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Six Slices of the Big Apple

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On Tuesday, July 1st, the New York City Board of Elections issued updates, still partial but virtually complete results, for the nearly 1.3 million votes cast in the city’s June 25th Democratic primary for Mayor.

The Election Board confirmed what appeared obvious on Primary Night – that Zohran Mamdani won the nomination by a 56.0% landslide over Andrew Cuomo with 44.0% in the final round of Ranked Choice Voting results. It’s worth noting that over 52,000 voters (5.1%) never voted at any preference level for either Mamdani or Cuomo, reducing their support from total Democratic primary voters to 53.1% versus 41.8%

PRIMARY FIRST PLACE: 1st PREFERENCES and WINNING MARGINS

Pending final certification, unofficial numbers issued by NYC BOE give a detailed view of how well (or not) the leading candidates performed across the city, based on first-preferences of 97% of ballots scanned on Primary Night.

New York City is divided into 65 NY State Assembly districts (ADs) of which Andrew Cuomo won 34 on Primary Night first preference votes, and Zohran Mamdani the other 31. Geographically, Mamdani dominated Gotham’s inner core centered on the East River, while Cuomo prevailed in the outer ADs especially in Bronx and Staten Island.

So how did the Assemblyman win his landslide even though the former Governor was ahead of him in more ADs? Because, as the map shows, Mamdani won six of his districts by margins exceeding +10,000 votes, while the equivalent number for Cuomo was zero.

Mamdani’s super-margins concentrated in north Brooklyn plus his respectableperformance in most of Manhattan and much of Queens, where keys to his primary victory. In contrast, while Cuomo won all of the Bronx and Staten Island and many other outer ADs, his margins were decisively lower, due to reduced turnout, fewer registered Democrats and Mamdani’s respectable support even in his lowest performing areas.

CITIZEN VOTING AGE POPULATION BY PREDOMINATE ETHNICITY

This slice of the Big Apple as well as the ones that follow is based on the current US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey covering a range of key demographics including cities, counties and state legislative districts.

Mapping the city’s Citizen Age Voting Population by AD shows the both the diversity AND lack-thereof of New York’s eligible electorate, split between Latinos and non-Hispanic Asians, Blacks and Whites.

One of these groups accounts for majorities of CVAPs in 44 districts (22 White, 13 Black, 8 Latino, 1 Asian) while just 21 ADs are more mixed. Note that Blacks are the majority in all the ADs they dominate, though in some Latino-plurality districts they are at near-parity.

Four of the five predominately Asian districts are in Queens plus one in Brooklyn. On Primary Night these ADs were split between 1 strong Mamdani, 3 weaker Mamdani, 1 strong Cuomo.

  • Black ADs (13 total) are clustered in southeast Brooklyn (7), southeast Queens (4), Bronx and Manhattan (1 each). Electorally the breakdown was 1 strong Cuomo and 8 weaker Cuomo, versus 3 strong Mamdani’s and 1 weaker Mamdani.

  • Latino districts (19 total) extend across the Bronx (10) with smaller clusters in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens (3 each). Primary support in these ADs was solid in the Bronx (but only 3 strong Cuomo) but in the rest of the city except for 1 weaker Cuomo, they were strong for Mamdani.

  • White ADs (28 total) split 50-50 between Mamdani and Cuomo in their first-preference primary voting; this pattern was repeated across the city. But this evident balance is deceiving, since Mandani’s margin in his half of the Whitest turf, was twice as large (+76k) as Cuomo’s margin in the other half (-37k).

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME

Alongside its ethnic diversity and divisions, New York City is famous for stark contrasts of wealth, poverty and in-between. Currently the median annual household income is $76,577. Not surprising, all but one of the super-affluent districts are in lower and midtown Manhattan, while the very poorest are in the Bronx with two exceptions.

Of the 15 higher-income (+100,000) districts, 8 went for Mamdani; in contrast, of the 13 poorest (under $60k) ADs, Cuomo carried 10 of them, though by less-than-impressive margins.

HIGHER EDUCTION – BACHELOR’S DEGREE OR HIGHER

There is a positive though hardly absolute correlation between income and education. And both have an impact on election behavior, both in terms of voter turnout and voting decisions. College graduates with bachelor’s degrees or higher account for 42.5% of New Yorkers age 25 and older.

Of the 21 districts with above-average rates of college degrees, only 4 were carried by Cuomo, compared to 17 won by Mamdani, including 15 by strong margins. On the other end of the spectrum, of the 19 ADs with fewer than 30% with 4-year degrees or better, 15 went for Cuomo.

MEDIAN AGE OF TOTAL POPULATION

Median age is a less-than-perfect yardstick for election comparison, given that it’s affected by children as well as adults younger and older. Nevertheless it provides yet another slice of the Big Apple to analyze.

Note that despite Zohran Mamdani’s appeal to and targeting of younger voters, of the 15 youngest ADs (median age under 35 years) he only carried 4 of them, compared to 11 won by Cuomo. However, this is mostly due to Cuomo’s dominance of low-income, lower education areas where households have above-average numbers of children, especially in the Bronx. More affluent and/or hipster districts with significant numbers of young professionals, particularly in north Brooklyn, went for Mamdani, often by strong margins.

On the other hand, just 4 of the 11 districts with the highest median ages (over 42 years) were carried by Cuomo (3 strongly) compared with 7 for Mamdani (4 strongly).

FOREIGN BORN OF TOTAL POPULATION

If elected in the November general election, the new Democratic nominee will not only be New York City’s first Muslim mayor, and first of Asian heritage, but the city’s first foreign born chief executive.

The emergence of Mamdani is one more chapter in this four-century saga, with strong echoes of the election 92 years ago of another populist progressive and champion of the foreign born: Fiorello La Guardia. It’s interesting to note that in 1930, foreign-born New Yorkers accounted for 34.0% of the total population, whereas today they comprise 37.5%.

In today’s Big Apple, Queens is the major immigration hub with above-average concentration of foreign born, while Manhattan is significantly below average – this is the opposite of the situation when La Guardia was elected. Staten Island has the lowest percentage of foreign born, while the Bronx and Brooklyn are close to average, with south Brooklyn having higher concentration than the rest of the borough – again a contrast with yesteryear.

While many adult immigrants are not citizens (at least not yet) most are. In the 2025 Democratic primary, of the 18 districts with the highest foreign-born percentages (above 45%) Cuomo carried 12 (including 9 strongly) compared to 6 for Mamdani (3 strongly).

Just as counter-intuitive, is the fact that of the 24 districts (under 30%) Mamdani was first in 17 (all but one by strong margins) versus Cuomo in just 7 (including 6 strongly). Go figure!

There is much to learn from this election, we’re always around if you’d like to chat about it.

– Mike