New York City, USA — November 2, 2025 | Dalena Reporters
As the 2025 2025 New York City mayoral election gains national prominence, a different pulse is being felt on New York’s streets. According to opinion columnist David Marcus, many voters across the city responded to the major race not with enthusiasm but with a resigned shrug — summing it up bluntly: “It is what it is.
Marcus spent time talking with dozens of voters in boroughs including the Bronx, Staten Island and Brooklyn, where the prevailing attitude was less about radical change and more about endurance. In a park in Mott Haven, a 40-something transit worker dismissed ambitious campaign promises as unrealistic, saying, “Free buses is stupid… It’s never going to happen anyway. Meanwhile, in Bay Ridge a lifelong resident asked rhetorically, “Has [candidate] Cuomo even been here?” before summarising the mood: “It is what it is.
Despite the national spotlight on the candidates — including progressive assemblyman Zohran Mamdani and former governor Andrew Cuomo — many New Yorkers appeared disengaged. One Uber driver from Brooklyn-based Pakistani community laughed when he said his friends were “going crazy” about Mamdani’s campaign, while he himself remained unmoved, saying the city always ends up the same.
The commentary underscores a paradox: while New York has undergone dramatic cultural and political shifts, many of its residents feel insulated from change, settled into a rhythm that, they believe, survives regardless of who occupies City Hall. Marcus writes that the message he received again and again: “You work hard, you do good, it’s OK.
As election day approaches and campaigns intensify, the prevailing sentiment across many working-class neighbourhoods may be summed in a simple phrase — acceptance over optimism. For columnists like Marcus, that attitude offers its own kind of political commentary, one rooted not in lofty ideological battles but in the lived continuity of city life.