THE NYC DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY
Some Observations
While the world’s press is, for different reasons, predisposed to inflate the victory in the Democratic primary of Zohran Mamdani, because it is a sexy subject, some of the story is ignored.
As a New Yorker who actually voted on primary day, I’m prepared to declare the results a fluke. First of all, it was the hottest day of the year, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This factor discouraged older and more skittish people from venturing ourdoors. When I got to mine in Ridgewood, Queens, roughly around 4 pm, I was the only voter in a basketball court that had roughly a dozen overseers. One persuasive rumor holds that Mamdani scored with younger people who voted early, before setting out to their jobs.
Some of the reportage was peculiar, as well as much analysis. My favorite curiosity is this map published in the New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/24/us/elections/nyc-mayor-primary-results-precinct-map.html
Looking carefully, and you’ll see some dubious results. My favorite has both my Ridgewood and neighboring Bushwick favoring Mamdani. This is impossible, as they are profoundly different communities, as I know, residing on the border of one in Queens with the other in Brooklyn across the street. Simply, Bushwick has always been African-American, while most of the few blacks in my Ridgewood are Caribbean. Since Andrew Cuomo focused on the former, he scored very high in Far Rockaway, which is likewise predominantly African-American. Bushwick’s people are no so different.
The Times map also shows Broad Channel, which is the island in Jamaica Bay, as voting for Mamdani. This too is highly unlikely, as BC insulated community has always been a reactionary Catholic backwater that’s probably, for one negative measure, totally devoid of recent immigrants. Its residents are no more likely to vote for Mamdani than for Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, say. (Okay, maybe six BC Democrats voted for Mamdani and five for Cuomo.)
Simply, what defeated Andrew Cuomo, who had been favored to win, was less Mamdani than discouraging weather, which is another epithet for bad luck.
One of the curious results has been the Democratic moneybags, who had previously favored Cuomo, have decided to back the current NYC mayor Eric Adams, disgraced through he has been and “independent” though his designation, as the most likely to defeat the dreaded Mamdani who is portrayed as a socialist soft on Woke.
What’s next? If Andrew Cuomo decides to run anyway, his campaign would siphon voters less away from Mamdani than from Adams. The wise guys discouraging Cuomo to continue would also like to see the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa drop out as well. However, he won’t.
I await debates between Mamdani and Sliwa, who attended two of New York City’s best high schools, respectively Bronx Science and Jesuit Brooklyn Prep, because these two highly articulate guys will make Adams and even Cuomo seem befuddled.
My own hope is that Sliwa wins the final election, defeating the troika of Mamdani-Adams-Cuomo, initially because he’s the superior candidate, but also New York City needs a Republican mayor every once in a while. Remember Rudy Guiliani, John Lindsay, and, yes, Fiorello La Guardia.