Internationalism No. 82, December 2025 Page 7 From the series Elections in the USA According to a February 13 th press release from the 5BORO Institute , a New York research centre, 42% of New Yorkers cite housing as their main economic challenge, and 78% say that housing costs have worsened in recent years. Democrat Zohran Mamdani's success in the recent New York City mayoral election was helped by his programme to tackle the issue of housing in the American metropolis. Voter abstention prevailed In 2020, New York had 8.8 million inhabitants, 7 million of whom were over the age of 18. Since about 85% of them are American citizens, it can be estimated that about 6 million were eligible to vote. To vote in the State of New York, you have to register, and in November there were 5.3 million registered voters in the city, 3.5 million of whom were Democrats. In this last mayoral election, two million people voted – about 33% of the el...