On Election Day in Astoria, Ellie stood in a line that curled around the block of her polling site.

The 31-year-old paralegal, who declined to use her real name for privacy reasons, earns $78,000 annually — and has been priced out of three apartments in five years. Her rent jumped $520 in the last three years alone to $2,270, not including utilities, and that’s even living with two roommates, each paying that amount, in a market-rate unit.

She voted that day, she said, because she was “tired of feeling like the city was pushing me out.” And, like many, she backed Zohran Mamdani — the Assembly member who ran on rent freezes for stabilized homes, tenant protections and a promise to, as she put it, “fight the right people.”

Mamdani won by 50.4% of the vote that day — including 78% of vote

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