Ask HN: Mamdani is poised to become new mayor of New York. How do locals feel? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Mamdani is poised to become new mayor of New York. How do locals feel?

Title says it all. I've been watching the story from afar. He's dynamic but his agenda to me comes as off as too idealistic and not grounded in the practical reality of how government really operates in terms of inertia and lack of incentive for long-term improvement.

But I digress. What I think doesn't matter. I'm curious to hear what locals make of this? Do you generally agree with his platform or disagree?

Why is that?

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Polls can give you a sense of what New Yorkers have on their mind. Same top issue as everywhere in America since covid, cost of living. Here is a sample

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-new-york-mayor-race-po...

https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3935

https://gothampolling.com/poll-nyc-mayor-general-election-20...

Polls are not accurate. Most people that live there usually dont vote. Also the polls are a sample of a few hundred to a few thousand compared to population that lives in a city, the numbers are low. Let me not get into the biases of the poll takers and all the other stuff…

You think it is not true that New Yorkers find the city unaffordable?

Yes polling has famously been very wrong. While there is no perfect way to get to the true answer before election day, one more indicator that can help form a picture is enthusiasm. Clearly one candidate has an enormous lead in this metric. Its translating into an amazing ground operation.

you predicting Cuomo landslide win? :)

I mean if his own Canvassers are voting for Mamdani then it does not look good for him. :)

[1]: https://x.com/_meagan_orourke/status/1937947782033055753

Having been a part of past NYC elections its not over till its over and then even then its probably not over. NY gives this impression of being some super happy go lucky progressive liberal place but don't be fooled. They have 100+ years of tricks up their sleeves to stop people they don't like. Enough to traumatize me at least. There are ways to battle that but I'll save that for another comment.

Well NYC has a large percentage of foreign born residents, many of whom are of low income, and dependent on government services. Over a million people are also Muslims. These demographics explain this race. Some news story recently showed polling results with the votes sliced by foreign born and US born, and the US born group favored Cuomo.

Supposedly over 700 confirmed languages are spoken in NYC making it the most linguistically diverse urban center in the world. NYC is truly a showpiece that sets America apart from the rest of the world.

Don't take my word for it, explore the linguistic diversity using this cool map:

[1]: https://languagemap.nyc/Info/About

I have been humbled in the last few years at how much amazing political talent and ideas emerge from this one city.

It truly is a tale of two Americas: The bright and ambitious future filled with new ideas comes out of NYC contrasted to the old decrepit past from rural(supposedly "real") America.

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