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Residents of the Big Apple will find out who will be their next mayor this Tuesday, in a contest that will decide who governs and protects the nation's largest city at a moment when Donald Trump has threatened to deploy military troops to the city.

In this context, New York has witnessed a race for mayor that has matched two very different Democrats against one another. The contest has turned into an acrimonious showdown, laced with alleged racism and Islamophobia, but it is the ideological divide between the two main candidates that could have significant consequences for how the party performs in next year's midterm elections.

The Rising Progressive

In the progressive corner is the democratic socialist, the young progressive candidate whose meteoric rise and people-powered movement has attracted international attention. On the establishment side is Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor now campaigning independently – and enjoying the support of wealthy contributors and big business.

As the election approaches, it is the progressive, the former longshot who defeated Cuomo in the party primary who is solidly positioned as the frontrunner. Mamdani, who has run on a agenda of economic justice and pledged to halt rent increases for about 2 million city residents, has outpaced his rival by significant margins in every poll conducted in October, and it is very much the younger man's race to lose.

A Bitter Contest

However, the former governor, who resigned as the state's leader in recent years amid accusations of misconduct, has stated clearly he will battle to the finish, and not necessarily in an fair fashion. He has criticized Mamdani's objectives as unrealistic, and in the final stretch laughed as a broadcaster made anti-Muslim comments about Mamdani, who is Muslim. Two weeks ago, the independent was strongly criticized as racist after posting an artificial intelligence video that featured a series of racial caricatures and showed his opponent releasing a convicts.

This represents a particularly ugly conclusion to an race that could be key to the direction that the Democratic party, struggling in its response to Trump's authoritarian grabs, takes in the near future.

National Implications

Should Mamdani secures a clear victory, the establishment party leaders who have refused to endorse his campaign will be compelled to address a message that has resonated with Americans' anger at economic disparity, inflation and the establishment. It would be difficult for the Senate leader and Hakeem Jeffries not to adopt at least a portion of Mamdani's ambitious ideas about economic justice, given the newcomer has generated an enthusiasm within the Democratic ranks perhaps not witnessed since Bernie Sanders campaigned for the White House in 2016.

However, should Cuomo, who had been expected to win easily in the Democratic primary, achieve a remarkable riches-to-rags-to-riches victory, it could cement the party's existing approach of considered, uninspiring resistance – a strategy that has angered the party base. A NYC defeat of the progressive's progressive, positive message could convince Schumer and Jeffries that the wisest course is to stick to the center – even as polls show the present version of the party is deeply unpopular across the country.

Voter Enthusiasm

Voters in New York appear to favor the progressive agenda. Surveys show that Mamdani supporters are far more enthusiastic about their candidate than his opponent's supporters, something that has been evident during the race. Mamdani's snappy videos on social media, his hopeful outlook for the city and his readiness to actually venture out and connect with voters in the metropolis has attracted an force of over fifty thousand volunteers, many of them young or first-time voters.

Negative Tactics

Yet, the former governor, in his late sixties, isn't giving up. And with the risks stacked against him, the ex-leader has resorted to ugly messaging in the final days.

Following extensive throwing basically everything at his opponent to see what might stick, Cuomo has concentrated on targeting Mamdani directly. He has called his rival, who was of Ugandan origin to Indian parents, an “extremist”, and appeared on conservative media for an interview with a rightwing host, where the candidate asserted the city “will not survive” Mamdani as city leader. It hit bottom recently, when the former governor chuckled and said “that’s another problem” after a radio host said Mamdani would “cheer” another terrorist incident.

Campaign Dynamics

This strategy echoes much of what the former president, who has deployed the national guard 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 wealthy residents, including some who contributed to Trump in the 2024 election, have pumped millions into trying to get the independent elected, as other powerful voices have urged Curtis Sliwa to drop out from the race.

Candidate Backgrounds

As far as the his team, and his wealthy backers, are concerned, it should never have come to this. When Mamdani, one of one hundred fifty New York state assembly members, started his mayoral bid in last year, not many had heard of him, and in truth, barely anyone even noticed.

The former governor, by contrast, entered smoothly into the contest in this year and became the immediate frontrunner. He was the political heavyweight who apparently held every edge. The quintessential establishment figure, he had wed a political dynasty member and served in Bill Clinton’s administration. He became the state's leader in 2011, seventeen years after his father, Mario Cuomo, left office from the identical role.

Mamdani, who was voted in to the state legislature in 2020, does not have the same political heritage. But his commitment to providing no-cost transit and free childcare – along with the freeze-the-rent pledge – offer a more positive vision of the future than his opponent's dire warnings about “mayhem” and unfettered crime, and his promise to hire more police officers.

Campaign Controversies

Still, the candidate has encountered some challenges in the final phase, after video surfaced suggesting him implying the NYPD 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 Israeli military,” Mamdani said in the clip, filmed at a DSA convention in 2023. Mamdani, a vocal opponent of the Israeli government who has said the nation is engaging in atrocities in the Palestinian territory, suggested he was questioning joint training exercises between the city police and IDF.

Powerful Moment

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

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

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