New York turning left
It was not a good evening for the republicans with clear election losses in Virginia, California, New Jersey and New York City. Zohran Mamdani easily wins the election in New York NYC as voters hand power to Democrats’ far-left flank. The 34-year-old assemblyman’s primary upset over former Gov Andrew Cuomo exposed a deep Democratic Party divide. Cuomo is pretty unpopular but was still seen as a suitable moderate candidate with solid experience and even Trump endorsed him instead of Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, who was seen as a lost vote. The turnout was high with more than two million votes and Mamdani won 50.4% of the vote, followed by 41.6% for Cuomo and 7.1% for Sliwa.
Mamdani, the 34-year-old Ugandan-born state assemblyman from Queens, triggered a political earthquake when he declared victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary in June, pulling an upset over a former governor who was widely expected to win the party’s nomination. He has since been catapulted onto the national stage, teaming up with progressive power duo Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to rally New York City voters for his affordability agenda, which includes ambitious campaign promises like rent freezes, fast and free buses, city-run grocery stores and free childcare. As a result of this left-wing candidate and his agenda, Trump endorsed Cuomo and floated cutting federal funds to New York City if Mamdani won.
As Mamdani stepped on stage at the Brooklyn Paramount to declare victory Tuesday night, he appealed to Trump directly. “New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant,” Mamdani said. “So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”
Mamdani’s primary success exposed a divide within the Democratic Party, which suffered big losses up and down the ballot last year and has since struggled to put up a united front against the Trump administration without clear party leadership. This could be a sign that the party is heading left, a sharp left, although New York has its own issues such as the middle class leaving, out of control prices, a city of wealthy and poor and the collapse of the Republican New York party. In a city was progressive Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg gets about 75% of the vote, something is clearly wrong.
It is also worth noting that Mamdani does not seem like a perfect New York candidate as he is young, inexperienced, Muslim and a democratic socialist. New York is still heavily Jewish, but the demographics have changed over time and there are more Muslims and less families and less traditional blue-collar workers.
Mamdani also went up against the unpopular Cuomo. He resigned from office in 2021 in the face of multiple controversies, including several sexual harassment claims. After losing the primary he was expected to win, Cuomo challenged Mamdani as an Independent candidate in the general election, and has since charged Mamdani of being more a socialist than a Democrat.
“The truth is, there’s a quiet civil war going on in the Democratic Party right now,” Cuomo told Fox News last week. “You have an extreme left. Radical left. Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani is just the banner carrier for that movement, versus the mainstream moderate Democrats. They now call me moderate. They used to call me liberal. Now, I’m a moderate because the whole party shifted.”
Mamdani is also controversial among senior democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer refused to endorse Mamdani, despite telling reporters he has a “good relationship with him” and that they are “continuing to talk.” Mamdani was arrested for protesting the war in Gaza and calling for a ceasefire outside Schumer’s home in Brooklyn in 2023. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries gave an 11th-hour endorsement for Mamdani after months of equivocating.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., endorsed Mamdani’s campaign in September and later joined him on the campaign trail. When pressed about whether Mamdani would endorse Hochul, he refused to affirm his support for the sitting governor. Hochul will be critical to Mamdani’s plan to raise taxes on corporations and the top 1% of New Yorkers to pay for his radical campaign agenda, as a tax hike would require state approval.
Mamdani refused to condemn the term “globalize the intifada” during the primary, widely considered a call to violence against Jews. He has since committed to discouraging others from using the term.
Mamdani, who is of Indian descent, will be the first South Asian and first Muslim mayor of New York City. Religion has been a defining issue in the mayoral race, as many Jewish New Yorkers have rejected Mamdani’s positions on Israel, including his calling the war in Gaza a genocide and his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Mamdani has a long record of supporting the pro-Palestinian movement, including at Bowdoin College, where he founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.
Mamdani also faced criticism for his past comments about the New York City Police Department, including those comparing the NYPD to the Israel Defense Forces and calling the NYPD racist, anti‑queer & a major threat to public safety in 2020, among other insults.
Like Trump in 2024, Mamdani centered his mayoral campaign on affordability, vowing to deliver a New York City that voters could actually afford to live in. This is likely the key element in his victory as New York has become almost impossible to live in for a normal family. This is happening at the same time as more wealthy people are becoming even wealthier and the divide in the city is at an all time high. To tax the rich therefore seems reasonable, but the problem is that they can easily just leave and then the city will lose tax revenues. It will likely be a contentious four years to come but the problems for New York City already started with Bill DeBlasio years ago and since then, the middle class has left and the city has headed left for years, culminating in the election of Mamdani.