August in the Hamptons: Ocean breezes. Oversubscribed Tracy Anderson classes. Parking woes.

And this year, with a New York City mayoral election looming in the fall, a freakout that the most sumptuous of summer staples hasn’t soothed.

“Even overpriced lobster salad can’t seem to make people out here feel better,” said Robert Zimmerman, a veteran political fund-raiser who has yet to back anyone in the race.

“Everyone’s talking about it all the time,” said the writer and pundit Molly Jong-Fast, a New York City voter who has a home in Sag Harbor.

What they are talking about, for the most part, is whether anyone — specifically former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo or Mayor Eric Adams — can beat the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani.

Mr. Mamdani is the 33-year-old Democratic nominee who prevailed over Mr. Cuomo in the primary and is comfortably ahead in the polls. In June, he dared to say on “Meet the Press”: “I don’t think we should have billionaires.”

Which, in running to lead a city that has more Forbes billionaires than any place on earth, has led to a certain amount of grousing.