All Maps are via Redistricter, and all maps are using our 100K Districts from our 100K District Project. The main three candidates running are Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, Andrew Cuomo, the former Governor who is running as an independent, and Curtis Sliwa, beret enthusiast and the Republican nominee. Mamdani actually beat Cuomo in the Democratic primary, so this is round two between the two, who are expected to be the frontrunners. Currently, Mamdani is up by 14% in our averages, and he is the clear favorite to win. However, it’s still interesting to look at the city, and see what to look for to know how well Mamdani will do, or if Cuomo (or Sliwa?) can pull off an upset.
1. Ethnicity
This map shows the most prevalent ethnicity of each 100K District in New York City. White areas (blue) voted for Mamdani by about 5% in the primary (Per NYT). White areas electorally can be broken down into 4 groups.
They are:
The younger, highly educated people who make up the so called “Commie Corridor” (Solidly Mamdani)
The older, highly educated wealthy people mostly in Manhattan, Cuomo won this group in the primary, but they also were Lander-curious, so they could swing towards Mamdani.
The Orthodox Jewish people in Brooklyn, who Cuomo will likely win by 100%
The more conservative voters in Staten Island, who will likely vote for Sliwa.
Black areas (green) were solidly Cuomo in the primary (Per NYT), but it will be interesting to see whether or not they switch to Mamdani. The reason why is because Black people are arguably Democrats most consistent voting bloc, and even if Cuomo is a Democrat, he’s running as an independent in this election. Cuomo will need to win Black voters to even have a chance of defeating Mamdani. Hispanic areas (red) voted for Mamdani by 8% (Per NYT), but Cuomo did much better with Hispanics in the Bronx than Mamdani. Finally, Asian areas (orange) voted for Mamdani by 18% (Per NYT), and he should win them again solidly. One other thing to note is that the Hispanic and Asian areas were the places that swung the most to Trump from 2020-2024 in the city, which was a big reason why New York swung to Trump by 10%. These are the areas Democrats need to win, and depending on who wins here and how by much will tell us what kind of candidates they want to see in the future.
2. Bachelor’s Degree Attainment
As you might expect, the most educated areas are in Manhattan, and areas of Brooklyn and Queens bordering the island. These are those aforementioned white areas that solidly vote Democratic, but nonetheless could be split on who they support. A really good night for Mamdani would include winning a majority of these educated voters in and around the Upper East side, who voted for Cuomo, but otherwise have a lot of demographical overlaps of people who prefer more progressive candidates like Mamdani. The most “uneducated” places in the city are the Hispanic areas of the Bronx, Black areas of Brooklyn, and Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish areas of Brooklyn (Borough Park). There’s a pretty big overlap between these uneducated areas, and places that heavily shifted towards Trump from 2020-2024, and Mamdani and the Democrats will be hoping to reverse those shifts.
3. 2024 Presidential Election Results and 2020-2024 Swing
Harris won both New York City, and the state as a whole, but it was by far less than Biden in 2020 or Clinton in 2016. Trump won Staten Island, something Sliwa is also expected to do, as well as Jewish areas of Brooklyn, non college-educated white voters of Queens and Brooklyn, and certain Asian areas in eastern Queens. Harris won most of the rest of the city, racking up huge margins in Black areas of Queens and Brooklyn, educated white areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, and Hispanic areas in the Bronx.
As mentioned before, Trump gained a lot among minority voters, particularly those who aren’t college educated. Even if Harris won the Bronx by big margins, some of Trump’s shifts here were mind boggling, with some being around or above 20 points. Democrats need these voters in their coalition, and will hope to be reversing this trend in 2025, 2026, and beyond. Although every area shifted to Trump in some way, the most educated areas saw the smallest shifts, which tracks with what happened nationally.
4. 2024 Presidential Turnout
All we can say about this map is that if you showed this to Democratic operatives a few days before the 2024 election, they might have been disgusted. Turnout in the city was extremely low, with some places only having turnout of around 25%. To put that in perspective, the national average was around 58% in 2024. The places with the lowest turnout, tended to be minority, uneducated areas, while areas that were white and more educated tended to turn out higher. It’s not a coincidence that the same areas that trended to Trump the most also turn out the least, and this isn’t just isolated to New York City, this is a nationwide trend. Look to see how high turnout is in the Asian and Hispanic areas, and if the turnout is relatively high, that should be a good sign for Mamdani. Cuomo’s best shot at winning might be to have low turnout, or very high turnout among Black voters, but not among everyone else.
5. 2025 Democratic Primary for Mayor (By Precinct)
Finally, the best evidence we can go off of for what will happen in the election, is the Democratic primary, which was essentially round one. Cuomo is in blue, and Mamdani is in yellow. Mamdani really won off of high turnout in the “Commie Corridor” in Brooklyn and Queens, and doing surprisingly well with Hispanic and Asian voters, while Cuomo’s base was mostly in the Bronx, Hasidic Jewish voters in Brooklyn, and Black voters in Brooklyn and Queens. The main quirk about this primary though, is that it was not first past the post, as most elections are, but rather Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). RCV allowed voters to pick up to 5 candidates, and rank them 1-5. This led to the crowded field strategically cross-endorsing each other, and Mamdani benefitted from this much more than Cuomo, as he was able to get basically every non-Cuomo candidate to endorse him in some fashion. More or less, the other candidates said “pick me as your first option, but also make sure to put Mamdani somewhere on your ballot, and Cuomo not at all”. This isn’t the case in the general election though, but this might actually be to Mamdani’s benefit this time. Most Sliwa and Cuomo voters likely wouldn’t vote for Mamdani, and if one dropped out, or say RCV was the system being used, one of them might be able to win.
This election, along with Virginia and New Jersey’s Gubernatorial races, will be our first major look at what voters think about Trump’s second administration, and what happens could be a big indicator for how 2026 and even 2028 will go.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_New_York_City_Democratic_mayoral_primary
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