You seem to be conflating the margin between the winner and the next candidate with an overwhelming majority of people all feeling the same way. The former is a mandate, the latter is just being the least disliked.
And remember, the day after the election last year people thought Trump had gotten a majority of the popular vote. But then, once absentee ballots were counted he fell just shy of it. This morning there was still 9% of the vote uncounted in NYC, so it’s not unlikely here also Mamdani will have a plurality rather than majority.
50.4-49.8=0.6
That’s how.
You seem to be conflating the margin between the winner and the next candidate with an overwhelming majority of people all feeling the same way. The former is a mandate, the latter is just being the least disliked.
And remember, the day after the election last year people thought Trump had gotten a majority of the popular vote. But then, once absentee ballots were counted he fell just shy of it. This morning there was still 9% of the vote uncounted in NYC, so it’s not unlikely here also Mamdani will have a plurality rather than majority.