OK Boomers, Gen Z and Millennials are now in charge

More than half of the more than 2 million New Yorkers who voted in this month’s mayoral race were under 55, with a significant share of them millennials and Gen Zers — a reversal of typical age-based turnout patterns that experts attribute to the enthusiasm around Zohran Mamdani’s upstart campaign.

Mamdani’s affordability agenda, which propelled him to a 10-point victory over independent candidate Andrew Cuomo in Tuesday’s election, had particular resonance with young New Yorkers worried about an increasingly expensive city.

A Daily News analysis of voter demographics highlights how successful the 34-year-old Queens congressman appears to have been in reaching younger generations.

According to the data, about 1.16 million New Yorkers under the age of 55 voted in the Nov. 4 poll, or nearly 58% of the more than 2 million people who cast ballots in what marked the city’s strongest mayoral race since the 1960s. In contrast, nearly 850,000 of the Nov. 4 voters were over 55, the data showed.

People ages 18 to 44, who make up the youngest Gen Z and millennial generations, have had a particularly outsized impact this year, with about 855,000 — or about 42 percent — of all voters coming from those age groups, according to The News’ analysis.

Historically, older generations have dominated New York City’s municipal elections. Election analyst Jerry Skurnik noted that residents under 55 made up less than 40% of those who voted in the 2021 mayoral election won by Eric Adams, even though that race was not particularly competitive and had much lower turnout.

Basil Smikle, a veteran political strategist appointed in 2015 by then-Gov. Cuomo, executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, said he couldn’t imagine a local municipal election in which younger voters outpaced older ones as they did this year.

Although demographic data does not show how individual residents voted, Smikle argued that it was evident that most younger people went for Mamdani, noting that his support among new generations became palpable as he ran a campaign centered on a message of change and “distrust of traditional institutions.” NBC News exit polls back up Smikle’s theory, showing Mamdani getting 60 percent more support than Cuomo among voters ages 18 to 29.

“I think young voters saw themselves in [Mamdani]” Smikle said before reasoning that this was an especially important factor in the context that Mamdani’s closest competitor, Cuomo, was a representative of New York’s political old guard while running a campaign heavily focused on his long record in government.

The fact that Mamdani didn’t have an extensive resume, Smikle added, might even have worked in his favor. “He had more credibility as a change agent,” he said.

Andrew Yang, a businessman who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020 and for mayor of New York in 2021, credited Mamdani’s savvy and humorous social media presence, arguing that it was another important reason why he excited so many young voters. Yang, who was an early favorite in the 2021 mayoral race after also prioritizing social media, said he thinks candidates for elected office across the country are going to try to replicate Mamdani’s candidacy.

“You’re going to see legions of candidates trying, but Zohran is a particularly talented communicator and New York City gets a lot more media attention than the average election elsewhere,” he said.

Mamdani’s campaign, most significantly, centered on a set of easily digestible policy proposals: freezing rent for the city’s roughly 2 million stabilized renters, dramatically expanding fully subsidized child care, and making public buses free — and then paying for it all by raising taxes on millionaires and corporations. He has managed to mitigate a range of criticism, from the potential economic fallout of his vision to positions and statements on Israel and Gaza, some considered anti-Semitic.

“He stood for policies that young people believe in,” said Michael Lange, a progressive election analyst who has closely followed Mamdani’s rise since he launched his mayoral campaign a little more than a year ago.

It’s also the political front that will prove most difficult for Mamdani as he takes office Jan. 1 as New York’s youngest mayor in more than a century. Most of Mamdani’s promises — tax increases, expanded child care, free buses — depend on funding and legislative action from Albany.

Democratic leaders in the state Legislature generally support Mamdani’s proposals. But Gov. Hochul, who faces a competitive race for re-election next year, has been openly skeptical of the idea of ​​raising taxes in 2026, even on high earners, a stance that could seriously complicate many elements of Mamdani’s agenda.

Meanwhile, Mayor Adams, who gave up his re-election bid at the end of September, is actively seeking a way to at least temporarily prevent Mamdani from enforcing his rent freeze for stabilized tenants.

For some Mamdani supporters, the immediate success of his political commitments is not a necessity.

“At the end of the day, I’d rather have a politician with bold but concrete ideas, even if they may be beyond his immediate reach,” Will Sabel, a 38-year-old Park Slope resident, said in an interview Tuesday after voting for Mamdani. “The fact that he articulates his vision coherently and clearly, and advocates for it clearly, gives me confidence that no matter what it takes, he will at least try, even if it’s not something he can snap his fingers and do.”

Mamdani, however, set the bar high. “When we walk into City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high,” he said in his victory speech Tuesday night. “We will meet them.”

Smikle, the former executive director of the Democratic Party, warned that many of Mamdani’s supporters likely won’t be as forgiving as Sabel.

“It will be very important for him to manage expectations in the short term,” Smikle said. “I think he’ll need some big wins early in his term.”

With Colin Mixson