beast who seemingly held all the advantages. The classic political insider, he had married a Kennedy and served in Bill Clinton’s administration. He became New York governor in over a decade ago, seventeen years after his parent, the former governor, left office from the identical role.

Mamdani, who was voted in to the state legislature 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 brighter outlook of the future than Cuomo’s dire warnings about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his promise to increase police presence.

Recent Challenges

Still, Mamdani has faced some challenges in recent days, after video emerged suggesting him implying the New York police department and the IDF were intertwined.

“We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your throat, it’s been influenced by the Israeli military,” the candidate said in the clip, recorded at a Democratic Socialists of America convention in recent years. The progressive, a vocal opponent of Israel who has said the country is engaging in atrocities in Gaza, indicated he was questioning cooperative programs between the NYPD and Israeli forces.

Powerful Moment

As the race closes, the candidate seems to have gained empathy and backing, however, for his reaction to his opponent's increasing rhetoric.

Mamdani responded to the independent's 9/11 remarks in an emotional video. In it, Mamdani 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, Mamdani said, that many Muslim New Yorkers had been told “again and again”: “That safety could only be found in the shadows of our community. That it is in those hidden spaces alone where Muslims could embrace their true selves, and that if we were to emerge from those seclusion, then it is in those shadows that we must leave our faith.”

Speaking to the behavior of his opponents, who has claimed Mamd