“To the Democratic and Republican establishments, especially those gearing up for re-election next year, I would say: pay attention to the Mamdani campaign. It seems many Latinos are, and they will certainly make their opinions heard at the ballot box again.”

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, center, with NYC Comptroller (and former fellow mayoral candidate) Brad Lander and NYS Attorney General Tish James at this year’s pride parade. (Ayman Siam/Office of NYC Comptroller)

This analysis is part of a series of columns exploring the role of the Latino vote in the city’s 2025 municipal elections. Read more here, here and here.

Elections that produce seismic shifts in the political landscape are rare. With the shocking win last week of Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist assemblyman from Queens, New York experienced one of these shifts. Indeed, Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary is better understood as an unexpected political earthquake.

Few expected Mamdani to win. Many observers wondered whether he could pull together the type of coalition needed to defeat a longtime political powerhouse. Could he expand the electorate? Could he energize younger voters? Could he appeal to and turn out low-propensity voters like Asians and Latinos?

Apparently Mamdani did all the above. And interestingly, it appears that he has won a plurality of the Latino vote.

That in itself is a feat. Conventional wisdom held that Mamdani could not peel away enough Latino voters from Andrew Cuomo, considering that Latinos have always viewed the former governor favorably.

Amidst all of his troubles, Latinos remained loyal to a governor they felt had responded to many of their needs. When Hurricane Maria ravaged the island of Puerto Rico, Cuomo stepped up by coordinating flights to deliver goods and emergency services assistance. Likewise his responses to crises in the Dominican Republic. Latinos remember such efforts.

So, what gives? How and where did Mamdani manage to win a crucial voting bloc that Cuomo needed?

The New York Times has actually provided an excellent breakdown of the election results by a number of demographics, including ethnicity, based on U.S. Census and City Planning data. 

I have examined the preliminary first round votes of the mayoral candidates within Latino-majority election districts. These districts were identified using the L2 voter file, which not only draws on Census data but numerous other sources to identify ethnic information as precisely as possible. 

With this data, I have lasered in on election districts that are more than 60 percent Latino, so as to avoid the complications of deciphering Latino voters in election districts that are more diverse. (Until voter files are updated, we will not have a complete picture of the magnitude of this election. Thus, all current analyses, including this one, demand caution.)

Outside the early voting site at the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center in the Bronx on June 14, 2025. (Photo by Adi Talwar)

Here’s what I found:

In Manhattan, Mamdani outdid Cuomo by just over 2,000 votes. His greatest success was in Washington Heights and Inwood, the 72nd Assembly district. Mamdani lost the Latino-majority election districts in the Lower East Side by 151 votes. He won the super-majority Latino election districts in East Harlem (68th Assembly District) by 92 votes and the 71st Assembly district, covering parts of Hamilton Heights, Harlem, and lower Washington Heights, by 657 votes. Remember, I am only examining super-majority Latino election districts, so these results do not refer to the overall vote in these respective districts.

Notably, most of the elected officials in these areas did not endorse Mamdani, including Congressman Adriano Espaillat, whose district encompasses all these neighborhoods. Only State Sen. Robert Jackson and Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee (I am not factoring in those elected to party positions who made their own endorsements in the race).

The Bronx tells a different story with the Latino vote. Cuomo handily beat Mamdani in most of the majority-Latino sections in the Bronx, which is the only majority-Latino borough in the city. In the South Bronx, 51 percent of voters went for Cuomo. In the Kingsbridge, Fordham, and Belmont neighborhoods, 51 percent of voters went for Cuomo and 39 percent for Mamdani. 

Of the Soundview, Longwood and Hunts Point neighborhoods, 57 percent of votes went for Cuomo. Mamdani held on to 31 percent. And we see similar results in the Morris Heights, University Heights, and Tremont neighborhoods. In the Bronx, too, Cuomo earned the lion’s share of endorsements from Latino elected officials (State Sen. Gustavo Rivera bucked the trend, strongly supporting Mamdani). This election proves once again that most endorsements are meaningless and very few endorsers have the capacity to move the needle on any given election.

Moving to Brooklyn, I note that Mamdani won these super-majority Latino election districts over Cuomo by a total of 1,664 votes. Mamdani’s largest support was in Sunset Park (51st Assembly District), Bushwick, and Williamsburg (53rd Assembly District). Because of the stark gentrification of these neighborhoods, especially the latter two, I have been especially careful to identify those precincts which are 60 percent-plus Latino. In the 54th Assembly District, covering parts of East New York and Cypress Hills, Mamdani bested Cuomo by 21 votes.

(Photo by Adi Talwar)

The Queens results in Latino neighborhoods present us with even more fascinating realities. I looked at the 60 percent-plus Latino election districts in Corona, Elmhurst, East Elmhurst, Ozone Park and Ridgewood. Mamdani won those precincts by 1,151 votes. While these numbers may appear similar to results in Manhattan and Brooklyn, they show an interesting dynamic in Latino voting patterns, particularly in Queens.

My analysis of the presidential election in Queens showed an increase in support for Donald Trump, though this increase was not as pronounced as some thought. Of all Latino neighborhoods in the city,  Queens saw the most significant decline in support for the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. Recalling this very recent history makes the current mayoral primary results in these neighborhoods seem erratic. How could Latinos vote for a democratic socialist after voting for the conservative authoritarianism of Donald Trump?

If anything, these results remind us yet again of what has now become almost a cliché: Latinos are not homogenous. We do not fit any once-size-fits-all formulations. Latinos are quite diverse in cultural variety, countries of origin, language nuances, and political philosophies. This can also be seen at the ballot box. In fact, we can see it in this election—most Bronx Latinos went with Cuomo, while a plurality of Latinos in other boroughs went with Mamdani.

Moreover, Latino support for Mamdani, particularly in Queens, should help us understand that the increase in support for Trump in 2024 was not necessarily an indication of an ideological rightward shift. What these results may be telling us is that economic populist messaging resonates deeply with Latino audiences. And this should come as no surprise. It surely was not a surprise for Mamdani. Mamdani, a truly generational political talent, has understood quite well the plight of struggling communities, like Latinos, whose quotidian realities evoke continuing economic anxieties.

A recent Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy and Robin Hood report shows that Latinos are the poorest ethnic group in New York City, followed closely by Asian and then Black New Yorkers. It should come as no surprise, then, that Mamdani, who lasered in on affordability issues, would earn the support of a plurality of Latinos, and win the Asian vote. Mamdani’s support among Black New Yorkers was also higher than some anticipated.

It should also come as no surprise that most Latinos do not see fare-free buses, no cost childcare, and freezing rents as a vice. These are issues that Latinos care deeply about because their very livelihoods depend on all these important, day-to-day matters.

To the Democratic and Republican establishments, then, especially those gearing up for re-election next year, I would say: pay attention to the Mamdani campaign. It seems many Latinos are, and they will certainly make their opinions heard at the ballot box again.

Eli Valentin is a former Gotham Gazette contributor and currently serves as assistant dean of graduate and leadership studies at Virginia Union University. He lives in New York with his family.

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Latino Voters and the Political Earthquake in New York appeared first on City Limits.

By JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr., Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs has been acquitted of the most serious charges in his federal sex trafficking trial, but that doesn’t mean the once-celebrated music mogul will see his business empire restored.

Combs, 55, who is one of the most influential figures in hip-hop history, was acquitted Wednesday of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges but convicted on prostitution offenses. Prosecutors painted a dark portrait of the mogul, with witnesses taking the stand to allege a pattern of violence and detail drug-fueled sex parties he reportedly called “freak-offs” or “hotel nights.”

Combs was convicted of flying people around the country, including his girlfriends and paid male sex workers, to engage in sexual encounters, a felony violation of the federal Mann Act. He could still be sentenced to prison for as long as a decade.

Here’s a closer look at how Combs’ business portfolio and public image have crumbled under the weight of the allegations.

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What has happened to Combs’ business empire?

Before Combs was arrested and charged, his major business ventures had collapsed: He stepped down and later fully divested from Revolt TV, which was founded in 2013. The network offered a mix of programming focused on hip-hop culture, R&B music, social justice and documentaries.

He also reportedly lost a Hulu reality series deal and saw his once-iconic fashion brand Sean John vanish from Macy’s shelves.

After surveillance footage surfaced last year showing Combs physically assaulting singer Cassie, his then-girlfriend, in 2016, consequences mounted: New York City revoked his ceremonial key, Peloton pulled his music, Howard University rescinded his honorary degree and his charter school in Harlem cut ties.

Last year, Combs settled a legal dispute with Diageo, relinquishing control of his lucrative spirits brands, Ciroc and DeLeón. While many of his ventures have unraveled, his music catalog — for now — remains intact.

Where does Combs’ music stand?

Bad Boy Records may be synonymous with 1990s icons like The Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, Ma$e, and 112, but Combs kept the label relevant before his arrest with high-profile releases.

In 2023, Combs dropped “ The Love Album: Off the Grid,” which was his first solo studio album in nearly two decades, and Janelle Monáe released her critically acclaimed project “ The Age of Pleasure ” through Bad Boy. Both albums earned Grammy nominations, with Monáe’s effort recognized in the prestigious record of the year category.

Ahead of the “The Love Album” release, Combs made headlines by returning Bad Boy publishing rights to several former artists and songwriters, years after he was criticized for how he handled their contracts.

Bad Boy Records remains operational, but the label has been significantly shaken by Combs’ legal firestorm and it hasn’t announced any major upcoming releases.

Last week, a surprise EP called “Never Stop” released by his son, King Combs, and Ye (formerly Kanye West), showed support for the embattled mogul. The project was released through Goodfellas Entertainment.

Bad Boy Records remained active through 2022, backing Machine Gun Kelly’s “Mainstream Sellout” under the Bad Boy umbrella. He was a producer on MTV’s reality television series “Making the Band,” and “Making His Band,” launching the careers of artists like the girl group Danity Kane and male R&B group Day 26.

Could Diddy’s fortune be at risk?

Combs has been sued by multiple people who claim to have been victims of physical or sexual abuse. He has already paid $20 million to settle with one accuser, his former girlfriend Cassie. Most of those lawsuits, though, are still pending. It isn’t clear how many, if any, will be successful, or how much it will cost Combs to defend himself in court. Combs and his lawyers have denied all the misconduct allegations and dismissed his accusers as out for a big payday.

Federal prosecutors had informed the court that if Combs is convicted, they would seek to have him forfeit any assets, including property, “used to commit or facilitate” his crimes. They won’t detail exactly what property that might involve until after the trial is over.

How is Diddy’s music faring on streaming?

Despite the legal turmoil surrounding Combs, his music catalog remains widely available on major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. None of the streamers have publicly addressed whether they plan to adjust how his music is featured.

Interestingly, Combs’ music saw a roughly 20% boost in U.S. streaming between April and May 2025, his biggest monthly spike this year, according to Luminate. The numbers jump coincided with key moments in the trial, including testimonies from Cassie and Kid Cudi.

However, there was a slight drop-off with a 5 to 10% decrease in June compared to the previous month’s streams.

Streaming makes up a fraction of an artist’s revenue and is calculated through a complicated process called “streamshare.” Most artists see very little pay from digital services.

What happened to other businesses like Sean John?

Sean John, founded in 1998, has gone largely dormant, with its presence disappearing from major retailers like Macy’s. There are no clear signs of a relaunch on the horizon.

In 2023, Combs launched Empower Global, an online marketplace designed to uplift Black-owned businesses and strengthen the Black dollar. He positioned the platform as a modern-day “Black Wall Street,” backing it with a reported $20 million of his own investment.

The platform debuted with 70 brands and planned to expand by onboarding new Black-owned businesses each month, aiming to feature more than 200 by year’s end.

However, as 2023 came to a close, several brands cut ties with Empower Global. It was reported that some cited disappointing performance and growing concerns over the misconduct allegations surrounding Combs.

AP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this report.

By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The U.S. government is preparing to breed billions of flies and dump them out of airplanes over Mexico and southern Texas to fight a flesh-eating maggot.

That sounds like the plot of a horror movie, but it is part of the government’s plans for protecting the U.S. from a bug that could devastate its beef industry, decimate wildlife and even kill household pets. This weird science has worked well before.

“It’s an exceptionally good technology,” said Edwin Burgess, an assistant professor at the University of Florida who studies parasites in animals, particularly livestock. “It’s an all-time great in terms of translating science to solve some kind of large problem.”

The targeted pest is the flesh-eating larva of the New World Screwworm fly. The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to ramp up the breeding and distribution of adult male flies — sterilizing them with radiation before releasing them. They mate with females in the wild, and the eggs laid by the female aren’t fertilized and don’t hatch. There are fewer larvae, and over time, the fly population dies out.

It is more effective and environmentally friendly than spraying the pest into oblivion, and it is how the U.S. and other nations north of Panama eradicated the same pest decades ago. Sterile flies from a factory in Panama kept the flies contained there for years, but the pest appeared in southern Mexico late last year.

The USDA expects a new screwworm fly factory to be up and running in southern Mexico by July 2026. It plans to open a fly distribution center in southern Texas by the end of the year so that it can import and distribute flies from Panama if necessary.

Fly feeds on live flesh

Most fly larvae feed on dead flesh, making the New World screwworm fly and its Old World counterpart in Asia and Africa outliers — and for the American beef industry, a serious threat. Females lay their eggs in wounds and, sometimes, exposed mucus.

“A thousand-pound bovine can be dead from this in two weeks,” said Michael Bailey, president elect of the American Veterinary Medicine Association.

Veterinarians have effective treatments for infested animals, but an infestation can still be unpleasant — and cripple an animal with pain.

Don Hineman, a retired western Kansas rancher, recalled infected cattle as a youngster on his family’s farm.

“It smelled nasty,” he said. “Like rotting meat.”

How scientists will use the fly’s biology against it

The New World screwworm fly is a tropical species, unable to survive Midwestern or Great Plains winters, so it was a seasonal scourge. Still, the U.S. and Mexico bred and released more than 94 billion sterile flies from 1962 through 1975 to eradicate the pest, according to the USDA.

The numbers need to be large enough that females in the wild can’t help but hook up with sterile males for mating.

One biological trait gives fly fighters a crucial wing up: Females mate only once in their weekslong adult lives.

Why the US wants to breed more flies

Alarmed about the fly’s migration north, the U.S. temporarily closed its southern border in May to imports of live cattle, horses and bison and it won’t be fully open again at least until mid-September.

But female flies can lay their eggs in wounds on any warm-blooded animal, and that includes humans.

Decades ago, the U.S. had fly factories in Florida and Texas, but they closed as the pest was eradicated.

The Panama fly factory can breed up to 117 million a week, but the USDA wants the capacity to breed at least 400 million a week. It plans to spend $8.5 million on the Texas site and $21 million to convert a facility in southern Mexico for breeding sterile fruit flies into one for screwworm flies.

How to raise hundreds of millions of flies

In one sense, raising a large colony of flies is relatively easy, said Cassandra Olds, an assistant professor of entomology at Kansas State University.

But, she added, “You’ve got to give the female the cues that she needs to lay her eggs, and then the larvae have to have enough nutrients.”

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Fly factories once fed larvae horse meat and honey and then moved to a mix of dried eggs and either honey or molasses, according to past USDA research. Later, the Panama factory used a mix that included egg powder and red blood cells and plasma from cattle.

In the wild, larvae ready for the equivalent of a butterfly’s cocoon stage drop off their hosts and onto the ground, burrow just below the surface and grow to adulthood inside a protective casing making them resemble a dark brown Tic Tac mint. In the Panama factory, workers drop them into trays of sawdust.

Security is an issue. Sonja Swiger, an entomologist with Texas A&M University’s Extension Service, said a breeding facility must prevent any fertile adults kept for breeding stock from escaping.

How to drop flies from an airplane

Dropping flies from the air can be dangerous. Last month, a plane freeing sterile flies crashed near Mexico’s border with Guatemala, killing three people.

In test runs in the 1950s, according to the USDA, scientists put the flies in paper cups and then dropped the cups out of planes using special chutes. Later, they loaded them into boxes with a machine known as a “Whiz Packer.”

The method is still much the same: Light planes with crates of flies drop those crates.

Burgess called the development of sterile fly breeding and distribution in the 1950s and 1960s one of the USDA’s “crowning achievements.”

Some agriculture officials argue now that new factories shouldn’t be shuttered after another successful fight.

“Something we think we have complete control over — and we have declared a triumph and victory over — can always rear its ugly head again,” Burgess said.

By SOPHIE BATES

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — More than 60 years after a white supremacist assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers, his daughter still sees the same strain of political violence at work in American society.

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“It’s painful,” said Reena Evers-Everette. “It’s very painful.”

Evers-Everette was 8 years old when her father, a field secretary for the NAACP, was shot to death in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

A few months after Evers’ killing in 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down. The deaths of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy followed later that decade.

Now, experts say the level of political violence in America over the past few years is likely the highest it’s been since the 1960s and 1970s. The past year alone has seen the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers, and two assassination attempts on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

At a four-day conference celebrating Evers’ life just before what would have been his 100th birthday on July 2, his daughter was joined by the daughters of slain civil rights leaders: Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, and Bettie Dahmer, the daughter of civil and voting rights activist Vernon Dahmer. The 2025 Democracy in Action Convening, “Medgar Evers at 100: a Legacy of Justice, a Future of Change,” was held in Jackson.

“I just was feeling so much pain, and I didn’t want anyone else to have to go through that,” Kennedy said, recalling that after her father died, she prayed for the man who killed him. “I was saying, ‘Please don’t — please don’t kill the guy that killed him.’”

Two-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams spoke at the event, denouncing efforts by the Trump administration to strip the names of activists from Navy vessels, including possibly Evers.

“They want to take his name off a boat because they don’t want us to have a reminder of how far he sailed us forward,” Abrams told the conference crowd.

Two-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, right, sits next to Arekia Bennett-Scott, the executive director of Mississippi Votes, at the 2025 Democracy in Action Convening in Jackson, Miss., Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has undertaken an effort to change the names of ships and military bases that were given by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, which often honored service members who were women, people of color, or from the LGBTQ+ community.

Abrams drew parallels between acts of radical political violence and the Trump administration’s use of military resources against protesters in Los Angeles who were demonstrating against immigration enforcement actions.

“Unfortunately, we cannot decry political violence and then sanction the sending of the Marines and the National Guard to stop protesters and not believe that that conflicting message doesn’t communicate itself,” Abrams told The Associated Press. “What I want us to remember is that whether it is Medgar Evers or Melissa Hortman, no one who is willing to speak for the people should have their lives cut short because of what they say.”

In addition to her father’s life and legacy, Evers-Everette wants people to remember the hatred that led to his assassination.

“We have to make sure we know what our history is,” she said. “So we don’t repeat the crazy, nasty, racist mess.”