🔗 Share this article

New Yorkers will discover the identity of their next mayor this election day, in a contest that will decide who governs and protects the country's most populous metropolis at a moment when Donald Trump has vowed to send military troops to the city.

In this context, New York has experienced a race for mayor that has pitted two very different Democratic figures against one another. The election has become an acrimonious face-off, marked by alleged racism and anti-Muslim sentiment, but it is the political differences between the two main candidates that could have major implications for how the party fares in next year's congressional races.

The Progressive Challenger

In the progressive corner is Zohran Mamdani, 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 former 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 frontrunner. Mamdani, who has campaigned on a agenda of economic justice and pledged to freeze rent for about two million city residents, has outpaced his rival by significant margins in every poll taken in October, and it is very much the younger man's election to lose.

A Bitter Contest

Yet, the former governor, who resigned as the state's leader in recent years amid accusations of misconduct, has made it clear he will fight to the end, and not necessarily in an fair manner. He has criticized Mamdani's goals as unachievable, and in the final stretch chuckled along as a broadcaster made Islamophobic remarks about Mamdani, who is Muslim. Recently, Cuomo was widely condemned as bigoted after sharing an AI-generated ad that included a series of racial caricatures and showed his opponent releasing a convicts.

This represents a particularly ugly end to an race that could be key to the direction that the Democratic party, floundering in its response to the former president's power moves, adopts in the near future.

National Implications

Should the progressive secures a clear victory, the party establishment who have declined to support his campaign will be compelled to address a platform that has appealed to voters' anger at inequality, soaring price rises and the establishment. It would be hard for the Senate leader and Hakeem Jeffries not to embrace at least some of the candidate's ambitious ideas about economic justice, given the fresh face has generated an excitement within the party arguably not seen since the Vermont senator campaigned for the White House eight years ago.

Conversely, if Cuomo, who had been expected to win easily in the June primary, achieve a remarkable riches-to-rags-to-riches win, it could cement the party's current model of considered, uninspiring opposition – a strategy that has angered the party base. A New York rejection of the progressive's optimistic platform could convince Schumer and Jeffries that the best plan is to remain in the political center – even as polls show the present version of the Democratic party is widely disliked across the country.

Campaign Energy

Voters in New York appear to favor the progressive agenda. Polls 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 digital platforms, his hopeful outlook for New York and his willingness to actually venture out and meet people in the metropolis has attracted an force of over fifty thousand supporters, many of them youth or first-time voters.

Personal Attacks

However, Cuomo, 67, isn't giving up. And with the stakes against him, the ex-leader has resorted to negative campaigning in the final days.

Following extensive launching various attacks at his opponent to see what might stick, the independent has concentrated on attacking the candidate personally. He has labelled his rival, who was born in Uganda to South Asian heritage, an "radical", and appeared 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 broadcaster said Mamdani would “cheer” another 9/11-style attack.

Campaign Dynamics

The line of attack mirrors much of what Trump, who has deployed the national guard to the capital and warned to take similar action to New York, has said about Mamdani, and maybe that is expected. A set of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who donated to the Republican in the 2024 election, have pumped millions into trying to get the independent into office, as other powerful voices have pressured the Republican candidate to withdraw from the contest.

Political Histories

As far as the his team, and his billionaire supporters, are worried, it should never have come to this. When Mamdani, one of one hundred fifty state legislators, launched his mayoral bid in October 2024, not many had known him, and in reality, few even paid attention.

Cuomo, by comparison, entered smoothly into the contest in March 2025 and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the big beast who apparently held all the advantages. The classic political insider, he had wed a Kennedy and served in a Democratic presidency. He became New York governor in over a decade ago, seventeen years after his father, the former governor, left office from the identical role.

Mamdani, who was voted in to the state legislature in 2020, does not have the same political heritage. But his dedication to providing free buses and affordable child services – along with the rent control promise – present a brighter outlook of the future than Cuomo’s dire warnings about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his promise to increase police presence.

Campaign Controversies

Nevertheless, the candidate has faced difficulties in recent days, after video surfaced suggesting him implying the New York police department and the Israel Defense Forces were connected.

“We have to make clear that when the boot of the police is on your throat, it’s been influenced by the IDF,” the candidate said in the clip, recorded at a DSA convention in recent years. Mamdani, a vocal opponent of the Israeli government who has said the country is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, indicated he was questioning cooperative programs between the NYPD and IDF.

Powerful Moment

With the election nearing, Mamdani seems to have gained sympathy and support, however, for his response to his opponent's increasing rhetoric.

Mamdani responded to Cuomo’s terrorism comments in an emotional video. In it, Mamdani recalled how, when he first campaigned for the legislature, a Muslim uncle advised 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 safety could only be found in the margins of our city. That it is in those shadows alone where followers of Islam could express their true selves, and that if we were to emerge 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