What Zohran Mamdani’s victory can teach the Democrats

Washington: Six years ago, Zohran Mamdani was an unknown rapper from New York with four Twitter followers. Even at the beginning of this year, four in five New Yorkers had no idea who he was, or at least had no idea about him.

Today, the 34-year-old is about to take the reins as the city’s youngest mayor in a century, the first Muslim to hold the post and only the second democratic socialist.

His meteoric rise — former New York governor Andrew Cuomo winning the Democratic primary in June and taking just over 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race this week — has shocked the establishment as much as it has electrified much of the Democratic base.

“We brought down a political dynasty,” Mamdani told his raucous supporters Tuesday night. “I wish Andrew Cuomo success in his private life. But let this be the last time I mention his name tonight.”

The day after her decisive victory, Mamdani had lunch with another young hottie, New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; many believe he will challenge Senate leader Chuck Schumer for his seat and one day seek the presidency.

Meanwhile, veteran Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, announced she will retire at the end of next year; It’s another important symbol of the changing of the guard in Washington, which has largely become a gerontocracy.

Mamdani’s success came on a red-letter day for Democrats in elections elsewhere; Mikie Sherrill was elected governor of New Jersey by a 13-point margin, and Abigail Spanberger was elected governor of Virginia by a 15-point margin; decisive victories that have party strategists thinking big about what’s possible in next year’s national byelections.

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“This was a perfect night for the Democrats,” says James Booth, a Washington-based Democratic strategist and pollster who also works with the Australian Labor Party.

“If you just read New York Times and Twitter [now X] Things have been looking bleak for the last nine months. But the data points from the elections are the most important data points. “We’re in the ballpark world of 2017 in terms of the backlash against Trump and Trumpism.”

Democrats are anxiously trying to figure out where they will sit compared to Donald Trump’s first term (they won 41 seats in the House of Representatives in the 2018 “blue wave” midterm elections).

“We were concerned a week ago that the Democratic brand was much more tarnished than it was in 2017,” Booth says. “This is a very important data point that shows Democratic voters are out there and alive…[and] “They are there to be mobilized again.”

The question is how best to activate it. Does the answer lie in left-wing populist candidates like Mamdani, whose appeal is obvious in a city like New York but who fail to resonate in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada or North Carolina? Or does he side with moderates like Spanberger and Sherrill? Can both things coexist?

Republicans will do everything they can to make sure the answer is no. Trump branded Mamdani a “communist lunatic” but that doesn’t just apply to the US president. Texas senator Ted Cruz called the New York mayor a “Karl Marx-quoting, America-hating jihadist.” House Speaker Mike Johnson also explained how Republicans will try to use Mamdani to attack Democrats over the next 12 to 36 months.

“His brand of Marxism is truly a trailblazer for Democrats across the country,” Johnson said. “We noted that other major metropolitan areas across the country face the same threat from candidates similar to Mamdani. And we will continue to call out their efforts to popularize and normalize socialism and Marxism in America. Working families watching this play have a right to know that socialism and communism are not just limited to New York City.”

But Booth says Democrats can walk both sides of the aisle; in fact, they need it to put together a winning Coalition, just as the Australian Labor Party manages its left and right wings.

“The Democratic Party right now is trying to figure out how to hold together a coalition that looks more like 51 percent than 49 percent,” he says.

Booth says Mamdani’s campaign and successful gubernatorial campaigns are more similar than people realize. They focused on practical, local issues; In Mamdani’s case, how can we make America’s most expensive city more affordable for workers by redistributing wealth?

The data seems to confirm this. According to the Searchlight Institute, a new think tank whose raison d’etre is to push Democrats toward “the most influential, broadly popular positions,” exit polls found that 51 percent of New York City voters identified “affordability” as one of Mamdani’s top issues; by contrast, only 24 percent said the same about the national Democratic Party.

The Searchlight Institute said: “With his relentless focus on the cost-of-living crisis, Mamdani has avoided the usual Democrat problems by ‘putting aside’ his best issues with other lower-priority issues.”

This was no small feat for Mamdani, who was doggedly hounded throughout the campaign for her support for defunding the police and her criticism of Israel. The lesson, though perhaps not obvious to Democrats, is that the way to win is to cast aside ideological, identity-politics-based reasons in favor of out-of-pocket politics.

“These are all campaigns in which the candidates, in their own places and styles, did not get caught up in culture war fights or put themselves in a position to impose our ideological concerns on voters,” Booth says. “That’s the general element that makes these campaigns similar; just different flavors in different places.

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“We’re going to have to figure out how to do a national version of this with the national party leadership. The big tent goes left and right. We’re going to need a bigger tent than the one in 2024.”

In New York, Mamdani now faces great expectations. Many of its commitments—free child care for the wealthy, free buses, a rent freeze, and the construction of major affordable housing—will require the cooperation of the state government in Albany.

Democratic governor Kathy Hochul has endorsed Mamdani but opposes his tax plans; He fears taxpayers at the top end of town will flee, leaving middle-class residents to foot the bill.

Mamdani said in one of his first interviews after the win: New York Times He was “clear about the authority we gained” to repeal taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents. Times He said the interview matched the defiant and at times boastful tone he used in his victory speech, which some observers found off-putting.

This speech included a direct challenge to Trump, who was watching at the White House. Even though Trump threatened to withhold federal funding for New York if he elected a “communist” mayor, Mamdani warned him to “turn up the volume” and vowed to take office against the billionaire president.

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But Trump still appeared to soften a bit in the face of Mamdani’s landslide victory. “We’re going to help him, we’re going to help him; we want New York to succeed,” Trump said at the American Business Forum in Miami. “We’ll help him; maybe a little.”

Booth said this week’s election should be a wake-up call for the president, who is focused on trade deals, ending foreign wars and flashy projects like the White House ballroom.

“It projects voters as disinterested in the practical challenges they face in their daily lives, and as voters saw from us last year, it is captured by the ideological parts of Trumpism,” Booth says. “This is bad news for Trump.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia and onetime MAGA standard-bearer, has become a leading voice of dissent in recent weeks. Appearing on CNN this week, he accused Trump’s advisers of distracting Trump with foreign affairs rather than focusing on domestic issues.

“Taking him on non-stop tours around the world and non-stop meetings with leaders of foreign countries is not America First,” he said. “It’s not like that. Domestic policy should be the most important issue that the president and the Republican-controlled House and Senate are working on, which comes out on Tuesday.”

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