Michael Knowles

There is a chance that Cuomo pulls it off.

Had the Republican Curtis Lewa dropped out, Cuomo almost certainly would have won the election.

Now it's probably the case that Mamdani is going to win.

But it's close.

We don't know exactly.

Some of the betting markets have Cuomo up, rising up.

If Mamdani does win, the first thing that New Yorkers can look forward to is a lot more, you guessed it, violence.

Two groups of people are going to elect Mamdani.

Primarily, it's foreigners, non-native New Yorkers.

So they're probably used to violence in their terrible countries anyway.

That will not be a shift for them.

And yuppie, wealthy, female whites.

And we'll get to those crosstabs in a moment.

But those are the two.

And that demographic...

is going to be really, really surprised to learn that violence is not merely a social construct.

Violence is a physical construct.

It is actually a physical action that hurts a lot and can really damage your life and kill you.

I don't mean to laugh at it, but that's what they're going to find out.

The ethereal, abstract construction of violence, man, when you really think about it, man, that is going to collapse into the concrete reality of assault and murder quickly.