🔗 Share this article

Residents of the Big Apple will discover who will be their new city leader this Tuesday, in a contest that will determine who runs and defends the country's largest city at a time 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 distinctly opposing Democrats against one another. The election has become an increasingly bitter face-off, laced with accusations of racial bias and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two main contenders that could have major implications for how the Democratic party performs in next year's congressional races.

The Rising Progressive

On the left side is the democratic socialist, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose meteoric rise and people-powered movement has brought international attention. Representing the old guard is the former governor, the ex- New York governor now running as an independent – and benefiting from the support of ultra-rich donors and corporations.

As the election approaches, it is Mamdani, the one-time underdog who beat Cuomo in the party primary who is solidly positioned as the frontrunner. Mamdani, who has campaigned on a platform of affordability and pledged to halt rent increases for about two million New Yorkers, has outpaced Cuomo by significant margins across all surveys taken in the fall, and it is very much the progressive's election to lose.

The Controversial Campaign

However, Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid accusations of misconduct, has stated clearly he will fight to the finish, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt fashion. He has criticized his opponent's objectives as unrealistic, and in recent days laughed as a radio host made Islamophobic remarks about Mamdani, who is a Muslim. Two weeks ago, Cuomo was strongly criticized as racist after sharing an AI-generated ad that included a series of racist stereotypes and showed his opponent releasing a convicts.

It's been a particularly ugly conclusion 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.

Broader Consequences

Should Mamdani wins convincingly, the party establishment who have declined to support his bid will be forced to reckon with a platform that has appealed to Americans' frustration at inequality, inflation and the establishment. It would be difficult for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries not to adopt at least a portion of Mamdani's progressive proposals about affordability, given the newcomer has generated an enthusiasm within the party arguably not seen since the Vermont senator campaigned for the White House in 2016.

Conversely, if the former governor, who had been predicted to win easily in the Democratic primary, complete a remarkable comeback victory, it could reinforce national Democrats' current model of considered, lackluster resistance – a strategy that has angered grassroots members. A NYC defeat of the progressive's optimistic platform could convince Schumer and Jeffries that the wisest course is to remain in the center – even as polls show the current iteration of the Democratic party is deeply unpopular nationwide.

Campaign Energy

Residents of the city seem to prefer the progressive agenda. Polls show that his backers are much more excited about their choice than his opponent's supporters, something that has been apparent throughout the campaign. Mamdani's snappy videos on digital platforms, his optimistic vision for New York and his willingness to actually venture out and meet people in the city has attracted an army of over fifty thousand volunteers, many of them youth or new participants.

Negative Tactics

Yet, the former governor, 67, isn't giving up. And with the stakes against him, the former governor has turned to ugly messaging in recent weeks.

After spending months throwing basically everything at his opponent to see what might stick, Cuomo has narrowed his focus on targeting Mamdani directly. He has called Mamdani, who was born in Uganda to South Asian heritage, an "radical", and appeared on Fox Business for an interview with Maria Bartiromo, where the candidate asserted the city “will not survive” his opponent as mayor. It reached a nadir recently, when Cuomo chuckled and said “that’s another problem” after a broadcaster said Mamdani would “cheer” another terrorist attack.

Campaign Dynamics

This strategy echoes much of what the former president, who has deployed the military reserves to Washington DC and threatened to take similar action to New York, has said about the progressive, and perhaps that is expected. A group of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who contributed to Trump in the 2024 election, 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

As far as the Cuomo camp, and his wealthy backers, are concerned, it should not have reached to this. When Mamdani, one of 150 state legislators, launched his mayoral bid in last year, not many had heard of him, and in truth, few even noticed.

The former governor, by comparison, entered smoothly into the race in March 2025 and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the big beast who seemingly held all the advantages. The quintessential political insider, he had wed a Kennedy and served in a Democratic presidency. He became New York governor in over a decade ago, 17 years after his parent, Mario Cuomo, left office from the same position.

Mamdani, who was elected to the New York state assembly in recently, does not have the comparable background. But his dedication to providing no-cost transit and free childcare – along with the freeze-the-rent pledge – offer a brighter outlook of the future than his opponent's dire warnings about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his promise to hire more police officers.

Recent Challenges

Nevertheless, Mamdani has encountered some challenges in the final phase, after footage surfaced appearing to show him implying the NYPD and the IDF were intertwined.

“We have to make clear that when the boot of the police is on your throat, it’s been laced by the IDF,” Mamdani said in the clip, filmed at a Democratic Socialists of America gathering in recent years. The progressive, a longtime critic of the Israeli government who has said the nation is engaging in atrocities in Gaza, indicated he was questioning joint training exercises between the city police and IDF.

Emotional Response

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

The progressive responded to Cuomo’s terrorism comments in an heartfelt recording. In it, the candidate recalled how, when he first campaigned for the legislature, a family member suggested to him that he did not have to disclose about his religion. It was a lesson, Mamdani said, that many local Muslims had been told “again and again”: “That security could only be found in the margins of our city. That it is in those hidden spaces alone where followers of Islam could embrace their full identities, and that if we were to step out from those seclusion, then it is in those silence that we must leave our faith.”

Speaking to the behavior of Cuomo and Sliwa, who has alleged Mamd