{"id":30794,"date":"2025-11-06T16:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T16:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/30794\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T16:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T16:04:07","slug":"how-mamdani-flipped-the-black-and-hispanic-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/30794\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mamdani flipped the black and Hispanic vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Tuesday\u2019s mayoral election<\/a>, Zohran Mamdani captured more than one million votes across New York\u2019s diverse electorate. Most notably, the democratic socialist made huge inroads with black and Hispanic voters in the Bronx and Queens.<\/p>\n

These two groups backed Andrew Cuomo heavily in the Democratic primary but swung to Mamdani in the general election. Once wary of him \u2014 particularly older voters and union households who doubted his promises on housing and transit \u2014 they ultimately decided to give him a chance.<\/p>\n

Mamdani achieved this by winning them over to his affordability agenda, mobilising an army of union-aligned canvassers across outer-borough neighbourhoods, and delivering his message in multiple languages. Early in the campaign, he took the unusual step for a non-Latino candidate of releasing a full Spanish-language ad<\/a> \u2014 speaking less than fluently, but with the conviction of someone who cared enough to try. This culturally fluent approach paid dividends. He won clear majorities<\/a> of both Latino and black voters, especially in the working-class enclaves of the Bronx and Queens.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s message resonated in these two boroughs, where the cost-of-living crisis is felt most acutely. As of this year, more than half<\/a> of New York City renters were considered rent-burdened, and over one million households paid more<\/a> than 30% of their income on rent. In the Bronx \u2014 the poorest borough, with a majority black and Latino population \u2014 nearly 48% of renters<\/a> were rent-burdened.<\/p>\n

The mayor-elect, son of immigrants, came across as a candidate who understood ordinary New Yorkers\u2019 struggles, which Cuomo failed to do. While Mamdani is neither black (unless for a college application<\/a>) nor Latino, his identity as a young, Muslim, immigrant New Yorker proved \u201cclose enough\u201d to gain trust in those communities.<\/p>\n

If Mamdani\u2019s message laid the groundwork for record turnout, it was an unusually disciplined field operation that brought the effort to fruition. New York\u2019s progressive Left has rarely, if ever, assembled a machine of this scale or precision. In the Bronx, the city\u2019s Latino-majority borough, that apparatus delivered one of Mamdani\u2019s most decisive gains.<\/p>\n

Only months earlier in the June primary, the borough had been solidly in Cuomo\u2019s column<\/a>, handing him an 18-point margin. But from mid-September onward, more than 1,900 members of 32BJ SEIU<\/a> \u2014 a union with deep roots among Latino and black workers \u2014 joined the campaign\u2019s canvassing corps. Together ,they knocked on 45,000 doors and placed more than 90,000 phone calls, transforming a once-unthinkable upset into a plausible path to victory.<\/p>\n

And it wasn\u2019t just 32BJ. By autumn, nearly every major union in the city \u2014 the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, 1199SEIU Healthcare Workers, the United Federation of Teachers union, and more \u2014 had fallen in line behind Mamdani, creating a coalition of unprecedented breadth for a progressive campaign. This backing did more than mobilise votes: it sent a clear signal to black and Hispanic New Yorkers that Mamdani was a candidate who understood and represented their interests.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that Mamdani\u2019s large margins with Latino and black New Yorkers do not make those communities \u201csocialist\u201d. Rather, their support signals a profound alienation from local politics, a sense of being unheard on issues such as rent, wages, transit, and groceries. They rewarded the first campaign that spoke directly to those concerns, in their language and on their streets.<\/p>\n

Whether Mamdani can convert the trust vested in him into tangible relief, or partially implement his proposals without jeopardising the city\u2019s long-term fiscal health, remains an open question. The real test will be whether he can deliver on those promises without breaking the city in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Tuesday\u2019s mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani captured more than one million votes across New York\u2019s diverse electorate. Most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[80,128,2132,9,24,63,122,129,131,130,88,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-30794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-andrew-cuomo","9":"tag-bronx","10":"tag-democrats","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-queens","15":"tag-the-bronx","16":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","17":"tag-the-bronx-news","18":"tag-uncategorized","19":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}