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New Yorkers will discover the identity of their next mayor this election day, in a race that will decide who runs and protects the nation'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 mayoral election that has matched two distinctly opposing Democratic figures against one another. The election has turned into an acrimonious showdown, marked by accusations of racial bias and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two main candidates that could have significant consequences for how the Democratic party performs in next year's congressional races.

The Progressive Challenger

On the left side is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old progressive candidate whose meteoric rise and people-powered movement has brought international attention. On the establishment side is Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic New York governor now campaigning independently – and benefiting from the backing of wealthy contributors and corporations.

With days to go, it is the progressive, the former longshot who defeated Cuomo in the party primary who is firmly installed as the frontrunner. Mamdani, who has campaigned on a agenda of affordability and promised to freeze rent for about 2 million city residents, has led Cuomo by double-digits across all surveys taken in the fall, and it is very much the younger man's election to lose.

A Bitter Contest

However, Cuomo, who stepped down as the state's leader in 2021 amid allegations of misconduct, has made it clear he will battle to the end, and not necessarily in an fair fashion. He has trashed Mamdani's objectives as unachievable, and in recent days laughed as a radio host made anti-Muslim comments about the candidate, who is a Muslim. Recently, Cuomo was widely condemned as bigoted after sharing an artificial intelligence video that featured a series 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 response to Trump's authoritarian grabs, takes in the coming years.

National Implications

Should Mamdani wins convincingly, the party establishment who have refused to endorse his bid will be compelled to address a platform that has appealed to Americans' anger at inequality, soaring price rises and the establishment. It would be difficult for the Senate leader and the House leader not to embrace at least some of the candidate's progressive proposals about affordability, given the fresh face has created an enthusiasm within the party perhaps not seen since the Vermont senator campaigned for the White House in 2016.

However, should Cuomo, who had been expected to sail to victory in the Democratic primary, achieve a surprising riches-to-rags-to-riches win, it could reinforce national Democrats' current model of cautious, lackluster resistance – a strategy that has infuriated grassroots members. A NYC rejection of the progressive's progressive, positive message could persuade Schumer and Jeffries that the wisest course is to remain in the political center – even as polls show the current iteration of the Democratic party is deeply unpopular across the country.

Voter Enthusiasm

Residents of New York seem to prefer the Mamdani vision. Polls show that his backers are much more excited about their candidate than Cuomo backers, 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 get out and meet people in the city has drawn an army of over fifty thousand volunteers, many of them young or first-time voters.

Negative Tactics

However, Cuomo, in his late sixties, isn't giving up. And with the risks against him, the former governor has resorted to ugly messaging in the final days.

After spending months throwing basically everything at Mamdani to see what might resonate, the independent has concentrated on targeting the candidate personally. He has called his rival, who was born in Uganda to South Asian heritage, an "radical", and popped up on Fox Business for an interview with a rightwing host, where the candidate asserted the city “will not survive” his opponent as mayor. It reached a nadir recently, when the former governor chuckled and said “that’s another problem” after a broadcaster said Mamdani would “cheer” another 9/11-style attack.

Political Landscape

The line of attack mirrors much of what Trump, who has sent the national guard to Washington DC and threatened to do the same to NYC, has said about the progressive, and maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise. A set of billionaire New Yorkers, including some who donated to Trump in the 2024 election, have pumped millions into trying to elect Cuomo into office, as other influential figures have pressured the Republican candidate to withdraw from the contest.

Candidate Backgrounds

As far as the his team, and his billionaire supporters, are worried, it should never have come to this point. When the assemblyman, one of one hundred fifty New York state assembly members, started his mayoral bid in October 2024, not many had known him, and in reality, barely anyone even noticed.

The former governor, by contrast, eased his way into the contest in this year and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the political heavyweight who apparently held every edge. The classic establishment figure, he had wed a Kennedy and served in Bill Clinton’s administration. He assumed office as the state's leader in over a decade ago, 17 years after his father, the former governor, stepped down from the same position.

The progressive, who was voted in to the state legislature in recently, does not have the same political heritage. But his commitment to providing no-cost transit and affordable child services – 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 hire more police officers.

Campaign Controversies

Still, the candidate has encountered some challenges in recent days, after footage emerged suggesting him implying the NYPD and the Israel Defense Forces were intertwined.

“We have to make clear that when the pressure of the police is on your neck, it’s been laced by the Israeli military,” the candidate said in the clip, filmed at a DSA convention in 2023. The progressive, a longtime critic of Israel who has said the country is engaging in atrocities in Gaza, suggested he was questioning joint training exercises between the NYPD and Israeli forces.

Emotional Response

With the election nearing, Mamdani appears to have won sympathy and support, however, for his response to Cuomo’s increasing rhetoric.

The progressive addressed the independent's 9/11 remarks in an emotional video. In it, the candidate recalled how, when he first ran for the legislature, a Muslim uncle advised to him that he did not have to disclose about his Muslim faith. It was a realization, he said, that many local Muslims had been told “again and again”: “That security could only be found in the shadows of our community. That it is in those shadows alone where followers of Islam could embrace their full identities, and that if we were to emerge from those seclusion, then it is in those shadows that we must set aside our beliefs.”

Speaking to the behavior of his opponents, who has alleged Mamd