The win by Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoralty Democratic primary has provided a much needed boost to the spirits of progressives everywhere and stunned political observers. Andrew Cuomo, with nearly $30 million dollars donated by wealthy people, had been comfortably in the lead until Mamdani started making gains in the closing weeks. Mamdani’s supporters had been hopeful of pulling off an upset win but even they expected it to be a drawn out affair, with Cuomo likely leading at the end of the first round of counting and Mamdani hoping to pull ahead with the second and lower preference votes of the other candidates, especially those of Brad Lander, who came in third. Few expected to have Cuomo concede as early as 10:00pm on election night.
It is astonishing that the Democratic party establishment decided that the candidate they would back should be a 69-year year old disgraced former governor who was forced to resign due to allegations of sexual harassment. Even after the election, party leaders like Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries have refrained from endorsing Mamdani. That shows how stuck they are in their old mindset, that they cannot not see that their time is over. But on the other hand, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez strongly backed him all through the campaign, and Jerry Nadler, a New York congressman and one of the city’s most prominent Jewish leaders, endorsed Mamdani after the election, though not before.
Mamdani campaigned on making the city affordable (with free bus rides) and that message seemed to resonate.
Mamdani himself said he viewed the election as a referendum on a crumbling status quo. In his election party speech, delivered in the first minutes of Wednesday morning, he vowed “to govern our city as a model for the Democratic party – a party where we fight for working people with no apology”.
With a relentless focus on the cost of living, a relatable online presence and an army of volunteers tens of thousands strong, Mamdani – who would be the first Muslim mayor in the city’s history – defied conventional wisdom that said Cuomo – the 67-year-old scion of a prominent New York political family with a massive war chest – was invincible. And he did it in a way that many Democrats from across the ideological spectrum believe might offer a roadmap for winning back the voters they have lost touch with, in the first major primary election since Donald Trump reclaimed the White House.
…Early data suggests Mamdani’s youth-powered campaign stitched together a new multiracial coalition, activating disengaged voters across the five boroughs, particularly in predominantly Asian and Hispanic districts. He won big in Ridgewood, Queens (where he notched 80% of the vote), and in nearby Bushwick, Brooklyn (79%) – the kinds of gentrifying neighborhoods where his younger fanbase lives.
…Mamdani’s flood-the-zone, “go everywhere” approach proved popular, especially when he was asked, and sometimes cornered, in debates and discussions about his views on Israel, a topic long viewed as crucial for electability in New York. Both Cuomo and conservatives continued to try to paint Mamdani’s rhetoric, including an explanation of the controversial phrase “globalize the intifada”, as antisemitic.
But in a sign that times may have changed, Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian views did not prevent his decisive victory – nor were they central to his campaign. Instead, he kept a laser-focus on affordability – with policy goals that included a rent freeze, free buses and universal childcare.
His outspoken stance on Gaza also endeared him to young people, including Jews, who are disgusted with Israel’s genocidal actions there. Groups like JREFJ (Jews For Racial and Economic Justice) and JVP Action (Jewish Vote for Peace) worked hard to reach voters and neutralize the anti-Muslim and red-baiting that was used against him. The radio program Beyond the Pale, which describes itself as the voice of the Jewish left in NYC, had a very interesting program with spokespeople from JFREJ and JVPA about how they campaigned and won over voters and the kinds of issues the voters were interested in and what swung them over to Mamdani.
Lander and Mamdani had made a pact to ask their respective supporters to list the other as second choice and they had appeared together at some events. Lander is white and Jewish and he made it a point to defend Mamdani against the Islamophobic and other attacks. He will likely campaign for Mamdani in the general election as well.
As I posted earlier, Republicans, MAGAnuts, and other assorted right wingers have lost their minds over Mamdani’s win, finding it hard to accept that all the money they spent could not tilt the scales sufficiently in their favor. They have vowed to lavishly fund someone else to contest the general election but it is not clear if they will try to have Cuomo run as an independent, joining current mayor Eric Adams who is also running as an independent. As Ryan Grim of Drop Site News writes (in a newsletter to which I subscribe):
Mamdani faced seemingly insurmountable odds. The political establishment mobilized every weapon in their arsenal to stop him. Dubbed Fix the City, a super PAC received $500,000 from pro-Israel billionaire and Trump supporter Bill Ackman. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, another staunch Israel supporter, contributed a whopping $8 million to the group.
Now the billionaire class is in full panic mode. The morning after Mamdani’s victory, Ackman ominously posted: “We are looking into legal issues… legal issues concerning the potential for another candidate to run now.” After consulting with those attorneys, Ackman concluded that a new candidate couldn’t get on the ballot, but he said he and others were ready to back one anyway. He acknowledged, however, that if he named the candidate personally, Ackman’s connection to Trump would undermine that candidate in a Democratic city like New York.
Ackman wrote on X on Thursday morning:
“[T]here are hundreds of million[s] of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight (believe me, I am in the text strings and the WhatsApp groups) so that a great alternative candidate won’t spend any time raising funds.
So, if the right candidate would raise his or her hand tomorrow, the funds will pour in. I am sure that Mike Bloomberg will share his how-to-win-the-mayoralty IP and deliver his entire election apparatus and system to the aspiring candidate so that the candidate can focus all of his or her energy on the campaign.
One unfortunate fact, as far as I understand, is that the candidate will have to be a write-in as I believe that none of the current candidates established a nominating committee if they were to withdraw, which means that no one can take their spot on the ballot. This is such an important election, however, that I believe the write-in requirement could actually turn into an important call to action that brings people in throngs to the polls. It therefore won’t be the game stopper it would normally be in a typical election.
The Israel lobby groups are expected to mount fierce attacks on Mamdani. Their strategy has always been to try and defeat any candidate who dares to criticize Israel in any way by painting them as antisemite, so that others will think twice before doing so. Drop Site News reports that the pro-Israel terrorist group Betar is planning g to create confrontations at Mamdani events.
Far-right activists, including members of Betar—a pro-Israel extremist group known for racist violence—have been running a constellation of WhatsApp group chats to plan counterprotests against pro-Palestine demonstrations and commit potential hate crimes against Muslims in New York City. The chats, shared with Drop Site by an anonymous member added to the groups by an organizer, illustrate a network of pro-Israel agitators coordinating street confrontations and provocations in New York City.
The chat logs show its members, including individuals publicly affiliated with Betar US, discussing a range of plans and ideas: to protest at mosques, burn Qurans to provoke confrontations, and coordinate buying pepper spray, lasers, and other illicit devices to confront pro-Palestine protests in New York City. The covert conversations took place over the past year as the city of New York became a flashpoint for conflict between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel demonstrators.
…In addition to planning protests, the chats show members creating fake social media accounts to impersonate pro-Palestinian activists online, monitoring the locations of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and researching the home addresses of activists.
The attacks on Mamdani are extreme and borderline insane.
Republicans are calling on President Donald Trump to strip a New York City mayoral candidate of his citizenship and have him deported.
Zohran Mamdani, born in Uganda and naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2018, won the Democratic primary in the New York City mayoral race on Tuesday, beating out former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In an X post, the New York Young Republican Club implored Trump to invoke the Communist Control Act against Mamdani.
“The radical Zohran Mamdani cannot be allowed to destroy our beloved city of New York,” they wrote.
…The Communist Control Act was passed by Congress at the height of Cold War tensions. The legislation outlawed the Communist Party in the U.S. and barred communists from holding certain positions. The law has rarely been enforced since its passage in 1954.
…Trump echoed the club’s fears of a red New York.
“It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.
Outside of warmed-over Communist paranoia, conservatives have unleashed a whole slew of vile attacks on Mamdani. Criticism of the candidate is far from fringe, coming from Trump’s closest confidants.
We can expect a very ugly campaign.
While this win is very encouraging for progressives, we should resist the temptation to draw conclusions that are too sweeping. New York City cannot be taken as representative of the country as a whole. But that does not mean that the leaders of the Democratic party should not think very seriously about how their milquetoast and wimpy approach to the current political crisis needs to change.
The Democratic establishment are craven, and beholden to big corporate campaign donors. When Joe Biden went to campaign donors in 2020 and promised “nothing will change” it was the slogan of the whole Dem leadership.
It remains to be seen if they are capable to change, facing the existential threat to democracy.
Good grief… “Fix the City”? Can these people not hear themselves?
Many have said it before: The only thing the Democratic Party hates more than the GOP is Progressives. And seriously, the GOP has become the party of unhinged hyperbole, so I am only surprised that none of them have claimed that Mamdani is an extraterrestrial looking to export humans for food. Maybe tomorrow.
Watch out for the Religious Right and the inevitable claims about “he is Antichrist”.
@ 4, birger:
The inevitable ‘antichrist’ claims are pretty funny, given that Turnip is the most antichrist-like character of my lifetime.
It must mean something (I dunno exactly what) that even the billionaires desperate for a write-in candidate don’t mention the Republican candidate for NYC mayor, one Curtis Sliwa (the failing GOP candidate for the same job in ’21), infamous for founding and leading a would-be vigilante group called the “Guardian Angels”.
I hope Mamdani has good bodyguards.
It seems Trump hasn’t ruled out revoking Mamdani’s citizenship: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkimcr.bsky.social/post/3lstpxteysc25
His syndicate (I struggle to call it government) is getting more like 1930s Germany by the hour.
A lot about US political process that seems odd to me, and I certainly can’t see how how Mamdani can be a member of two political parties at once. Neither of the two major Australian Parties (Labor and Liberal) allow members to belong to any other registered party (and I suspect that it’s the same for most political parties here).
It has always been clear -- think back to the enslaved people building pyramids in Egypt -- that the oligarchs/royals are tough to beat. We thought we had a democracy but the oligarchs have been waging a very long war, a war most of us did not know we were fighting, and they have about won that war.
I have no idea what it will take to beat them.
@prl #8: Most US states don’t allow people to be members of multiple political parties, but 8 of them do, at least for some races. (California, Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont.) Only New York and Connecticut also allow this for all races, the others limit which ones can have multiparty candidates. In addition, each state has it’s own party apparatus for every party which is registered in that state separate from each other and the federal-level party apparatus… and the state-level ones (mostly) set the rules for who can join. Adding to the madness, there’s a Green Party and a Pacific Green Party which are very similar, and candidates with no party are referred to as “Independent” but there’s also an Independent Party.
@joelgrant #9: The pyramids weren’t built by slaves, they were built by well-paid laborers and craftsmen. It was the Great Ziggurat which was built by slaves. The two got mixed up a lot in the oral histories of the day, and it’s a bit of misinfo which has been perpetuated thanks to a certain book which is largely a collection of oral traditions and histories.
@10 Snowberry
To clarify, NY has what’s called “fusion voting”. Individual voters and politicians can only belong to a single party, but parties can list the same candidates. Thus, in the general election, assuming she is listed on both, I can choose to vote for Jane Doe on the Democratic ticket or the Working Families ticket (I’d choose the latter as WF is more progressive and their vote total impacts funding). This can sometimes lead to interesting situations. For example, I’ve seen multiple local candidates listed on both the Democratic and Conservative party tickets. Those folks are not what I consider genuine Dems, and certainly not progressives.
Minor correction, Mano: JVFP is Jewish Voice For Peace, not “Vote”.
#9
The pyramids in Ancient Egypt weren´t built by slaves: the work was made by egyptian peasants and craftsmen, and these weren’t slaves.
KG @#12,
I too thought so but the link says otherwise.
snowberry @10
A belated thanks for the explanation, but it really doesn’t answer some of my underlying questions, for example, if someone who is a member of more than one party is elected, which party’s platform are they intending to work towards implementing?