As the extraordinary Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani shows, there’s a new bellwether in American politics.

For years, Ohio played that role. In every election from 1964 to 2016, the state voted for the winning presidential candidate, and every four years journalists would travel there to interview voters in Columbus and Cincinnati, Dayton and Youngstown. But in 2020 Biden won without carrying the state, and today Ohio is deeply red, costing it its bellwether status. Several other states once considered battlegrounds – Iowa, Missouri, and Florida – have also turned firmly Republican.

But now a new bellwether has emerged: Queens. This humble New York borough contains multitudes. With a population of 2.3 million, it would be the nation’s fifth largest city if it stood alone. And in diversity it is without peer. Nearly half of Queens residents are foreign born. It is about a quarter white, a quarter Latino, nearly a quarter Asian and 17% Black, and 140 languages are spoken there. It’s home to Citi Field and the USTA Tennis Center, LaGuardia and John F Kennedy airports, MoMA PS1 and Aqueduct Racetrack, Archie Bunker of All in the Family and Awkwafina of Nora from Queens.

Flushing is home to so many Asians that its downtown is known as the Chinese Times Square. Astoria has one of the largest Greek populations outside of Greece; Jackson Heights is known as “Little Colombia”; Woodside has a “Little Manila”. Jamaica is home to large African American, Caribbean and Central American........

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