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      What does Prop 50’s passage mean for California, Gavin Newsom and the US?

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      Californians overwhelmingly backed Proposition 50, the crucial redistricting measure that Democrats have said is essential to safeguarding democracy and pushing back against the Trump administration.“We stood firm in response to Donald Trump’s recklessness, and tonight, after poking the bear, this bear roared with unprecedented turnout in a special election with an extraordinary result,” Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday after the ballot measure passed.The effort was a direct attempt to counteract Texas’s partisan gerrymander, undertaken at Trump’s behest, to create several new safely Republican districts. Under Prop 50, California will halt the work of its independent redistricting commission until after 2030 and allow the legislature to redraw congressional districts to carve out five additional Democratic seats.The new map is expected to oust longtime Republican officials, and have significant effects on the 2026 midterms.How did the state vote?As of Wednesday morning, results showed that some 63.8% of voters approved the proposition with just 36.2% voting against the measure in what the Associated Press described as a “swift and decisive victory”. More than 8 million people voted in Tuesday’s election and the measure won the majority of votes along much of the coast and in southern California. It was largely unpopular in the northern and inland regions that will be most affected by redistricting.Who is at risk of losing their seat?These Republicans are at risk under California’s new congressional map: Darrell Issa, whose district covers east San Diego county; Doug LaMalfa, who has represented a large swath of rural northern California for more than a decade; Ken Calvert, a Riverside county representative who has served in the US House since 1993; David Valadao, who represents the southern San Joaquin valley; and Kevin Kiley, the representative for much of eastern California. Kiley introduced a bill to ban mid-decade redistricting nationwide, but his proposal did not advance.After the measure passed, Republicans in California sued over Prop 50, and asked the court to block the new maps from taking effect. An attorney representing the plaintiffs – which include Republican state lawmaker David Tangipa, 18 California voters and the state’s Republican party – said that Democrats drew congressional boundaries to increase the voting power of Latinos. The new congressional districts will leave racial representation almost unchanged, according to an analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California.How will Prop 50’s passage affect the midterms?The measure is expected to have a major effect on the outcome of the 2026 midterms. Past elections have shown that the president’s party typically loses ground in midterm elections, and Democrats argued Prop 50 will help ensure Republicans do not retain full control of the federal government.“The passage of this new map – which is designed to protect a slew of vulnerable Democrats and will cost Republicans three to five seats in 2026 – is the most consequential development to date in the mid-decade redistricting wars due to the sheer number of seats that it impacts,” Erin Covey, with the Cook Political Report, said in a statement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The outcome of these races in California could ultimately determine which party wins control of the House next November.”What does this mean for Gavin Newsom?The decisive victory of Prop 50 is a major win for the proposal’s biggest champion, Gavin Newsom. The California governor has been one of Trump’s most high-profile opponents and helped rally massive support for the proposal. Newsom is widely expected to seek the White House in 2028 and the win has further raised his profile nationally and elevated his status as a Democratic leader.Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic consultant who leads the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California, told the Guardian this week that Newsom had gambled on Prop 50 and it appeared it would pay off.“But more than that is the fact that he fought back – that he dared to do this, that people said it was dangerous for him, and he forged ahead with it anyway.” More

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      CNN’s All Access election night ‘watch party’ might not be the network’s future

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      CNN wanted to try something new on election night, and you can’t blame them.Cable news networks – well, besides Fox News – are struggling to retain viewers, even on a night where voters were getting their first real say on Donald Trump’s second presidency.More and more customers are cancelling their cable packages in favor of cheaper streaming services or free content on social media. So, the network recently launched a new streaming product of its own called CNN All Access – priced at $6.99 a month – that offers online access to a full menu of the network’s news and non-news content, along with a stream of CNN’s television product, something a previous incarnation lacked.On Tuesday, CNN All Access subscribers got exclusive access to an election night broadcast – the CNN Election Livecast – that the network’s data guy and host Harry Enten likened to a “watch party”. Previewing the event on CNN’s main channel, Enten said it would be “kind of like hanging out with your best friends who know the most about politics”.There’s no question that CNN’s cast on Tuesday night featured political experts, including commentators Ben Shapiro (the Daily Wire), Charlamagne tha God (the Breakfast Club), Ana Kasparian (the Young Turks) and the gen-Z conservative activist Isabel Brown, who also hosts a show for the Daily Wire. But the program often felt far from what was actually happening at the polls.Throughout the two-hour program, there were few updates on the results of the election. Those watching the streaming show rather than the main CNN broadcast, which featured the network’s standard election-night fare – anchors Jake Tapper and John King pointing to maps and getting live reports from campaign celebrations – were late to find out that the network had projected Zohran Mamdani as the winner of the New York City mayoral election. (Enten had to interrupt a discussion between Shapiro and Kasparian about the white nationalist Nick Fuentes to actually share the update.)CNN designed a set for the event that featured comfy couches, arcade games, a pop-a-shot basketball game and a foosball table. The idea was that the cast would actually have some fun, playing games while chatting politics and taking in the results. But everyone stayed glued to their seats – until the very end of the broadcast, when Enten made Shapiro play the basketball game. Neither had much success. “We have this lovely room here, and we haven’t actually utilized it at all,” Enten said. A large coffee table in the center of the room featured bowls of snacks that never seemed to get touched.Kara Swisher, who was beamed into the room for a few minutes, perhaps too honestly, described it as “the weirdest living room I’ve ever seen”.The panel also seemed to lack true ideological diversity, with the cast seeming to largely agree that Mamdani would struggle to actually govern – and all affirming that they viewed Joe Biden’s administration as a failure.About an hour in, Charlamagne tha God left the panel because, Enten said, he needed to get up early the next morning for his day job. He was replaced by Tezlyn Figaro, who has appeared on the Breakfast Club.As the event wound down, Enten struggled to actually end it because the panel was in the middle of a heated discussion about whether Mamdani was a “jihadist”.“That, I think, is a lovely way to end this evening,” Enten said, finding a stopping point. “I think it’s been an amazingly fun time – a different experience.”At that, in a nod to what matters most at CNN right now, Enten said he was off to spend a few hours analyzing election results on the television channel. More

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      London mayor sees parallels in Zohran Mamdani’s victory: ‘Hope won’

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      While the soon-to-be first Muslim mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, was in the final throes of his mayoral campaign on a brisk day in New York, Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim of mayor of London, was wrapping up a two-day climate summit in a steamy if overcast Rio de Janeiro.“Hope is not gone,” Khan told the 300 city mayors gathered in the Brazilian city’s museum of modern art.The London mayor was referring to the challenges faced by regional politicians in dealing with the climate emergency in the face of the scepticism or outright denial of the science by national governments – including that led by Donald Trump.But on hearing of Mamdani’s win, Khan suggested that this too had given him hope. London and its mayor have been repeatedly raised by figures such as Trump’s former chief of staff Steve Bannon as the disastrous outcome that New Yorkers had to avoid.“In recent years, there’s been a growing chorus of commentators and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic attacking London and New York for their liberal values,” Khan told the Guardian. “They paint a picture of a lawless dystopia in an attempt to sow fear and division. But ask most Londoners or New Yorkers, and you’ll find that this narrative falls on deaf ears.“Many of the challenges our cities face are similar, but they are not identical. But we are united by something far more fundamental: our belief in the power of politics to change people’s lives for the better.”He later tweeted: “New Yorkers faced a clear choice – between hope and fear – and just like we’ve seen in London – hope won.”Khan, 55, the London-born son of Amanullah and Sehrun Khan, a bus driver and seamstress respectively, who arrived in Britain from Pakistan in 1968, achieved a historic third term as mayor on the Labour ticket in May last year.Mamdani, the son of a Ugandan academic, Mahmood Mamdani, a specialist in colonial and post-colonial history, and Mira Nair, the acclaimed film-maker, made his own history on Tuesday as a Democrat picking up nearly 200,000 more votes in New York than his nearest rival, the former state governor Andrew Cuomo.“It’s never been more crucial for our cities to challenge those who weaponise our diversity and instead stand firm in the belief that no matter who you are, or where your family is originally from, you can achieve anything,” said Khan. “In our cities, hope and unity will always triumph over fear and division.”There are obvious, albeit superficial, similarities between the two men.For all that Mamdami, 34, has been characterised as a diehard socialist, his policy platform bears a distinct resemblance to that of Khan, who would describe himself as of the “soft left” on the British political spectrum – a flavour of progressive politics that is less enamoured of the munificence of market forces than politicians such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, but more sceptical about handing over the running of the economy to the state than the likes of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.They have both proposed types of rent controls. Mamdani wants a $30 (£23) an hour minimum wage in the city, while Khan has long supported a voluntary London living wage, which at £14.80 ($19.30) per hour is more than £2 beyond the UK’s statutory minimum.Mamdani has proposed to impose a 2% levy on earnings above $1m year (affecting about 34,000 households), but that will involve negotiating with the New York state legislature and with Governor Kathy Hochul, who has said she opposes new income taxes. Khan does not have the powers to raise taxes, but he has sought such cash-raising powers to fund major transport projects.Making their cities affordable has also been central to both men’s policy prospectus: Mamdani proposed free bus transit while Khan has frozen fares for years. Both men have been outspoken on Gaza, condemning Hamas’s October 7 attacks but describing Israel’s war as genocidal. Khan was ahead of his party leader, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, in calling for the UK to recognise a Palestinian state.The context, though, is quite different. Mamdani terrifies and excites his party in equal measure, observers say. Unlike Khan, whose 2024 campaign mantra was a “London for everyone”, the New Yorker’s rhetoric draws up dividing lines, and is seen by some as making a bogey figure of the “billionaire”.Khan has been involved in Labour politics for over 30 years and is well-attuned to building electoral coalitions. Asked about warnings that the wealthy would leave New York if Mamdani won, he responded by inviting them to the UK.“If that is the case, come to London,” he said. “I am going to roll out a red carpet and welcome you.”Brett Bruen, a former US diplomat in the Obama administration, said that the major issue is that at 34 years of age, there is very little to go on when judging how Mamdani will actually govern.He said: “He’s certainly managed to stand out as a leader made for this moment, but that comes, obviously, with quite a lot of scrutiny. Some of it, I think, is warranted in questions about his résumé and whether or not he’s got like the requisite experience to lead this huge city.“It’s fair to say that he is on the outer extremities of the political spectrum, even in New York. And you know, we have seen, in the case of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some others, that while they’ve done well in certain segments, they also become popular targets for Trump and the Republicans.“Those of us who are more in the centre of the party, face a problematic predicament. How do we talk about a party that can appeal to independents, that can even appeal to moderate Republicans, when some of our most vocal and visible voices are those that are out so far on the left?”If the two men differ in terms of experience, rhetoric and level of internal support within their respective parties, there are certainly parallels in the dog-whistle – and worse – politics that their candidatures provoked among their opponents.When Khan first stood for mayor in 2016, his Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith was accused of pursuing arguably the dirtiest campaign in British politics.Tamils, Hindus and Sikhs were sent letters warning that their jewellery was unsafe, because Khan planned to introduce a wealth tax.The Conservative then cabinet minister Michael Gove suggested that Khan would implement sharia law if elected.The campaign culminated in an article by Goldsmith in the Mail on Sunday accompanied by a photograph of a London bus blown up during the 7/7 terror attacks and a headline suggesting that a vote for Khan would put the city into the hands of a party that “thinks terrorists are its friends”.Trump, meanwhile, has described Khan as a “terrible, terrible mayor”, and falsely claimed that London was facing “sharia law”.Mamdani faced similar slurs. “God forbid, another 9/11, can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?” asked Cuomo at one stage to the conservative radio talkshow host Sid Rosenberg.“He’d be cheering,” Rosenberg replied. Cuomo, who had previously referred to Mamdani as “a terrorist sympathiser”, laughed, adding: “That’s another problem.”“Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.Michelle Lujan Grisham, the Democratic governor of New Mexico, said that what united Khan and Mamdani was that they offered a positive vision of the future.“I think that is incredibly attractive to voters,” she said. “They want new ideas. They want innovation. They want optimism. They don’t want somebody who’s dark and negative and angry.“Mamdani is the opposite of dark, angry, moody and he’s very optimistic. So I think that’s the future of the Democratic party, identifying this enthusiasm and optimism for the future.”Leah Kreitzman, who was Khan’s director of external and international affairs until 2021, said that there was a clear parallel between the two men that explained much of the vicious backlash they endured.“The reason why [Sadiq] gets attacked, both by the far right and by Islamist extremists is that the very fact of him and his success means that they’re wrong,” she said.“He completely defies their ideology and worldview: that he can be a Londoner, a Brit, a Muslim, from immigrant parents, liberal in his politics, but religious in his beliefs. If that’s all true and it’s successful and popular, they’re wrong.“[Khan and Mamdani] are quite important people in that sense, because they’re living embodiments of the fact that you can be all of those things.”The two men, who have only spoken once after Mamdani won the Democrat ticket for the mayoral election, have clearly also recognised that there is electoral mileage in having a clear positive vision but also in being the anti-Trump candidate.Khan told the Guardian: “What do nativist populist leaders hate? They hate liberal democracies. They hate progressives. They hate multicultural society. And in London, we have all that, and it’s really successful. So you know, having a really successful liberal, progressive, multicultural city led by a mayor elected not once, not twice, three times who’s of Islamic faith and Pakistani origin must be a real sore to him, a running sore, but that’s his problem not mine.”On winning in New York, Mamdani, with typical swagger addressed the US president: “Donald Trump, since I know you‘re watching, I have four words for you – turn the volume up.” More

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      The Guardian view on Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York: the Democrats can build on an uplifting night | Editorial

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      Since the re-election of Donald Trump last November, a demoralised Democratic party has struggled to reverse a palpable sense of downward momentum. At a grassroots level, amid plunging poll ratings, there has been a yearning for renewal and a more punchy, combative approach in opposition. Against that bleak backdrop, the remarkable election of Zohran Mamdani to the New York City mayoralty is a moment for progressives to savour.Mr Mamdani entered the mayoral race last October as a socialist outsider with almost zero name recognition. He won it with more than 50% of the vote after the highest turnout in more than half a century, and despite the best efforts of billionaires to bankroll his chief rival, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, to victory. That achievement makes him the youngest mayor of the US’s largest city for more than 100 years and the first Muslim to occupy the role.New York is a traditional Democratic stronghold and is in no sense a national bellwether. Nevertheless, faced with a Maga movement that has based its success on the support of working-class voters, the Democratic party can learn much from Mr Mamdani’s extraordinary triumph. Leaving culture-war politics to his increasingly desperate opponents, he campaigned relentlessly and almost exclusively on the theme of affordability.Charges of ideological extremism failed to stick because pledges of free childcare, free buses and a rent freeze spoke to an essentially social democratic message, offering public solutions to years of rising inequality. That vision persuaded a vast army of 100,000 volunteer canvassers to knock on millions of doors, more than offsetting Mr Cuomo’s far greater financial resources. The central insight was that values-driven opposition to Maga populism can succeed when supplemented by a positive offer to voters whose living standards have been steadily eroded.On an uplifting night for Democrats, a similar pattern was seen in New Jersey and Virginia, where more centrist-leaning candidates won gubernatorial races by impressive margins. Cost-of-living pledges were again to the fore, including a proposed freeze on electricity prices and a focus on housing costs. California offered further grounds for a cautious rebirth of optimism; after Republican gerrymandering of congressional boundaries in Texas, voters backed countermeasures to redress the balance ahead of next year’s midterm elections.As the Democratic party journeys through the wilderness of a second Trump term, it would be fanciful to believe that a corner has been definitively turned. For New York’s mayor-elect, the hard yards are yet to begin. Mr Trump has already threatened to withhold federal funds from an administration he will do his utmost to discredit, undermine and disrupt. More broadly, the reluctance of senior Democratic figures to endorse Mr Mamdani’s campaign confirms that internal divisions over strategy are a long way from being resolved.However, it would be churlish to ignore green shoots of political recovery when they appear. As Mr Trump’s popularity sinks amid ongoing cost-of-living concerns and high inflation, the hollowness of Maga pledges to improve blue-collar living standards is a major zone of vulnerability. An emerging focus on affordability anchors Democrats in the preoccupations of their lost voters, as well as those who have remained loyal. By campaigning on that basis with elan and conviction, Mr Mamdani has blazed an inspiring trail. More

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      How Zohran Mamdani’s ‘talent for listening’ spurred him to victory in the New York mayoral election

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      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

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      The Zohran Mamdani method can work beyond New York. Take the fight to the right | Aditya Chakrabortty

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      Zohran Mamdani was forged in the era of Donald Trump. He came to socialism through watching Bernie Sanders run for the US presidency in 2016, in the contest that ultimately gave us Trump I. Last November, a few days after the election of Trump II, he asked voters why they’d backed that guy. The conversations prepared Mamdani in his battle for New York, and the film of them reveals so much about the politics of this era that it repays watching.Those of us schooled in the tactics of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair might roll our eyes at yet another “listening exercise”, starring a powerbroker and his retinue in some beautifully lit hall, but this is no such thing. Here stands an unknown on a street corner in the Bronx, waving a placard as doughtily as a Seventh-Day Adventist. Rather than read off a Rolodex of platitudes, this politician sees his public – some of whom look a little like him, yet whose faces and bodies are etched with the strains of the city. Never having spoken to power, even a lowly state assemblyman such as Mamdani, they talk of lives made smaller and shorter in an economy where the daily basics are too costly. Politics has failed them, so they consider politicians to be failures.Such frustrations propelled Trump into the White House. This week they made Mamdani mayor of the US’s largest city. Analysts have often put the two side by side, only to utter banalities about how they are both good on TikTok or – that giveaway from pundits striving to earn their keep – “populist”. Yet the comparison carries far higher stakes.Both New Yorkers, they embody opposite sides of the metropolis: Manhattan versus its suburbs ; towers versus the streets. They also represent alternative paths for the US. Trump leads his country towards ethnonationalism and Darwinian economics; Mamdani stands for immigrants and a city affordable for all. Crucially, he understands the urban working class is not just white, but often black and brown. It is only through an understanding of the grave dangers posed by Trump that you can glean the hopes vested in Mamdani.A few examples: in September, Trump’s guards grabbed Korean engineers, who had their papers in order, from a Hyundai factory to force them out of the country and thousands of miles away. Last month, ICE agents abducted a British journalist travelling the US on a valid visa for criticising the brutalities committed by Israel. Last week, only hours before 42 million low-income Americans lost their access to food aid, the president hosted a Great Gatsby-themed bash, featuring a scantily clad woman in a giant martini glass. The fete was titled: “A little party never killed nobody.”Such guffawing, lethal thuggishness is why other cities are so enlivened by a contest of otherwise glancing importance to their own lives. Even in a globalised social media, the question of who heads five boroughs on the eastern seaboard of the US does not usually command transnational significance. In the country, the centre of financial power is shifting from east coast to west, from Atlantic to Pacific, Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Nor does the new boy’s crowd appeal derive solely from his youth and charm, or even his recognition of the enduring greatness of the Wu-Tang Clan – although none of those hurt.Still, the chief reason Mamdani has aroused such keen interest is because he is the first leftwinger to show that politicians can not only face down Trumpism, they can beat him. That is the defining task of our era, as New York’s new mayor knows. Amid the thank-yous of last night’s victory speech, he declared: “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”Over the past year of Trump II, the finest talents on the centre-left have been stumped how to respond. Obama? Almost nothing. Kamala Harris? Writing her memoirs, of course. The fiercest hostility to Mamdani has come from those supposed to be on his side. After losing in the primary, serial sex pest Andrew Cuomo ran as an independent – and campaigned as Trump’s pick in this week’s contest. The man who is today the first Muslim to lead New York has faced constant innuendo that he is a terrorist sympathiser.Across Europe, the prefects of social democracy have kowtowed to the US’s extremist-in-chief. Keir Starmer treated him to an unprecedented second state visit, while Nato chief Mark Rutte has called him “daddy”. Five years ago, US media moguls took the knee to show off their commitment to diversity; now they bend the knee to a racist loudmouth. Columnists and podcasters talk utter sausage about a “vibe shift” in US politics, even while two days of mass rallies against Trumpism drew something like 12 million people.The centre-left should be taking on the extreme right and acting as the anti-Trump. Instead, as Fintan O’Toole writes in the latest New York Review of Books, it is playing at being not-Trump. Or: not-Farage, not-Weidel, not-Le Pen. In the UK, Starmer’s pitch is basically: we’ll adopt the language and the flags, but deploy them with greater civility. As a response to this moment, it is morally contemptible and politically myopic.In his fine new book The Great Global Transformation, the former World Bank economist Branko Milanovic describes how our political and economic order is now coming to an end. China and the global south now account for more of the world economy than the US, Japan, Europe and the many others put together that he terms the “capitalist core”; at the same time, capitalism is being redefined. The elites who prospered under the regimes shaped by Reagan and Thatcher are now redefining their nations into narrower, meaner, harsher societies, ditching the old commitments to multiculturalism and equality for women. They are forcing upon the rest of us capitalism without secure contracts, unions or even the HR department.Hold Milanovic’s lens over Trump and what do you see? Not an all-powerful emperor, nor some scheming bureaucrat like Putin – but the US’s Yeltsin. He is the buffoon presiding over his country’s decline in influence and importance, while behind him in the shadows the oligarchs carve up the spoils. And if democracy proves too troublesome, why, they’ll buy it. One of the biggest players in the New York elections was hedge-fund guy Bill Ackman, who offered to bankroll anyone who could bring down Mamdani.In the 90s and 00s, the centre-left’s response to Reagan and Thatcher was Clinton, Blair and the third way. They compromised with the new money and triangulated their electoral bases – and they held power, for a while.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut this is a new era: you can’t reach an accommodation with an ICE agent when he’s kneeling on your neck. Climate chaos does not come with a moderate option. An oligarch is not interested in your pitiful attempts to strike a deal. To see the logical endpoint of the new left’s embrace of money, look no further than Peter Mandelson. Famous for being “intensely relaxed” about people getting filthy rich, he became especially relaxed in the company of the filthy rich, such as money man and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein – and is now discovering anew the meaning of “disgraced”.The old foxholes and get-out clauses, abstractions and moist eyes, won’t work for the left now. Voters don’t talk about inequality; they worry about paying the bills and getting by. The young aren’t mollified by talk of “suffering” in Gaza; they want it stopped. And bang opposite, the right are bending politics and economics to their will.You can see the past year between Trump’s election and Mamdani’s as real-time dialectic. Thesis, antithesis; right hook, southpaw. It is foolish to pretend that there is any equivalence of power between the White House and Gracie Mansion, but at least the left is still in the fight.

      Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Mamdani refused to compromise on his values – and was rewarded for it | Moustafa Bayoumi

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      The people of New York have spoken. Despite all the odds, a 34-year-old Muslim Democratic socialist has been elected to lead the largest city in the United States. Zohran Mamdani’s win is a huge victory for all New Yorkers, but it is also meaningful far beyond the five boroughs of this city.Just as amazing was that this election wasn’t even close. Mamdani’s main opponent, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, ran a campaign that was as devoid of imagination as it was of hope and even personality. Having dramatically lost the democratic primary this past summer, Cuomo was forced to run as an independent, an almost comical political affiliation for a man whose campaign was utterly dependent on donations from the billionaire class.Mamdani’s run was completely different. Funded overwhelmingly by donations under $100 and fueled substantially more by human capital than greenbacks – over 100,000 people volunteered for the campaign – Mamdani’s campaign mobilized a level of civic participation in local politics that I have never witnessed in the more than three decades I’ve lived in this city.The chattering classes of American media mostly ignored this hard and dedicated work by largely faceless volunteers, wanting instead to focus on all the wrong reasons for his win. He’s charismatic and good looking, they said (though Trump, of course, believes he is better looking). He’s winning because he’s good at social media. He’s successful because his supporters are lonely people.If only it were that easy. The real reason Mamdani has won is that he is the candidate who best understood what the people of New York want and need at this moment. He took the debilitating amount of economic anxiety that so many Americans are suffering through right now and turned it into a message of economic justice, believing that we all should be able to afford to live in the city we call home. He took the political anxiety that so many of us feel right now, as authoritarianism emanates from Washington DC, and turned it into New York pride for its legendary rambunctious spirit. (“To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” he said during his victory speech.”)He refused to compromise on the rights of the Palestinian people to live in dignity. The last one is particularly significant. The old guard has long believed that expressions for Palestinian rights were equivalent to an electoral kiss of death. For the last year, they have predicted his downfall for this reason alone almost daily. Now, he has proved every single one of them wrong.From the beginning of Mamdani’s rise in this election, it was clear that none of the old political logic was working. Regardless, his opponents continued to believe that his defeat must be premised on their own appeals to the vilest racism. Queens Republican Vickie Paladino, a New York City council member, demanded Mamdani be deported, and she questioned if he had been a citizen long enough to be elected mayor. During a radio interview, Cuomo laughed when the host claimed that Mamdani would “be cheering” another 9/11. “That’s another problem,” the former governor responded. Then, the day before the election, a political action committee supporting Cuomo ran a disgusting ad with Mamdani in front of video of the twin towers crashing down on 9/11.The real lesson of the election, however, is that this noxious racism didn’t work. “No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election,” Mamdani said in his victory speech.That doesn’t mean that Islamophobia has been summarily defeated, any more than it means that economic injustice has been ultimately vanquished. Years from now, this electoral victory will be seen as the easy part. The real work, as we all know, lies ahead.But what’s unique about this victory is that the Mamdani campaign has mobilized so many people locally to fight the good fight. The possibilities are as necessary as they are exciting. The election, both in its campaign and its results, have shown that the citizens of New York City are ready to actively forge a better future for all and together as one. The future is local.It’s no surprise that the Mamdani campaign has resonated so loudly across the world. In a time when rightwing authoritarianism is rising dangerously and globally, Mamdani’s win is an object lesson in how left, local, and participatory politics can win. During his victory speech, the now incoming mayor expressed the kernel of this truth, and he did so in Arabic, the first time I can remember hearing this routinely vilified language in a politician’s acceptance speech in the United States.To me, this is not just a simplistic politics of recognition. On the contrary. What Mamdani said points to how this message will travel from New York to Marseille to Berlin and beyond. It may be the key to our survival at this moment, and we should all listen to it carefully. “Ana minkum wa ilaikum,” he said, which means: “I am of you and for you.”Now, we hold him to those words, and we hold ourselves to them as well.

      Moustafa Bayoumi is Guardian US coolumnist More

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      in US Politics

      Democratic election wins send Trump – and Republicans – a message: Americans blame them for government shutdown

      by

      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