Just to be clear, it's extreme in the sense that owning a car means you are more likely to have less money.
If you live in a house out in Queens and work as a plumber then you definitely have a car.
If you live in Manhattan or Brooklyn and work for an investment bank you probably don't.
Having a car in the city can be a real pain. A lot really depends on your lifestyle, if you need one -- like if you go rock climbing every weekend, you do. If you're into restaurants and clubs, you definitely don't.
Not a huge surprise to anyone who lives in this city when so much of daily aggravation comes down to road use, either as a driver or a pedestrian. Cuomo also ran an anti-bike campaign while Zohran ran the opposite.
Not just an “anti-bike campaign.” Cuomo fought bike infrastructure — and subway infrastructure, and basically all the needs of the city — for his entire tenure as governor.
Growing up in the Rockies, I put together the power dynamics between large numbers of rural counties and then a single urban county a long time ago, but was still surprised to see it functioning out East.
I got to New York City, witnessed the deteriorating subway, see four lane one-way avenues with no bike lanes, and wondered where the hell all that tax money we're paying goes. Then I go upstate and see all these empty — but immaculately paved — freeways, and it all kind of comes together.
It's wild that Cuomo, who is personally responsible for making sure that as little NYC money actually gets spent in NYC as possibly, had the chutzpah to think he'd be welcome running this place.
Yeah, he can F right off as far as I'm concerned. Not sure I'd lament the bike infrastructure (I don't think it's the problem and I hate riding in the bike lanes, they're full of idiots) and the state of the subway (I take it every day and its generally fine) but yeah. Cuomo is nuts.
I think we are inferring causation from correlation, but anyways cars are a really divisive and polarizing issue in NYC. Many who can afford it are addicted to the comfort of cars vs the bus or subway, especially in summer.
Meanwhile those who can't really have no need for cars and so never even learn to drive, exponentiated by college students and fresh transplants. Many of this group hate cars or are even afraid of them.
Neither group will ever be able to convince the other - comfort and fear have incredible staying power and are large drivers of political inertia.
I love a good counter-intuitive anecdote as much as anybody, but I think you'll need to back up this assertion with some evidence.
The expenses associated with owning a car in the city are prohibitive for lower-income residents. These costs extend beyond car payments and the highest insurance rates in the nation to include congestion charges, tolls and exorbitant parking fees, which can run hundreds of dollars per month.
> "If you include young people, then that isn't surprising either."
Meanwhile, from actual poll results:
"A new trend has emerged in American politics: The very youngest voters — 18-to-24-year-olds — say they're more conservative than the cohort that's just older, according to the latest Harvard Youth Poll." https://www.axios.com/2024/09/28/gen-z-men-conservative-poll in September 2024.
"According to a new Yale Youth Poll, a survey affiliated with the Yale Institution for Social and Political Studies, voters aged 18 to 21 lean Republican by 11.7 points when asked who they would support in the 2026 Congressional elections, while voters aged 22 to 29 favored Democrats by 6.4 points." https://www.newsweek.com/republican-support-poll-young-gen-z... in April 2025.
This is an unwelcome trend that bodes ill for Democrats unless they wake up and smell the coffee soon.
Sure, I think it is an odd line. In this case car ownership is a proxy for geography. You could probably find some other interesting proxy variables for geography, that could be used to write 500 word articles. A proxy variable that is in interesting from a monetary perspective could be something that you could use for contextual advertising. I saw four our five car ads when I skimmed the article.
For an article arguing the election broke on car ownership as a defining line, I would imagine there was a statistic like:
n% of car owners voted for candidate A
m% of non-car owners voted for candidate B
It doesn't even bother explaining the different neighborhoods and car ownership in those neighborhoods. It just shows a map and basically says "trust me". It's an entire article written on a single tweet.
Readit News
If you live in a house out in Queens and work as a plumber then you definitely have a car.
If you live in Manhattan or Brooklyn and work for an investment bank you probably don't.
Having a car in the city can be a real pain. A lot really depends on your lifestyle, if you need one -- like if you go rock climbing every weekend, you do. If you're into restaurants and clubs, you definitely don't.
Growing up in the Rockies, I put together the power dynamics between large numbers of rural counties and then a single urban county a long time ago, but was still surprised to see it functioning out East.
I got to New York City, witnessed the deteriorating subway, see four lane one-way avenues with no bike lanes, and wondered where the hell all that tax money we're paying goes. Then I go upstate and see all these empty — but immaculately paved — freeways, and it all kind of comes together.
It's wild that Cuomo, who is personally responsible for making sure that as little NYC money actually gets spent in NYC as possibly, had the chutzpah to think he'd be welcome running this place.
I think this would require individual level polling to get this data, blurring the data by district fuzzes things too much.
Meanwhile those who can't really have no need for cars and so never even learn to drive, exponentiated by college students and fresh transplants. Many of this group hate cars or are even afraid of them.
Neither group will ever be able to convince the other - comfort and fear have incredible staying power and are large drivers of political inertia.
Car ownership in New York tends to signify someone from lower income and wealth brackets. Not higher.
The expenses associated with owning a car in the city are prohibitive for lower-income residents. These costs extend beyond car payments and the highest insurance rates in the nation to include congestion charges, tolls and exorbitant parking fees, which can run hundreds of dollars per month.
Meanwhile, from actual poll results:
"A new trend has emerged in American politics: The very youngest voters — 18-to-24-year-olds — say they're more conservative than the cohort that's just older, according to the latest Harvard Youth Poll." https://www.axios.com/2024/09/28/gen-z-men-conservative-poll in September 2024.
"According to a new Yale Youth Poll, a survey affiliated with the Yale Institution for Social and Political Studies, voters aged 18 to 21 lean Republican by 11.7 points when asked who they would support in the 2026 Congressional elections, while voters aged 22 to 29 favored Democrats by 6.4 points." https://www.newsweek.com/republican-support-poll-young-gen-z... in April 2025.
This is an unwelcome trend that bodes ill for Democrats unless they wake up and smell the coffee soon.
Cuomo <$50k by +19
Mamdani 50k-100k +6
Mamdani 100k+ +13
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/24/us/elections/...
[0]: https://64.media.tumblr.com/4401d342f92344aa47da9469abd397ca...
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the guy who ran on making public transportation free... is more popular with people that take public transportation...
n% of car owners voted for candidate A
m% of non-car owners voted for candidate B
It doesn't even bother explaining the different neighborhoods and car ownership in those neighborhoods. It just shows a map and basically says "trust me". It's an entire article written on a single tweet.
I'm sorry, but this is really a garbage article