Opinion: What We Can Learn From the First Poll of Latino Voters in NYC’s Mayoral Race 

The findings provide specific clues as to why a plurality of Latino voters supported Zohran Mamdani in the primary and why they remain supportive as he heads into this last stretch of the campaign A poll site in The Bronx last year Adi Talwar City Limits A new poll in the New York City mayoral race just landed This is the first poll focused exclusively on New York City Latino voters in this electoral cycle and will likely be the only one scarce polls are ever taken to take the pulse of the issues major to Latino voters and the candidates they prefer The Hispanic Federation which commissioned this poll must be commended for this admirable and needed work The findings provide selected clues as to why a plurality of Latino voters supported Zohran Mamdani in the primary and why they remain supportive as he heads into this last stretch of the campaign My analysis of the mayoral primary in June exhibited that Mamdani won a plurality of aid in majority-Latino polling districts However the nuances in voting patterns across boroughs and neighborhoods that I describe in that column point to the fact that Latinos are not homogeneous We do not fit any once-size-fits-all formulations Latinos are quite diverse in cultural variety countries of origin language nuances and political philosophies Thus we find that this variety manifests itself in particular voting patterns for example Queens and Manhattan Latino voters supported Mamdani in higher numbers than Latinos in the Bronx function d u ac var s d createElement 'script' s type 'text javascript' s src 'https a omappapi com app js api min js' s async true s dataset user u s dataset campaign ac d getElementsByTagName 'head' appendChild s document 'u kmqsczew vunxutxmd' The Hispanic Federation HF -commissioned poll in numerous procedures reflects this very dynamic and thus mirrors what we saw in the June primary Another excellent poll undertaken in August by Adam Carlson and Amit Singh Bagga two of the brightest minds in politics in contemporary times located patterns identical to the HF poll and its findings about the primary results Carlson and Singh Bagga interviewing Latinos within a wider poll to New York City voters were able like the HF poll to poll Latinos by countries of origin specifically Puerto Rican and Dominicans voters and Central and South Americans On the horserace question the Carlson and Singh Bagga poll had Latino likely voters supporting Mamdani over Cuomo at percent to percent I must also note that based on the dynamics at that time the poll was a five-person race Since then attorney Jim Walden and Mayor Eric Adams dropped out The HF poll includes the three-person contest Mamdani Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa the race has become The results of the horserace question in the HF poll show Mamdani besting Cuomo - with Sliwa at a distant percent Mamdani s strong promotion among Latinos can be explained by a number of elements to which the poll points The first and bulk essential correlation seems connected to the issues majority of fundamental to Latinos cost of living inflation and housing costs Which leads me to believe that Fiorello LaGuardia s adage about municipal governing There is no Democratic or Republican way of cleaning the streets may now be applied to matters relating to affordability It is clear that there is no partisan way to speak about an affordability problem that multiple Latinos are experiencing firsthand I say this because specific quarters have sought to peg Mamdani as a radical socialist and thus as someone New York City voters should be frightened of According to the HF poll Mamdani is the only one in the poll who surpassed the percent favorability mark In fact his favorability rating is at percent of Latino voters polled Several other findings present fascinating insights One in particular is the nuance that exists in Latino voting preference according to age and educational attainment Mamdani s vote share with Latinos is higher among - to -year-old voters than among voters and over Differences also exist between Latinos with college degrees and those without While percent of Latinos with college degrees give Mamdani their vote percent of non-college graduates endorsement the Democratic nominee Interestingly Adam Carlson has noted a pattern one that connects Latinos and the rest of the electorate The major fault lines of this general voting are not race but rather age and educational attainment Across racial groups young voters and voters with a four-year college degree are way more likely to help Mamdani There is one last element evident from this poll and Carlson s and Singh Bagga s that coincides with my analysis in June s mayoral primary vote I observe various voting preference differences according to boroughs and neighborhoods and according to Latino countries of origin Mamdani s strongest advocacy among Latinos comes from voters from South American and Mexican backgrounds followed by voters of Dominican and Puerto Rican origins I must note that within the voting population Puerto Rican and Dominican voters vastly outnumber other Latino groups in the city and state This largely coincides with the reality of the overall Latino population in the city where Dominicans are now the largest Latino group followed closely by Puerto Ricans who historically were the largest Latino group in Gotham Puerto Rican voters still remain the largest Latino voting group in the city and state This explains in a few solutions though not entirely why Mamdani s patronage is greater in Queens where the bulk of South American-born voters live and vote than say the Bronx where the overwhelming number of Latino voters are Puerto Rican and Dominican Specific may be wondering Why the difference between Puerto Rican Dominican voters for the purposes of this column and brevity s sake I will refer to these voters as Caribbean voters and South Central American voters and the difference in promotion among Latinos by borough I must acknowledge that my postulations here are in essence working hypotheses informed by details analysis and the historical experience of Latinos in New York This is just one theory I also confess humility with any speculations dealing with a broad and diverse group that has so often been captured by a singular term whether that term is Latino Latinx Hispanic or Latin Clearly much more analysis necessities to be undertaken to understand the nuances and variety that exists among Latinos in their voting preference and participation or lack thereof as we see in the Bronx Again I note that there is a certain correlation between Caribbean and non-Carribean Latino voters and candidate endorsement by borough While there are South and Central American voters in all parts of the city just as there are other Latino groups that are more spread out than in past decades there is a larger concentration in Queens hence the larger share of Mamdani patronage there Furthermore Latino voters in Queens are not as unfamiliar with progressive candidates as voters in other boroughs Let us not forget that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who like Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist represents chunks of Latino-majority sections of Queens and that Queens is also the place where progressives like Catalina Cruz Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas and Jessica Ramos have been elected I realize that particular may not categorize Ramos as a progressive in light of her endorsement of Andrew Cuomo yet I believe her voting record would certainly make the scenario for her affinity with progressive values Though she is Latina I did not include State Sen Kristen Gonzalez another Queens Latina elected official since she does not represent a Latino-plurality district at least when it comes to the voting population Gonzalez is also a Democratic Socialist Another theory of mine is that although Queens Latinos particularly in East Elmhurst Corona and Jackson Heights now have about a -year solid voting presence Historically speaking they can still be considered fairly new voters and less influenced by machine-backed political maneuverings at least compared to Latino voters in Manhattan and the Bronx mostly Caribbean voters who have been voting for well over half a century And it is only within the last decade and a half or so that there have been enough Latino voters to change political representation within their respective neighborhoods from non-Latino to Latino Interestingly the first Latino to win elected office in the history of Queens was Hiram Monserrate in I must note that these advancements in representation were made by sheer determination and often against the wishes of the Queens Democratic machinery This is a very pivotal detail that must be included in any analysis of the Latino political reality in Queens Compared to the Bronx there is no real history of Latino voter engagement from the Queens Democratic County organization and no real effort to increase Latino political representation in a borough that continues to see an increase in the Latino general and voting population In this sense one can say that although there are a number of Latino elected officers in Queens none can technically be considered machine or establishment candidates perhaps with the exception of term-limited Councilman Francisco Moya The Bronx political reality presents a stark contrast to Queens After a multitude of years of truly revolutionary movements by a number of Puerto Rican leaders Latinos battled their way to the top of the Bronx Democratic apparatus Nothing was handed to these Latinos who merely sought a voice in the political process They fought for and earned proper political representation After decades of struggle Latinos began to win elected office eventually becoming the heads of the Bronx Democratic organization and earning the Bronx borough presidencies At this moment Latinos no longer have any boroughwide representation nor do they hold the chair of the Bronx Democratic organization though the Bronx is the only Latino-majority borough After certain time Latinos in the Bronx no longer were the reformers as they once were called and in numerous procedures lost the revolutionary edge that earned them representation Numerous Latinos became and continue to be part of the establishment In turn various of the voting patterns among Latino voters in the borough tilted in that direction This continues to be the incident and in my view partly explains why Cuomo beat Mamdani in the Bronx in the primary and why Mamdani is receiving less assistance from Latinos there compared to other boroughs There seems to be a long-held affinity to machine-backed candidates though there are chosen rare exceptions The differences may also be influenced by age Based on my own analysis of several voting facts sources I observe that Puerto Rican voters for instance tend to be older than other Latino groups like Ecuadorian and Colombian voters Cuomo seems to have received his largest share of promotion from Puerto Rican seniors than from any other Latino subgroup though again Mamdani still wins a plurality of this vote Part of this reality may also be explained by Cuomo s strong name recognition among older voters particularly those who also have memories of Mario Cuomo the former governor and Andrew Cuomo s father The HF poll coupled with the greater part up-to-date electoral contest results has given us much to explore analyze and ruminate on with respect to the complicated Latino vote The forthcoming general electoral process will certainly shed more light Eli Valentin is a former Gotham Gazette contributor founder of the Institute for Latino Politics and executive director of a new Latino studies scheme at Virginia Union University He lives in New York with his family The post Opinion What We Can Learn From the First Poll of Latino Voters in NYC s Mayoral Race appeared first on City Limits