The New Yorker:

Before voters go to the ballot box, they’re sitting on their therapist’s couch—where they’re unpacking their Mamdani-induced fears and their Cuomo-fuelled stress. Or, as usual, they’re talking about Trump.

By Tyler Foggatt

After Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, in June, Governor Kathy Hochul spoke to hundreds of business leaders, telling them not to panic. “I’ve become the therapist-in-chief, it seems,” she said, during an appearance on MSNBC, over the summer. “I’m saying to everybody, ‘We’re going to be O.K.’ ”

Although it’s almost impossible to imagine someone more therapeutic than Kathy Hochul, many New Yorkers, in the lead-up to the general election, on Tuesday, have been seeking reassurance from actual therapists. For some people, the anxiety is straightforward: much like the business leaders whom Hochul tried to comfort, they’re worried about the future of the city under a democratic-socialist mayor. But, others, including those who support Mamdani, have been shaken by the ugly tenor of the race—the allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and the sheer fact that Andrew Cuomo, who resigned from the governorship back in 2021, amid a torrent of sexual-harassment allegations, has any sort of constituency at all. The closest we’ve come to a “moment of brevity” in this election is when Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, went on Fox News and accused Cuomo, who’s running as an Independent, of “slapping fannies and killing grannies.”

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