Philippa Kaur

Zohran Mamdani has become New York City’s first Muslim mayor, after securing more than 50% of the vote. More

Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, has been elected as New York City’s mayor. He became the first New York mayoral candidate to win more than 1 million votes since 1969, and looks set to secure over 50% of the total vote.

With almost all of the votes counted, independent candidate Andrew Cuomo seems to have been backed by 41.6% of voters. Republican Curtis Sliwa has secured just 7%.

Mamdani, who has become New York City’s first Muslim mayor, swept to victory on what was characterised as a radical left-wing platform. He has promised to tax millionaires more in order to fund free buses and childcare for all.

He has also vowed to honour an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over alleged war crimes in Gaza if he visits New York. The Israeli foreign ministry has previously called Mamdani a “mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda”.

How did a figure on the far left of American politics, who is also a staunch critic of Israel, win in a city that is full of millionaires and home to a sizeable Jewish population?

The corruption and sexual harassment scandals affecting his main rival certainly helped, as did the focus of his campaign on making life more affordable for New Yorkers. Mamdani’s presence on social media raised his profile and attracted voters, too.

He posted slick videos on TikTok and Instagram throughout his campaign, including one where he criticised the rent increases seen under outgoing mayor Eric Adams while running the New York City marathon.

But journalists and commentators have noticed something else that has helped boost Mamdani’s appeal among New Yorkers. He has what the New York Times called in July “a rare talent for listening”.

Mamdani is unusually reflective in interviews, often thinking silently for more than 20 seconds before responding to questions. And after his successful primary earlier in 2025, Mamdani contacted every business and cultural leader in the city he could get hold of to hear about why they opposed him.

The viral campaign videos that made his name also see him walking the streets of New York, asking voters questions and listening to their answers at length without interruption. Mamdani may be a radical, but he really listens.

Talking to voters

Democratic theorists are likely to celebrate Mamdani’s approach. Many philosophers embrace what is known as the “deliberative theory of democracy”, which argues that talking – as opposed to voting – is the central democratic institution.

These people suggest that politicians should talk to a diverse range of voters respectfully about their decisions. Listening to diverse perspectives improves policy because it requires leaders to consider a range of ideas and arguments, relying less on their own gut intuitions.

As a respectful and inclusive political style, it can also help citizens feel heard and challenge the idea that politicians are interested only in power and will say whatever it takes to win. A more deliberative kind of responsiveness to voters can therefore increase political legitimacy and trust.

The New York Times has praised Mamdani over his ‘rare talent for listening’.
Sarah Yenesel / EPA

Political scientists are likely to point out that Mamdani has an important strategic reason for his deliberative political style. New York City uses a system of ranked choice voting, or “the alternative vote”, which asks voters to rank candidates in order of their preference rather than choosing just one.

This encourages politicians to find policy proposals that are supported by large majorities, such as taxing millionaires to pay for free childcare, and to communicate respectfully with people of all political persuasions in the hope they might win their second-preference votes.

Larry Diamond, a leading American democracy expert, has called ranked choice voting the “Archimedean lever of change” for solving the deep polarisation currently affecting US politics. This is because it penalises candidates who rely on divisive rhetoric to appeal to a passionate base of supporters.

They are unlikely to win second-preference votes from people whose first preference is for one of their rivals. Conversely, ranked choice voting rewards politicians who try to bridge political divides with respectful and inclusive campaigning.

Depolarising US politics

There are many lessons that the political left in the US and beyond can learn from Mamdani’s victory. Most obviously, it shows that a socialist and pro-Palestine candidate can win in a major US electoral contest by combining a lively digital campaign with a strong focus on the cost of living.

It also suggests that candidates perceived as being radical are more likely to succeed in elections when they are visibly willing to listen to and deliberate with voters from all sorts of backgrounds.

Mamdani’s rise should also encourage a wider embrace of ranked choice voting. The system has been used to elect members of Australia’s House of Representatives for more than a century and it is now used in the US states of Maine and Alaska, as well as in the San Francisco Bay Area.

It should be adopted elsewhere too, as an antidote to political polarisation. The UK held a referendum on changing the electoral system to the alternative vote in 2011. However, UK voters unfortunately rejected the proposal.

Finally, Mamdani’s victory shows that radicalism and reflectiveness can come together, especially when the electoral system promotes it. Ranked choice voting is so good at encouraging a politics of respect and listening that it is sometimes accused of creating boring centrist candidates.

But Mamdani has reminded us that this does not have to be the case. Reforming US election systems could encourage deliberative responsiveness and depolarise American politics, without taking radical options off the menu. More

The Republicans have tried to blame Democrats for the shutdown. But in US politics, the president owns the economy, for better or worse. More

One year and a day after Donald Trump won a second term as president – and on the 35th day of the US government shutdown, which has tied a record for the longest in history – the Democrats swept to victory in key races across the county.

Democratic candidates won the governorships in the states of Virginia and New Jersey, while Zohran Mamdani became New York City’s next mayor.

The Democrats may have just become the winners of the fight to reopen the government, too.

New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill speaks during an election night party after her victory.
Matt Rourke/AAP

Trump’s ratings dropping sharply

Sixteen years ago, then-President Barack Obama was staggered by Republicans winning the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey in the 2009 elections.

The message was indelible: voters wanted to put a check on Obama and his wide-ranging agenda, from health care to global warming. Many Americans wanted him to cool his jets, including on what would become his signature achievement, Obamacare.

The following year, in the 2010 midterm elections, the Democrats lost more than 60 seats and their majority in the House. For the next six years, Republicans had a veto over whatever bills Obama wanted Congress to enact.

With Democrats now winning the governorships in those two states, Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have just been sent the same message: you need to be checked, too.

Going into Tuesday’s elections, Trump’s approval rating in one major poll was just above 40%, and his disapproval rating just under 60% – the highest it’s been since the January 6 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Independent voters, who swung Trump’s way in last year’s election, are now disapproving of his performance by a 69–30% margin.

Trump’s leadership of what he calls the “hottest country in the world” is falling short in voters’ eyes on a number of key issues: inflation, management of the economy, tariffs, crime, immigration, Ukraine and Gaza.

What’s at the heart of the continued stalemate?

The US government has also been shuttered since October 1. Government agencies have been closed to the public, and hundreds of thousands of government employees are going without paychecks, while thousands of others have been laid off.

Millions of Americans have been affected by flight delays or cancellations due to air traffic controller staffing issues. And food stamps to 42 million Americans have been suspended, with the Trump administration only relenting to provide partial payments in response to a court order.

Closing the government was not solely the doing of Trump and the Republicans in Congress. After nearly a year of laying prostrate and appearing pathetically ineffective in responding to Trump and his agenda, the Democrats finally got off the mat to fight back.

Of all the issues with Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” – which contained huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, huge spending cuts for Medicaid, huge increases in spending to control immigration, more funding for fossil fuels and an increase in the debt ceiling – Democrats seized on one glaring omission from the legislation.

At the end of this year, subsidies are due to expire that more than 24 million Americans rely on to purchase health insurance under Obamacare. As a result, millions are projected to lose their health care coverage.

That is the cross Democrats chose to die on. They’ve told the Trump administration: you want to keep the government open? Keep the insurance subsidies flowing. Fix it now.

US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gestures to a chart showing potential health insurance premium increases.
Will Oliver/EPA

Republicans in Congress have had no interest in caving to Democratic demands. They’ve argued Democrats must agree to reopen the government before discussing the subsidies. Their calculation: voters will turn on the Democrats for the turmoil caused by the shutdown.

Trump wanted nothing to do with any such negotiations either. Two days before the elections, he said he “won’t be extorted”.

But a recent poll shows 52% of Americans blame Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown, compared to 42% who blame Democrats.

The wins in Virginia and New Jersey drove this message home. Yes, the Democrats triggered the current shutdown. But the president owns the economy. For better or worse, Trump will own the economy going into next year’s midterm elections, too.

What happens next?

How can the Democrats get out of the shutdown box with a win? With the leverage they just gained in the elections. Republican stonewalling after these election defeats will hurt them even more.

There are two routes forward.

First, Democrats could reach an agreement with the Republicans on a fix to the health insurance issue, with a vote in Congress by Christmas to get the subsidies restored. A bipartisan compromise appears now to be in the works.

Second, if such an agreement cannot be reached, the Democrats can introduce a bill to restore the subsidies on their own, with an up-or-down vote in both the House and Senate. If this was voted down, the Democrats would then have a winning issue to take to the midterm elections next November. The voters would know who to blame – and who to reward.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has prevented the House from meeting for more than six weeks, but it has to come back in session to vote to reopen the government at some point.

Trump is also insisting the Senate change its rules to allow a simple majority to be able to reopen the government – without any compromises on health insurance subsidies. But this is not a viable political option after these election results.

Two other Democrats take centre stage

There were two other big Democratic winners on Tuesday. California voters approved a redistricting plan intended to partially offset Republicans’ gerrymandering of congressional electorates across the country for the midterm elections.

It was a high-risk strategy by California Governor Gavin Newsom, and it paid off handsomely: Newsom is now considered the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.

And Mamdani, a Muslim socialist, was elected the Democratic mayor of New York City. Trump will no doubt continue to rubbish him as a communist radical extremist and follow through on his threats to cut federal funding for the largest city in the US.

Mamdani’s victory also places him on the national stage, but not centre stage. The Sinatra doctrine from his hit song New York, New York — “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” — does not quite apply in this situation.

To take back Congress next year and the White House in 2028, the Democrats will need all kinds of flowers to bloom — not just Mamdani’s bouquet. In 2028, the party is going to have to shop in a bigger greenhouse. More

The former US vice-president is widely regarded as the driving force behind George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and the US War on Terror. More

Dick Cheney, one of the most important figures in America’s neo-conservative movement, has died at the age of 84. Cheney had a long career in government and was considered by many as one of the most powerful vice-presidents in US history.

Cheney started his career in politics in 1968 in the office of William Steiger, a Republican representative from Wisconsin, before joining the staff of Donald Rumsfeld, who was at the time the director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. By 1974, Cheney was brought on to the team of Gerald Ford, who had assumed the US presidency that year following the resignation of Richard Nixon. He followed Rumsfeld as Ford’s White House chief of staff in 1975, at the age of 34.

Cheney then went on to spend over a decade serving as a member of the House of Representatives. He represented a district in Wyoming until 1989 when he was appointed secretary of defense by the then-president, George H.W. Bush.

This experience would prove critical to Cheney’s subsequent selection as running mate by Bush’s son, George W. Bush, for his 2000 presidential campaign as the Republican candidate. Bush Jr. went on to win that election, and his partnership with Cheney would ultimately prove incredibly significant in reshaping US foreign policy in the Middle East.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the neo-conservative movement gained momentum in Washington and found an ally in Cheney. He was a founding signatory of the so-called Project for the New American Century, which became a major forum for neo-conservative thinking. The goal was to promote US interests – namely spreading democracy abroad – through a bold deployment of military power.

This interventionist foreign policy culminated in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Considered by some to be a shadow president, Cheney had a huge influence over Bush Jr. He reportedly played a major role in convincing Bush to go to war in Iraq.

Cheney expressed no regrets about this decision, calling critics of the war “spineless” in 2005. But a majority of Americans considered this decision to be a grave error.

The war is estimated to have cost the US well over US$1 trillion (£800 billion), and as much as US$3 trillion when taking the wider regional conflict it sparked into account. The war also led to the deaths of as many as 600,000 Iraqi civilians, according to an estimate published by the Lancet medical journal.

American soldiers on patrol in Taji, Iraq, in 2008.
Christopher Landis / Shutterstock

There were also questions about whether Cheney had a conflict of interest. He had previously served as the chief executive of Halliburton, a company that won billions of dollars in US military contracts to restore Iraq’s oil sector – this included some of the biggest military logistics contracts in history. Cheney was even accused of coordinating preferential awarding of contracts to the company, though he and Halliburton denied it.

He was also accused of circumventing due process, constitutional checks and congressional oversight during his time as vice-president. A prominent example of this was his involvement in a programme to intercept domestic communications without a judicial warrant.

Cheney was also widely disliked in the intelligence community. Many of these people resented the way he undermined the CIA by, for example, instructing subordinates in the agency to transmit raw intelligence directly to his office.

Change of heart?

Given that Cheney believed executive power needed to be expanded, there was a degree of irony in his decision to endorse the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential election. The winner of that election, Donald Trump, also favours an executive unencumbered by institutions.

But Cheney clearly had his limits. While Bush Jr. was reticent to publicly attack Trump, Cheney became one of his harshest critics. This was especially so after Liz Cheney, his daughter and a now former congresswoman, voted to impeach Trump after the insurrection of January 6 2021, which made her enemy number one in Trump’s eyes.

However, some critics claim that it was Cheney’s shadow presidency that paved the way for Trump’s aggressive expansion of the executive power of the presidency. Along the way, he wielded the power of the vice-presidency in a way not been seen before or, arguably, since.

Cheney was not just powerful but prone to operating clandestinely, even creating an independent operation inside the White House. All of this helped fuel mistrust of the government.

As Cheney advanced in age, his stances seemed to be softening from the Darth Vader image he had embraced as vice-president. More than half of the multi-million fortune that Cheney gained from selling his Halliburton stock options, for example, was donated to the Cardiac Institute at George Washington University.

Cheney, who survived five heart attacks and eventually a heart transplant, was seen a political survivor. But the Republican party that he had led in the shadows has been transformed. Once a towering figure in the conservative movement, today his brand of conservatism is a relic of the past. More

The United States government has been shut down for nearly a month, yet another indication that the political system has become deeply dysfunctional.

President Donald Trump has blamed the Democrats and called their negotiating strategy a “kamikaze attack.” Democrats are keen to stand their ground, hoping that the fallout is worse for Republicans. While each side casts blame on the other, it is Americans who suffer.

But the shutdown is just another episode in a series of polarization-fueled events that are leading Americans to lose faith in their government. Every nation has it limits, and one wonders how much America can take before the pressure to divide into separate countries becomes too great.

Consider the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which raised the specter of polarization-fueled conflict in America. Mentions of “civil war” surged online, fears grew over rising political violence, and the Trump administration vowed to crack down on left-leaning groups.

These are merely the latest examples of the mounting pressure on the American political system. A recent New York Times/Siena poll found that 64% of Americans think the country is too politically divided to solve the nation’s problems. The same poll showed that only 42% of Americans held that position in 2020.

In other words, nearly two-thirds of Americans think the system is broken, and the number is growing fast.

Calls for a national divorce

It should come as no surprise, then, that some are calling for radical solutions like a national divorce.

On Sept. 15, 2025, five days after Kirk’s killing, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that America needs “a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it’s no longer safe for any of us.”

National divorce is the term used to describe the splitting of America into two parts: a red America and a blue America. Secessionist movements like Yes California and Red-State Secession have for over a decade been calling for a national divorce along political lines. And a 2023 Axios poll found that as many as 20% of Americans see national divorce as a solution to political polarization.

As a political scientist who studies secessionist conflict, I’ve found that the national divorce argument is commonly used as an analogy with marital divorce. Just as two spouses may be extremely ill-suited for one another, and far better off if they separated, the same can be said of red and blue America. They no longer see eye to eye on a range of issues, from reproductive rights to the environment and gun control.

If they seceded from one another and formed their own countries, the argument goes, then they could establish policies that would ensure the future they wanted.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., called for a ‘peaceful national divorce’ in September 2025.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

But as I show in my new book, there is no way to disentangle red and blue America without tremendous violence. Additionally, a large and increasingly ignored percentage of Americans hold moderate views.

There is no doubt that polarization in America is a problem that is getting worse, but a national divorce is simply not the solution.

And yet America’s leaders continue to lead their country toward that outcome. The deployment of National Guard troops to blue cities, the polarization-enhancing consequences of competitive gerrymandering in states like Texas and California, and the spectacle of government shutdown are eroding the public trust. By continuing with policies that amplify polarization and erode the public trust, America’s leaders are fueling the calls for a national divorce.

How much can the country take?

The trend toward heightened polarization in America is not irreversible, but there are limits to how much the country can take before secession becomes a serious project. Some of the limits can be identified in advance.

First, it’s important that the country’s leaders take the pulse of America. If 20% of Americans favored national divorce in early 2023, what is the percentage now? That kind of sentiment can increase surprisingly fast.

Between 2006 and 2014, for example, Catalonian support for independence from Spain increased from 14% to 45%. If something like 50% of Americans concluded that America didn’t work and was better off broken up into smaller parts, then the country could tip rapidly into a secessionist crisis.

People hold up signs during a memorial for Charlie Kirk on Sept. 21, 2025, in Glendale, Ariz. After Kirk’s killing, Trump administration officials vowed to crack down on left-leaning groups.
AP Photo/John Locher

Second, high levels of secessionist support make the country vulnerable to trigger events that convince Americans that secession is the answer. The polarization-inspired assassination of prominent leaders can lead to a cycle of recrimination. Upcoming elections are also a concern. If they are closely contested and the losing side is unwilling to admit defeat, then the bedrock of democracy is broken. Both triggers can accelerate polarization and the turn to secessionism.

A third threshold moment is when a prominent leader decides to champion the cause of a national divorce.

Should someone like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or the sore loser of a 2028 election conclude that the system is rigged, and secession is the only solution, then the entire project gains legitimacy.

It was that kind of elite conversion to the secessionist cause that energized the movement in places like Scotland and Catalonia.

The U.S. is a robust country and the longest-running democracy in the world. Americans have more in common than they realize, and the country can be a positive force in the world.

But without decisive action by political leaders to reduce the polarization that threatens to tear the country apart, the United States is at risk of turning from one country into two. More

Donald Trump is clearly concerned about the midterm elections that loom next November, which look to be a referendum on his administration. All seats in the House of Representatives will be up for grabs as will one-third of the Senate. Losing control of the House would severely crimp the US president’s ability to govern the way he has for the first nine months of his second term.

Trump has already voiced some unease about the election. In a recent interview with the One America News (OAN) network he stated: “The one thing that I worry about is that… I don’t have the numbers, but the person that wins the presidency always seems to lose the midterms”.

There’s a clue to the president’s apprehension about the numbers from the 2024 general election results. Despite winning the popular vote in 2024, the Republican vote in the House fell by 0.2 percentage points, as a result the GOP (the Republicans) lost two seats, leaving them with a majority of only five seats.

Trump knows from bitter experience what could happen if he loses control of the House. The Democrats made a net gain of 40 seats at the 2018 midterms after which the House impeached Trump twice.

So the president and his Maga coalition are well aware of how important it is to retain control of Congress.

The president is already taking steps that could tilt the midterms in his favour. Shortly after being sworn in as president in January 2025, he rescinded Joe Biden’s executive order that aimed to expand voting access and voter registration.

In April Trump ordered the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the Democrats’ top fundraising platform ActBlue, after allegations it had allowed illegal campaign donations. The Democrats denounced the move as “Donald Trump’s latest front in his campaign to stamp out all political, electoral and ideological opposition”.

In August, Trump announced he wanted to ban mail-in-voting for the midterms. Three in every ten ballots cast in 2024 were mail-ins and are historically thought to favour the Democrats. But the US constitution mandates that the states control their elections. Congress has the power to pass legislation banning mail-ins for federal elections, but it is thought unlikely that such a measure would pass the Senate.

History has shown that the party occupying the White House usually performs poorly in the subsequent midterm elections. Three recent polls, Economist/YouGov, Morning Consult, and Emerson, show Democrats edging ahead in the generic congressional vote.

But precedent and political polling may count for little over the next year, as America’s democratic system is tested by extraordinary events and challenges.

Redistricting

There are already moves by mainly, though not exclusively, Republican controlled states to carve out additional congressional seats (referred to as redistricting) to bolster the party’s chances of retaining their majority in the House of Representatives. In three states – Texas, Missouri and North Carolina – Republican legislatures have redrawn constituency lines to the party’s electoral benefit, resulting in a notional seven new GOP-leaning congressional seats.

Changing electoral boundaries could affect the election result.
Alan Mazzocco/Shutterstock

After the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature voted through a new congressional map that may provide the party an additional seat in next year’s midterms, Trump posted on Truth Social that this provided the potential for “A HUGE VICTORY for our America First Agenda.”

Democrats have responded to these events by launching their own redistricting plans, with Virginia becoming the latest blue state to announce proposals to redraw electoral boundaries that could give the party two or three additional seats.

It is, however, the largest state in the union – California – which serves as the base for Democrats counterbalancing moves. California Governor Gavin Newsom is asking his state’s voters to decide on proposition 50. If passed this would authorise state lawmakers to create new electoral wards that could favour Democrats. Academic analysis has estimated that the move could provide up to five additional Democratic seats in Congress.

This action has been endorsed by former US president Barack Obama, who stated the Democrats strategy in California gives the national party a “chance… to create a level playing field” in next year’s elections.

Partisan gerrymandering is nothing new in US politics. But what is new, according to Benjamin Schneer, a Harvard-based expert in political representation, is the scale on which this is being done. He believes:

Gerrymandering can be done more effectively now because we have fine-grained data on the population and on how people are likely to vote, and computing techniques to design maps in clever ways. Put all that together with intense polarization and that creates a perfect storm where gerrymandering can flourish.

Voting rights

The 2026 midterms would also be affected in a seismic way by an impending Supreme Court decision relating to a central pillar of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). Section 2 of the act “prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, colour, or membership in one of the language minority groups”. The court is now weighing whether Section 2 is constitutional.

People vote in Louisiana: changes to voting rights laws could affect the outcome in 2026.
Allen J.M. Smith/Shutterstock

The case relates to a lawsuit in Louisiana where it was required under the VRA to redraw its congressional map to ensure two majority black districts. This is now being challenged in the Supreme Court. If successful it could weaken the voting power of minorities and result in congressional districts being redrawn throughout the American south.

This would be a major blow for the Democrats. Analysis by the BBC projects that this could “flip more than a dozen seats from Democratic to Republican”. Findings from the Economist go further, suggesting “Republicans could eliminate as many as 19 Democrat-held districts in the House of Representatives, or 9% of the party’s current caucus.”

The 2026 midterms will be hugely consequential. They will decide what party controls the US Congress for Trump’s last two years in office and therefore the extent of his power until January 2029. They will also serve as the unofficial start of the 2028 presidential campaign and determine whether it is the Republicans or Democrats with the political momentum heading into this historic election. More