The New York Times reports:

Zohran Mamdani’s continued strength in New York City’s race for mayor has bewildered many business leaders who have tried to paint the democratic socialist as too extreme for the city.

But the success of Mr. Mamdani’s campaign has not surprised many young professionals at tech start-ups, law firms and investment companies, who, despite earning well above the New York’s median household income of about $81,000, feel that living in the city is harder than it should be. They believe the upstart candidate has the best ideas for improving affordability.

These Gen Z and Millennial white-collar workers are proving to be a significant source of Mr. Mamdani’s support.

During the Democratic primary in June, Mr. Mamdani, 33, overwhelmingly won the votes of young, high-earning voters. In wealthy precincts where the median income is at least $200,000, Mr. Mamdani won 67 percent of the vote where the median age was 45 or under, including precincts in Brooklyn’s Park Slope and Williamsburg, and the Financial District in Manhattan. In those precincts where the median age was more than 45, including most of the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of Manhattan, he took only 45 percent of the vote.

Since the primary, individual donations to Mr. Mamdani’s campaign have surged, while funding to his chief rival in the race, Andrew M. Cuomo, the former New York governor, has lagged.

The enthusiasm for Mr. Mamdani is particularly pronounced in the tech sector, according to the most recent campaign finance data released last month.

More employees from Google donated to Mr. Mamdani than from any other private company in the city, with at least 238 employees contributing a total of $45,823 to his primary and general election campaign. The vast majority of those donations came from Google employees living in New York, while a few dozen workers living in other cities also made contributions.

While Mayor Eric Adams has seen an influx of individual donations since the primary, few have come from employees at major technology firms. Only four Google employees, for instance, contributed to Mr. Adams’s re-election efforts. Mr. Cuomo received donations from eight Google employees and the Republican, Curtis Sliwa, received a donation from one. Other major tech companies, including Amazon and Meta, were also among the top private companies where employees donated to Mr. Mamdani.

Four of the city’s young high-earning workers explained their rationales for supporting Mr. Mamdani.

Some said they see parts of themselves in Mr. Mamdani, an immigrant who rose through an elite education system and wants to engage with the full breadth of life in New York City.

The four, all Democrats, said they ruled out the other candidates for a range of reasons. Some cited concerns about the sexual harassment complaints against Mr. Cuomo and the corruption investigation into Mr. Adams and his administration. The charges against Mr. Adams were dropped, but some in his orbit have remained under investigation.

The four voters recognize they are less affected by the city’s affordability crisis than working-class residents, but they say remain concerned about the issues Mr. Mamdani is championing. [Continue reading…]