🔗 Share this article

New Yorkers will learn who will be their next mayor this Tuesday, in a contest that will determine who governs and protects the country's most populous metropolis at a moment when the former president has vowed to deploy armed forces to the city.

Against that backdrop, New York has experienced a mayoral election that has matched two very different Democrats against each other. The election has become an increasingly bitter face-off, marked by accusations of racial bias and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two leading contenders that could have significant consequences for how the Democratic party performs in next year's congressional races.

The Rising Progressive

On the left side is Zohran Mamdani, the young democratic socialist whose rapid ascent and grassroots campaign has attracted international attention. On the establishment side is Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic New York governor now running as an independent – and enjoying the backing of wealthy contributors and corporations.

As the election approaches, it is Mamdani, the one-time underdog who defeated Cuomo in the party primary who is solidly positioned as the leading candidate. The candidate, who has run on a platform of affordability and promised to freeze rent for about 2 million New Yorkers, has outpaced Cuomo by significant margins across all surveys conducted in October, and it is very much the progressive's race to lose.

A Bitter Contest

However, Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid accusations of misconduct, has made it clear he will fight to the end, and not necessarily in an fair fashion. He has criticized Mamdani's goals as unrealistic, and in recent days laughed as a radio host made Islamophobic remarks about Mamdani, who is Muslim. Two weeks ago, the independent was strongly criticized as racist after posting an AI-generated ad that featured a slew of racial caricatures and showed his opponent freeing a convicts.

This represents a rather grubby conclusion to an race that could be key to the direction that the party, struggling in its reaction to the former president's authoritarian grabs, takes in the near future.

National Implications

If Mamdani wins convincingly, the party establishment who have declined to support his campaign will be forced to reckon with a platform that has appealed to voters' frustration at inequality, soaring price rises and the establishment. It would be difficult for the Senate leader and Hakeem Jeffries not to embrace at least a portion of Mamdani's ambitious ideas about economic justice, given the newcomer has created an enthusiasm within the party perhaps not seen since Bernie Sanders campaigned for the White House eight years ago.

Conversely, should Cuomo, who had been predicted to sail to victory in the June primary, complete a surprising riches-to-rags-to-riches victory, it could cement the party's existing approach of considered, uninspiring resistance – a strategy that has infuriated the party base. A New York defeat of Mamdani's progressive, positive message could persuade party leaders that the wisest course is to stick to the center – even as polls show the present version of the Democratic party is widely disliked nationwide.

Campaign Energy

Voters in New York seem to prefer the Mamdani vision. Polls show that Mamdani supporters are much more excited about their candidate than his opponent's supporters, something that has been apparent throughout the campaign. Mamdani's snappy videos on social media, his optimistic vision for the city and his readiness to actually get out and meet people in the metropolis has drawn an army of more than 50,000 volunteers, many of them youth or first-time voters.

Personal Attacks

However, the former governor, 67, continues to fight. And with the stakes stacked against him, the ex-leader has resorted to ugly messaging in recent weeks.

After spending months launching various attacks at Mamdani to see what might stick, the independent has concentrated on targeting the candidate personally. He has called his rival, who was born in Uganda to South Asian heritage, an “extremist”, and popped up on conservative media for an interview with Maria Bartiromo, where Cuomo claimed the city “will not survive” his opponent as city leader. It reached a nadir recently, when the former governor laughed along and said “that’s another problem” after a radio host said Mamdani would “cheer” another 9/11-style attack.

Campaign Dynamics

The line of attack mirrors much of what the former president, who has deployed the military reserves to Washington DC and warned to take similar action to New York, has said about the progressive, and maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise. A group of wealthy residents, including some who donated to Trump in the last presidential race, have invested heavily into trying to elect the independent into office, as other powerful voices have urged the Republican candidate to drop out from the race.

Candidate Backgrounds

For the Cuomo camp, and his billionaire supporters, are worried, it should not have reached to this. When the assemblyman, one of 150 state legislators, launched his campaign for mayor in last year, not many had known him, and in truth, few even paid attention.

The former governor, by contrast, entered smoothly into the contest in March 2025 and became the instant favorite. He was the big beast who seemingly held every edge. The quintessential political insider, he had married a Kennedy and served in a Democratic presidency. He became the state's leader in over a decade ago, seventeen years after his parent, the former governor, stepped down from the identical role.

The progressive, who was elected to the New York state assembly in recently, 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 more positive vision of the future than his opponent's dire warnings about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his vow to increase police presence.

Recent Challenges

Still, the candidate has faced difficulties in recent days, after footage emerged appearing to show him suggesting the NYPD and the Israel Defense Forces were connected.

“We have to make clear that when the pressure of the police is on your throat, it’s been influenced by the IDF,” the candidate said in the clip, recorded at a DSA gathering in 2023. The progressive, a vocal opponent of Israel who has said the country is engaging in atrocities in Gaza, indicated he was criticizing joint training exercises between the NYPD and Israeli forces.

Emotional Response

With the election nearing, Mamdani seems to have gained empathy and backing, however, for his response to Cuomo’s escalating attacks.

Mamdani addressed the independent's terrorism comments in an heartfelt recording. In it, the candidate recalled how, when he first campaigned 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 security could only be found in the margins of our city. That it is in those shadows alone where Muslims could embrace their true selves, 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 actions of his opponents, who has claimed Mamd