The Voters Who Propelled Mamdani to Victory

Zohran Mamdani sealed his mayoral victory in New York City with gains in several key areas. Here are some notable takeaways.

Zohran Mamdani rode to victory Tuesday night in a formidable show of political force, marshaling more than one million votes from a diverse array of New Yorkers.

Zohran Mamdani sealed his win with gains in several key areas.

More than two million people headed to the polls for the historic mayoral race, which pitted the 34-year-old democratic socialist against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Preliminary data showed Mamdani sealed his victory with gains in several key areas. Here are some notable takeaways.

Turnout hit a record

Mamdani’s roughly 50% share of the vote is far less than the nearly 67% Eric Adams received in 2021 or Bill de Blasio’s 66% in 2017—but this wasn’t a typical New York City election. Unlike his predecessors, who didn’t have particularly competitive general elections, Mamdani had to fight off a fellow prominent Democrat to claim victory.

Lincoln Mitchell, a political-science professor at Columbia University, said it was crucial for Mamdani to cross the 50% threshold to avoid a narrative that he doesn’t have the support necessary for his ambitious agenda.

“It’s symbolic,” Mitchell said. “But it doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

An extraordinary number of voters turned out for both Mamdani and Cuomo. All told, more than two million New Yorkers cast their ballots, close to double the turnout of recent races and the most since 1969. Mamdani was propelled to victory by the votes of more than one million New Yorkers—more than any winning candidate in at least the past 20 years.

Preliminary data show the highest turnouts in neighborhoods that heavily favored one candidate over the other. Borough Park and South Williamsburg, both predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods that overwhelmingly voted for Cuomo, more than tripled their turnout compared with the 2021 mayoral election. So did Bushwick, the neighborhood where Mamdani received the largest share of the general election vote.

Chart.

Mamdani’s support surged among low-income voters

Mamdani centered his campaign on alleviating the cost of living in the notoriously expensive city.

In the primary, he still lost to Cuomo among the city’s lowest earners. Neighborhoods where most people make less than $50,000 backed Cuomo over Mamdani 54-46 in that race.

But early results show Mamdani swung that demographic in the general election. He won voters in those neighborhoods by nearly 9 percentage points.

That effect was seen most strongly in the Bronx, where census data shows more than a quarter of residents live in poverty. The borough strongly favored Cuomo in the primary, but most neighborhoods flipped to Mamdani in the general election.

Chart.

Mamdani amassed a diverse coalition

Preliminary results have Mamdani prevailing across a diverse swath of voters, winning majority-Black neighborhoods by nearly 30 percentage points and majority-Hispanic neighborhoods by more than 20 percentage points. Cuomo won majority-White neighborhoods by about 9 percentage points.

Cuomo, who made frequent campaign appearances in Black churches, had hoped to carry more of those voters, especially after Adams dropped his re-election bid at the end of September, and later endorsed him.

Chart.

Affordability proposals resonated

Mamdani’s slate of affordability proposals included free bus service, free child care up to and including age 5, and a rent freeze on the city’s one million rent-stabilized apartments.

Mamdani scored overwhelmingly with renters, winning that group by more than 24 percentage points. He also performed well in neighborhoods like Harlem, Flatbush and Bedford-Stuyvesant, where city data show rising housing costs are a strain for many households. Voters in those high-risk neighborhoods favored him by about 10 percentage points.

Other proposals seemed to have less of an impact. As of Tuesday night’s data, he had eked out a small victory with voters who commute by bus, and lost households with children by about 6 percentage points.

Write to Victoria Albert at victoria.albert@wsj.com and Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky at jjw@wsj.com