Orthodox Jewish voters backed former New York governor Andrew Cuomo by a staggering 8-to-1 margin, but that wasn’t enough to stop anti-Israel state representative Zohran Mamdani from pulling off a decisive win in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, according to political analyst Henry Olsen.
“What’s pretty clear is that Mamdani put together a very wide-ranging ethnic and class coalition, winning votes in Hispanic areas, winning votes in Asian areas, winning votes in moderate to high income areas in Manhattan and in Brooklyn,” Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told JNS.
“It was an across-the-board win,” Olsen said.
Cuomo’s strongest support came from the Orthodox Jewish community, but his inability to expand beyond that base ultimately cost him the race, according to Olsen.
“He did not do well in Reform Jewish communities,” Olsen said. “He did well, but not overwhelmingly well, in black areas, and he did extremely well among rich people who live near Central Park, which should tell you something about who opposes democratic socialism in the Democratic Party.”
Olsen told JNS that non-Orthodox Jewish communities split their votes among several primary candidates.
“If you look at certain areas, like the Upper East Side, the closer you got to Central Park, the better Cuomo performed,” Olsen said. “But on the Upper West Side, it was more of a three-way split between Lander, Mamdani and Cuomo.” (Brad Lander, the city comptroller who is Jewish, cross-endorsed Mamdani and recommended that his supporters rank Mamdani as their second choice in the ranked vote.)
Olsten told JNS that Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood went for Mamdani.
“The only way you can read those results is that secular and Reform Jews split their votes, unlike the Orthodox community, which overwhelmingly backed Cuomo by something like an 8-to-1 margin,” he said.
Mamdani’s anti-Israel rhetoric, including declining to denounce the expression “globalize the intifada,” did not repel secular and Reform Jewish voters, according to Olsen.
“I think anyone who wants to win this campaign against Madani has to ask why it is that people who are secular or Reform Jews were not moved by this, whereas clearly the Orthodox were,” he said.
Mamdani’s path to City Hall is far from guaranteed, given the dynamics of the general election in November, where he will face opposition from incumbent Mayor Eric Adams running as an independent, Cuomo perhaps running as an independent and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, according to Olsen
Cuomo previously said that he would run on an independent ticket, but after conceding on Tuesday night, he was evaluating his options.
“Mamdani’s challenge is going to be convincing voters outside of the Democratic primary activist base to support him,” Olsen said. “If the general election becomes a one-on-one matchup, voters who disliked Cuomo but also aren’t fully comfortable with Mamdani could be up for grabs.”
“If his opponents manage to consolidate around a single candidate in November, Mamdani will need to run a different kind of campaign to win them over,” he said.
Whoever aims to defeat Mamdani “has to take dissident Democrats, and combine them with Republicans and independents,” the polling analyst said.
Olsen told JNS that he thinks Cuomo may drop out. “A lot of people are suggesting that after his very poor showing, there’s really no path forward for him, and that this election was as much a rejection of Cuomo as an endorsement of Mamdani,” he said. “If Cuomo can’t get Adams out of the way, he’s simply not going to win.”
The mayor has his own scandals to contend with, though Adams may be well-positioned given his strong black voter base, reliable support from Orthodox Jewish voters and potential to pull votes from the city’s Republican base, according to Olsen.
“The key is getting the African-American community, the Orthodox Jewish community and Republican voters to get behind one candidate,” he said. “If you can do that, there’s a slim chance to win.”
Olsen told JNS that the primary polling data was slightly off not because it underestimated Cuomo, but because it underestimated Mamdani.
“Cuomo’s weaknesses meant he couldn’t consolidate people who were uncomfortable with Mamdani, and when the choice came down to people in the middle choosing between a young, attractive radical and an old guy who resigned because of a sex scandal, people chose the new voice rather than the old voice,” he said.
“That’s, of course, a problem for somebody like Mayor Adams, who has his own set of scandals to deal with. But in a general election, that may be less problematic if he can count on African-American support and get the Republicans, who will vote against the Socialist no matter what,” Olsen said.