Democratic Socialist Faces Hurdles With Black, Latino Voters In Nyc Mayoral Race

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani’s democratic socialist policies are a hit with affluent white voters. But the surging mayoral candidate trails Andrew Cuomo among New Yorkers he says his plans will help the most.

Most polls have shown the upstart candidate lagging the former governor with Black and Latino voters. And with the Democratic primary a week away, political leaders from those core constituencies are dialing up their support of Cuomo as Mamdani’s core base — younger, farther to the left, whiter — flock to early voting booths to crown the 33-year-old lawmaker the next executive of New York City.

The dynamic is a microcosm of a nationwide divide in the Democratic Party. In 2024, younger lefty voters expressed open hostility toward Kamala Harris over her stance on the Israel-Hamas war. And in the two previous election cycles, voters of that ilk broke for Bernie Sanders while those over 45 — most crucially Black voters in the South — went strongly for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

For Mamdani, the obstacles facing him played out in absentia over the weekend in Harlem.

On Friday, Cuomo rallied alongside Rep. Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in D.C. and electoral tastemaker back home. A day later, he appeared with Rep. Gregory Meeks and Al Sharpton — two prominent Black political figures in the city — at Sharpton’s National Action Network.

Sharpton praised Cuomo and criticized Mamdani for cross-endorsing City Comptroller Brad Lander and not City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is Black.

“They say that Mamdani and Lander endorsed each other, so against the Black woman,” Sharpton said. “Something about that politics ain’t progressive to me.” (As POLITICO reported, Mamdani’s team has in fact sought a cross-endorsement with Adams.)

Meeks, who has endorsed Cuomo, highlighted Mamdani’s lack of management experience to the crowd.

"We need someone who's tried, true and ready to do the job on Day One,” Meeks said. “We don't have time to sit back and wait and train anybody.”

That political split exemplifies the pitfalls awaiting Mamdani as he has climbs in the polls and activates the excited left wing of his party: Older Black and Latino voters — particularly middle-class Black homeowners — have long been key to any winning coalition in a New York City Democratic primary. And they tend not to be card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member.

“African-American voters have historically been more moderate to conservative than a lot of people really account for,” said Basil Smikle Jr., who once led the New York State Democratic Party. “It’s a vote tied to more mainstream politics and politicians, and you will see a higher turnout among those voters compared to younger ones.”

No one knows exactly how the Democratic primary electorate will break down demographically.

A survey released May 13 by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion predicted 6 percent of the electorate would comprise Asian voters, 24 percent Hispanic, 31 percent Black and 35 percent white. But a Democratic consultant who spoke with POLITICO, granted anonymity to discuss strategy candidly, said based on an analysis of voting history, white voters would constitute at least 45 percent of the total while Hispanic voters would be closer to 15 percent.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who ran on an income inequality platform like Mamdani, trounced the competition in 2013 by assembling a multiracial coalition that split the Black vote with Bill Thompson, who is Black. Eight years later, Eric Adams narrowly won the city’s first ranked-choice primary with barely any white support at all, anchoring his coalition to Black and Latino voters in the outer boroughs to become New York's second Black mayor.

Mamdani’s campaign said his pledge to freeze the rent for rent-stabilized tenants and offer free childcare to kids aged 6 weeks to five years has been resonating with older voters in Black and brown neighborhoods. And he has been chipping away at Cuomo’s dominance with nonwhite voters by speaking at Black churches and earning the backing of prominent officials representing Latino and Asian communities.

“Our campaign is making unprecedented outreach to Black and brown New Yorkers with the largest field operation in New York City history, composed of nearly 40,000 volunteers and over a million doors knocked,” spokesperson Lekha Sunder said in a statement. “The polling is clear: the more these New Yorkers hear about our plans to deliver universal childcare and a rent-freeze, the more they support our movement.”

But the breakout candidate is also banking on expanding the electorate to younger voters, which appears to be an insurance plan of sorts to compensate for his built-in weakness among a coveted bloc of older Black voters in Harlem, Brooklyn and Queens.

These younger voters are less tied to churches and political parties, are farther left than their elders and are active on social media platforms like TikTok that Mamdani has utilized to great effect. Most crucially, activating these voters allows the state legislator to gain more votes while sticking to the left-leaning worldview that energized his campaign in the first place.

“I think Zohran has every opportunity to engage that younger voter because he is one of them, and they are not as tied to the older machines and older institutions as others might be,” Smikle Jr. said.

A May 28 Emerson College survey that solidified Mamdani as the clear second to Cuomo found them tied with white voters likely to participate in a Democratic primary. But in the first round of voting, Cuomo beat Mamdani 42-14 with Black voters, 41-16 with Hispanic or Latino voters and 27-19 with Asian voters. As the rounds progressed, Mamdani pulled ahead of Cuomo among white voters and closed the gap with Asian voters.

By the last round, however, Cuomo won Black voters 74-26 and Hispanic or Latino voters 65-35, reflecting the essential role these blocs have long played in New York City Democratic contests.

In the Marist survey, Cuomo led Mamdani among Black voters 50-8 in the first round and 41-20 among Latino voters.

“When you say free buses, free everything, city-run grocery stores, that scares the bejesus out of folks working daily and paying 45 to 50 percent of their income in taxes,” said J.C. Polanco, an attorney and independent political analyst speaking about middle-class voters in Black and Latino communities.

Mamdani has pledged to raise taxes on only the top 1 percent of income earners in New York City and increase the state's levy on corporations. Polanco argued the scale of spending proposed by Mamdani makes middle-class voters uneasy anyway and that he will need more money from them to pull it off.

Mamdani’s team said they are making inroads with these same voters on the strength of their endorsements and ground game. Indeed, as POLITICO reported last week, a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling on behalf of city comptroller candidate Justin Brannan showed Mamdani beating Cuomo in first-round votes, having gained significant ground among nonwhite voters. The poll did not account for ranked-choice voting.

No public poll has demonstrated Mamdani winning.

Mamdani's campaign pointed to his appeal with Muslim voters — the candidate was born in Uganda to Indian parents and is Muslim — and the fact he has visited more than 125 mosques since announcing his run.

The Mamdani team also talked up its outreach among Latino voters. The campaign has invested six figures into two Spanish-language ads featuring U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and boasts more than 2,000 Spanish-speaking volunteers. That has translated to knocking on more than 27,000 doors in the Bronx.

Mamdani’s campaign said he has spoken at more than a dozen Black churches and has the support of former Rep. Jamaal Bowman and other Black officials, like state Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest, who share the candidate’s left-leaning worldview.

Bowman said the older Black voters he encounters while canvassing for Mamdani in the Bronx tend to support Cuomo because they are familiar with his family name, mainstream Democratic politics and his supporters like Meeks.

But they're receptive to Mamdani upon hearing about his platform, Bowman said. “Even for people who say they are supporting Cuomo, they like everything about Zohran,” he said in an interview. “They like how he communicates. They love his ads, and they love the issues.”

But the energy behind Mamdani’s campaign is what could end up making the difference.

While Cuomo has hoovered up endorsements from nearly all major labor unions and prominent officials in Black and Latino communities, Mamdani’s base is undeniably more enthusiastic.

If older voters are not particularly motivated to support the former governor — Democratic rivals and the New York City mayor have been relentlessly attacking Cuomo since he announced — and if Mamdani is able to activate Muslim voters keen on the history-making promise of his candidacy as well as younger progressives, it could make the June 24 primary much more competitive.

“He's banking on expanding the electorate,” said Jon Paul Lupo, a Democratic strategist who is not affiliated with any mayoral campaign.

Lupo pointed to a recent post from political observer Michael Lange that tracked a rise in younger voters between 2013 and 2021, which could portend a similar shift later this month.

“If that is a trend and not a blip," he said, "then Mamdani has a real shot at winning in a way that doesn’t require him to get votes in unexpected places."