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Residents of the Big Apple will find out who will be their next mayor this election day, in a contest that will decide who governs and protects the country's largest city at a moment when the former president has threatened to deploy armed forces to the urban center.

Against that backdrop, New York has witnessed a race for mayor that has pitted two very different Democrats against each other. The election has become an increasingly bitter showdown, laced with alleged racism and anti-Muslim sentiment, but it is the ideological divide between the two main candidates that could have significant consequences for how the party fares in next year's midterm elections.

The Rising Progressive

On the left side is Zohran Mamdani, the young democratic socialist whose rapid ascent and grassroots campaign has brought global notice. On the establishment side is Andrew Cuomo, the ex- New York governor now running as an independent – and enjoying the support of ultra-rich donors and corporations.

With days to go, it is the progressive, the one-time underdog who beat Cuomo in the Democratic primary who is firmly installed as the frontrunner. Mamdani, who has campaigned on a platform of economic justice and promised to freeze rent for about two million New Yorkers, has outpaced Cuomo by significant margins across all surveys conducted in October, and it is very much the younger man's race to throw away.

A Bitter Contest

However, the former governor, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid accusations of sexual harassment, has made it clear he will fight to the finish, and not necessarily in an above-the-belt fashion. He has criticized Mamdani's goals as unrealistic, and in the final stretch laughed as a radio host made anti-Muslim comments about Mamdani, who is a Muslim. Recently, the independent was widely condemned as racist after sharing an AI-generated ad that featured a series of racial caricatures and showed his opponent releasing a convicts.

This represents a rather grubby conclusion to an race that could be key to the path that the Democratic party, floundering in its response to the former president's power moves, takes in the near future.

National Implications

If Mamdani wins convincingly, the establishment party leaders who have refused to endorse his bid will be forced to reckon with a platform that has resonated with voters' anger at inequality, inflation and the establishment. It would be difficult for Chuck Schumer and the House leader not to embrace at least a portion of the candidate's ambitious ideas about affordability, given the fresh face has created an excitement within the Democratic ranks arguably not witnessed since the Vermont senator ran for president in 2016.

Conversely, should the former governor, who had been predicted to win easily in the Democratic primary, achieve a remarkable comeback victory, it could reinforce the party's current model of considered, lackluster resistance – a strategy that has angered the party base. A New York defeat of the progressive's optimistic platform could persuade Schumer and Jeffries that the best plan is to remain in the political center – even as polls show the present version of the party is deeply unpopular across the country.

Campaign Energy

Voters in New York appear to favor the Mamdani vision. Polls show that his backers are far more enthusiastic about their candidate than Cuomo backers, something that has been apparent during the race. Mamdani's engaging content on social media, his hopeful outlook for New York and his willingness to actually get out and connect with voters in the city has drawn an force of over fifty thousand supporters, many of them young or first-time voters.

Personal Attacks

However, Cuomo, 67, continues to fight. And with the risks stacked against him, the ex-leader has turned to negative campaigning in the final days.

Following extensive throwing basically everything at Mamdani to see what might resonate, Cuomo has concentrated on attacking the candidate personally. He has labelled Mamdani, who was of Ugandan origin to Indian parents, an “extremist”, and popped up on Fox Business for an interview with Maria Bartiromo, where Cuomo asserted the city “will not survive” Mamdani as mayor. It hit bottom last week, when Cuomo laughed along and said “that’s another problem” after a broadcaster said Mamdani would “cheer” another terrorist incident.

Campaign Dynamics

This strategy echoes much of what the former president, who has sent the national guard to Washington DC and threatened to do the same to NYC, has said about Mamdani, and perhaps that is expected. A group of wealthy residents, including some who donated to the Republican in the last presidential race, have invested heavily into trying to get the independent into office, as other influential figures have pressured the Republican candidate to drop out from the contest.

Candidate Backgrounds

For the Cuomo camp, and his wealthy backers, are concerned, it should not have reached to this. When the assemblyman, one of one hundred fifty New York state assembly members, launched his mayoral bid in last year, not many had heard of him, and in reality, barely anyone even noticed.

Cuomo, by contrast, entered smoothly into the race in this year and became the instant favorite. He was the big beast who apparently held every edge. The classic political insider, he had wed a political dynasty member and worked in a Democratic presidency. He became New York governor in over a decade ago, 17 years after his father, the former governor, stepped down from the same position.

The progressive, who was elected to the New York state assembly in 2020, does not have the same political heritage. But his dedication to providing free buses and affordable child services – along with the freeze-the-rent pledge – offer a more positive vision of the future than Cuomo’s pessimistic predictions about “mayhem” and rising criminal activity, and his promise to hire more police officers.

Recent Challenges

Nevertheless, the candidate has faced some challenges in the final phase, after footage surfaced suggesting him suggesting the New York police department and the IDF were connected.

“We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF,” Mamdani said in the clip, filmed at a DSA convention in 2023. The progressive, a longtime critic of the Israeli government who has said the nation is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, indicated he was criticizing joint training exercises between the city police and IDF.

Emotional Response

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

The progressive addressed the independent's terrorism comments in an heartfelt recording. In it, the candidate remembered how, when he first ran for state assembly, a Muslim uncle advised to him that he did not have to tell people about his religion. It was a lesson, Mamdani said, that many Muslim New Yorkers had been told “again and again”: “That security could only be found in the shadows of our community. That it is in those hidden spaces alone where followers of Islam could express their full identities, and that if we were to emerge from those seclusion, then it is in those shadows that we must leave our faith.”

Addressing the actions of his opponents, who has alleged Mamd