Pollster Nate Silver claimed that New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani could be vulnerable in the general election “in theory.”
“As a New Yorker, I’m not looking forward to the ads, but I am excited to cast a general election ballot that could actually matter,” Silver said in a Substack newsletter Tuesday.
“In theory, Zohran could be vulnerable. Whether you count his victory margin as 7 percent or 12 percent, that’s extremely impressive for a candidate who started out polling as low as 1 percent in some surveys. But it’s also not an insurmountable margin. While slightly over a million votes were cast in the Democratic primary, New York City has 5.1 million registered voters.”
Mamdani, a democratic socialist whose success has shocked many, has officially secured the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor following the completion of the ranked choice tabulation, Decision Desk HQ has projected.
“I am humbled by the support of more than 545,000 New Yorkers in last week’s primary. This is just the beginning of our expanding coalition to make New York City affordable. And we will do it together,” Mamdani said in a post on the social platform X Tuesday.
Silver said in his newsletter that in the case that “turnout approaches the numbers that we’ve seen in recent midterms, let alone in presidential years, the November electorate will likely be a lot older than in the unusually youth-skewed primary, with voters who not only disagree with Mamdani on substance but also don’t vibe with his style.”
“So while he’s the favorite, he’s not going to occupy Gracie Mansion without earning it,” he added, referencing the New York City mayor’s residence.
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