For years, the conventional wisdom in New York among strategists and candidates alike has been that in any Democratic primary, the road to victory runs through Black communities.
Then came Zohran Mamdani.
In the race that culminated on Tuesday, Mr. Mamdani forged a new multiracial political coalition to become the likely Democratic nominee for mayor and topple Andrew M. Cuomo, the former governor, who had far more name recognition, financial firepower — and political baggage.
And Mr. Mamdani did so even as he lost many of New York City’s most solidly Black neighborhoods. A New York Times analysis of the results shows that Mr. Cuomo dominated in precincts where at least 70 percent of residents are Black, more than doubling Mr. Mamdani’s support, 59 percent to 26 percent.
The result is a break not just from the parochial politics of New York — Black voters helped deliver the mayoralty to both Eric Adams and his predecessor, Bill de Blasio — but from the nation as a whole. Black voters have served as the Democratic Party’s most important voting bloc this century, elevating Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the party’s last three presidential nominees, oftentimes sanding down the most exuberant instincts of the left.
Most famously, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina rescued Mr. Biden’s flagging 2020 effort by rallying Black voters before his state’s primary in a bid to thwart Senator Bernie Sanders, though Mr. Clyburn’s backing did not appear to help Mr. Cuomo in this race’s closing stretch.
In a city whose politics have been defined by race-based math, Mr. Mamdani’s success as a democratic socialist upended these traditional calculations and birthed a new and unconventional coalition. It also highlighted tensions between older and more moderate Black voters and the party’s most strident progressive wing, typically anchored by wealthier white voters.
The new dynamic creates a fresh sense of uncertainly for Black leaders in New York who worry about whether their influence will wane at a moment when rising costs, which Mr. Mamdani put at the center of his campaign, are pushing out growing numbers of lifelong Black residents from the city entirely. Currently, 25 percent of voters in the city are Black.
“The politics of the city are shifting,” said the Rev. Rashad Moore, who is Black and the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Crown Heights.
The “tough part that we’re wrestling with,” he added, “is Zohran won with support of liberal progressive white folk. Are these the same progressive white folk that are pricing us out and we can’t live in the community? That’s the tension.”
Mr. Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman, broke a number of molds en route to becoming the presumptive nominee. He is an immigrant from Uganda and of Indian descent. He would be the city’s first Muslim mayor. And, at 33, he would be its second youngest mayor.
What’s more, he ran the most confident and optimistic campaign of a first-time mayoral candidate in recent memory. An army of volunteers fanned across the city. His campaign used social media and viral videos to appeal to a swath of young voters as he campaigned everywhere from subway cars to halal carts. Within five months of starting his bid, Mr. Mamdani reached the $8 million fund-raising threshold, a cap set by city law.
He carried Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn — the three biggest boroughs — running up the score in progressive strongholds like Astoria and the East Village while generally limiting his losses largely outside Orthodox Jewish communities.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who is a fixture of New York politics and an influential Black leader, did not endorse a primary candidate. He said Black voters were not decisive this year simply because Mr. Cuomo had so little support among every other community.
Past candidates, he said, “brought a certain amount of votes to the table and we were the difference.”
“Andrew didn’t bring enough to the table,” he continued.
While Mr. Cuomo won many predominantly Black precincts, he did not carry them by the 50- to 60-percentage-point margins that Mr. Adams ran up in parts of Brooklyn and Queens four years ago.
“He wasn’t blown out in these precincts,” Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president, who is Black, said of Mr. Mamdani. (Mr. Mamdani did carry some Black neighborhoods, including parts of Harlem.)
Mr. Richards, who did not back anyone in the primary, said Mr. Mamdani first called for his endorsement only three days before voting began. (Mr. Cuomo had called four times.) “He’s going to have to really widen the scope of people he listens to to hear from everybody,” Mr. Richards said of Mr. Mamdani.
The insurgent Mamdani campaign said the old guard often stood in the way.
“There were gatekeepers,” Karen Jarrett, a senior adviser for Black and Latino outreach for the Mamdani campaign, said about efforts to connect with more Black voters during the primary. “Those gates are now open.”
One example came quickly after Mr. Mamdani’s triumph. Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, chairwoman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, was an ally of Mr. Adams and supported Mr. Cuomo in the primary but said her job now was to create a “unified front” heading into the general election
“I listen to the people,” she said. “And the people said Mamdani.”
Allies and rivals alike credited Mr. Mamdani with making inroads among younger Black voters.
He made regular appearances on Black-focused media, including radio shows with large Black audiences like “The Breakfast Club” and “Ebro in the Morning.” His campaign also put out an advertisement with young, Black democratic socialists who said his commitment to affordability would make the city more livable for Black New Yorkers struggling to stay.
Some on the Cuomo team believe that in the end Mr. Mamdani may have actually topped the former governor among younger Black voters.
Patrick Gaspard, who is a distinguished senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress and served as an informal adviser to Mr. Mamdani, said Mr. Mamdani did well with the Black vote, considering his rivals: a former governor with deep ties to the community and multiple Black candidates.
“Here’s the deal. There were three Black people who ran. One is the City Council speaker, one is a former assemblyperson who worked for Obama and has his own profile, and a sitting senator in an important district in Brooklyn,” Mr. Gaspard said. “Zohran got more Black votes than all of the Black candidates combined.”
In recent years, winning the Democratic primary in New York has been tantamount to winning the election. But Mr. Adams has already said he plans to run as a independent and Mr. Cuomo has not ruled out that possibility, meaning that Mr. Mamdani faces pressure to bolster his Black support.
Rashad Robinson, the former president of the civil rights nonprofit Color of Change, said Mr. Mamdani’s profile as a Muslim progressive offered him the “opportunity to chart a different path” in building a broad-based racial and ideological coalition.
“He is not a white lefty,” Mr. Robinson said. “What comes next will be an opportunity for him to engage deeply in Black media and make himself available to engage with Black community groups.”
In May, Mr. Mamdani skipped a forum held by New Yorkers for Reparations because of a conflict, according to organizers. But he sent a statement that was read aloud at the forum issuing his strong support for reparations.
“The fact that he shared a statement so willingly was a good thing,” said Janet Dickerson, a representative for the New Yorkers for Reparations coalition, who said the statement was “well received.”
Anthonine Pierre, executive director of the Brooklyn Movement Center, said the traditional Black electorate is in a moment of transition.
Older Black voters who might be homeowners worry a candidate like Mr. Mamdani might not share their priorities. The left, she said, needs to do a better job of looking at “Black people with capital as people worth organizing.”
But the Black leaders still contending with the election results say the onus is also on Mr. Mamdani and his allies to appeal to the voters who could indeed decide the election in November.
“He has to prove in the next five months that while there’s an aspirational element to his winning the primary — something new, something fresh, young, energetic — but are you able if you win in November to go from aspiration to reality?” said H. Curtis Douglas, the senior pastor of Dabar Bethlehem Cathedral in Queens Village. He added, “He’s going to have to convince people in the next five months that he can deliver.”
Irineo Cabreros contributed reporting.
Maya King is a Times reporter covering New York politics.
Jeffery C. Mays is a Times reporter covering politics with a focus on New York City Hall.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
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