US Politics

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

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

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

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

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

It’s been a busy night! Here’s a debrief of all the key moments to get you up to speed:

Zohran Mamdani is the mayor-elect of New York City with a decisive victory over former governor Andrew Cuomo. With more than 97% of the votes counted, Mamdani received more votes – at least 1.03 million – than all the other candidates combined, including Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

California passed Proposition 50, the measure that will temporarily redistrict the state in hopes of countering Republican efforts to do the same in Texas. The new maps could help Democrats pick up five additional seats in the US House of Representatives.

It was a good night for Democrats, with Abigail Spanberger winning the Virginia governor’s race and Mikie Sherrill winning the governorship in New Jersey.

President Donald Trump took to his favored platform, Truth Social, to distance himself from the losses. He also urged Republicans to pass voter reform and terminate the filibuster. As Mamdani was speaking, Trump posted a cryptic final missive of the night: “AND SO IT BEGINS!”.

Mamdani directly addressed Trump in his victory speech in Brooklyn, vowing to use his role in city hall to counter his politics of division. The newly minted mayor said: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”
Zohran Mamdani supporters said they were “elated” and “hopeful” after the Democratic candidate was elected as the new mayor of New York City.Mamdani’s socialist campaign promising to freeze rent and make buses free seduced New Yorkers who voted for him en masse, securing victory for him with more than 50% of the vote. He will be inaugurated as the 111th mayor of the city in January.You can see New Yorkers reacting to Mamdani’s victory in this video:Today’s First Edition newsletter focuses on Zohran Mamdani being declared the winner of the New York City mayoral election with more than 50% of the vote on the biggest turnout since the 1960s. You can read Archie Bland’s summary here:Below is a snippet from the newsletter:What does his victory mean for New York?While Mamdani has been portrayed as an extremist, much of his policy platform is fairly middle-of-the-road social democratic stuff: he wants to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour, increase taxes on the highest earners, make bus transit free, offer universal childcare and increase affordable housing provision.His boldest proposals are probably a rent freeze for two million people living in housing where rent stabilisation laws barring excessive rises are already in place, and a plan to establish city-owned grocery stores with price controls.The question now is how much of that platform he can put into practice. This Vital City piece has a useful guide to which policies he can enact on his own, and which would require cooperation from other stakeholders. And this New York Times piece sets out the costs, noting his plan to raise about $10bn in additional revenue each year.Across the borough, in what has been affectionately called by pollster Michael Lange “the commie corridor” – so called because Zohran Mamdani pulled autocrat numbers there in the primary – the line for a dance club on the edge of Bushwick and Ridgewood was equally lively.Hundreds queued up on the sidewalk outside Nowadays for another Democratic Socialists of America watch party, cheering and holding signs, and, in the case of one woman, a cardboard cutout of Mamdani. Those who made it in wore various unofficial merch – Hot Girls for Zohran, Bisexuals for Zohran, at least one pair of hot pants with “Zohran” blazed on the butt – and bummed cigarettes or sipped mixed drinks as they waited for the race to be called. They were confident, if slightly scarred from past election upsets. “He’s good. We’re all just traumatized from 2016,” a man in a black beret said to no one in particular.The crowd was a genuine mix: Black, white, brown, young folks and old folks, party gays, butch lesbians, bridge-and-tunnel kids who couldn’t even vote in the election but felt its reverberations nonetheless. Amber Pease, 25, lives in Nassau county in Long Island. Her inability to cast a vote didn’t stop her from traveling in to volunteer for Zohran’s campaign. She wants to get a job and move into the city soon. “I’ve been waiting to see a good progressive candidate, and to have one so close to home, it gives me a lot of hope.”When the election was called for Mamdani, the cheers could be heard inside and on the street, and someone started a “DSA! DSA!” chant (not to be mistaken with a “USA! USA!” chant). Soon a representative for the DSA named Kareem took the stage. He referenced Mamdani’s meteoric rise. “This didn’t just start last year,” he said. “This is the culmination of years of work.” He spoke of the progressive New Yorkers who campaigned against the Iraq war, and the Occupy Wall Street movement, and those who stumped for Bernie Sanders. He also noted how Andrew Cuomo’s campaign trafficked a message of fear, with Mamdani’s “antidote” being solidarity. At Nowadays, the victory felt communal.Inside an election watch party hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene, under the din of pet-nat wines being cracked open, there was a sense of nervous anticipation. “I’m not sure if this is an accurate recreation of Solomon’s Temple,” said one supporter in a Zohran Mamdani T-shirt. “This is like a who’s who of everyone I’ve slept with,” said another.The suspense didn’t last long. Just after 9.30pm, someone jumped on the mic to announce that news outlets had called it: a record number of New Yorkers had cast ballots in this electric – and often ugly – race between Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, ultimately choosing the 34-year-old democratic socialist of seemingly boundless energy who had shocked party establishment in the primary by winning on a clear-eyed affordability agenda. The DJ immediately started playing I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas. And, indeed, tonight was a good, good night for those in the room, who erupted in tears, hugs and twerking.Mamdani will be the first Muslim mayor of New York and its youngest in over a century – but not its first immigrant mayor, nor its first mayor to champion socialist ideals. New Yorkers celebrated his monumental election at official and unofficial parties spread across the five boroughs.“I’ve been a DSA member for over 10 years,” said 40-year-old health department worker Will, at the Fort Greene party. “This just shows that our politics are not radical, that New Yorkers actually think what we believe is sensible, and maybe the rest of the country is ready for sensible, commonsense, Democratic socialism.”As the dancefloor was in full swing (even as the house lights remained dangerously bright), Ellie, a 28-year-old bartender from Bed-Stuy, felt “absolutely ecstatic”. “This is the first time we’ve had hope in so long. I can’t remember a – ”She cut herself short to scream along to the chorus of Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone.These are the people who fought for Mamdani when he was polling at 1%, who celebrated his socialist principles when others said they disqualified him. As his speech played, there was a sense not just of political hope but a project come to fruition, the work of a lifetime building to a moment that might change the city – and all soundtracked to the 90s Eurodance anthem Freed from Desire.Democrats have racked up election wins across the US, but they would do well not to misread the results, writes the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith. You can read his full analysis here:In case you’re coming our US elections blog now, here are some graphics recapping the New York mayoral election results:Donald Trump’s approach to this government shutdown stands in marked contrast to his first term, when the government was partially closed for 35 days over his demands for funds to build the US-Mexico border wall. At that time, he met publicly and negotiated with congressional leaders, but unable to secure the funds, he relented in 2019. As the Associated Press (AP) reports, this time, it is not just Trump declining to engage in talks. The congressional leaders are at a standoff and House speaker Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home in September after they approved their own funding bill, refusing further negotiations.In the meantime, food aid, childcare funds and countless other government services are being seriously interrupted and hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or expected to come to work without pay.Transportation secretary Sean Duffy predicted there could be chaos in the skies next week if air traffic controllers miss another paycheck, reports the AP. Labor unions put pressure on lawmakers to reopen the government.Senate majority leader John Thune said this has been not only the longest shutdown but also “the most severe shutdown on record.”The Republican leader has urged the Democrats to accept his overtures to vote on the health care issue and keep negotiating a solution once the government reopens, arguing that no one wins politically from the standoff. “Shutdowns are stupid,” Thune said.You can view Zohran Mamdani’s historic triumph in New York City’s mayoral election in pictures via the gallery below:The Associated Press has a brief explainer on the election in the 18th congressional district:Confusion has lingered over the election in the 18th congressional district, where many residents will vote in a different district next year under a redrawn map demanded by Donald Trump in an effort to increase the number of GOP seats, reports the AP. Republicans currently hold a seven-seat majority in the House, 219-212, with four vacancies, including the Houston seat. Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva won a special election in September in a heavily Democratic district along the Mexico border, but she has not been sworn in yet. A narrower majority gives Republican leaders less room to maneuver.The current 18th district is solidly Democratic and spirals from northeast Houston through downtown, back up to northwest Houston and east again, until its two ends come close to forming a doughnut. Non-Hispanic whites make up about 23% of its voting-age citizens, though no single group has a majority. The redrawn 18th stretches from suburbs southwest of Houston diagonally through the city and past its northeast limits. A little more than 50% of voting-age citizens are Black, which critics say is not a big enough majority for them to determine who gets elected, reports the AP.Democrats Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards advanced to a runoff on Tuesday night in a special election for a US House seat that has been vacant since March and will narrow the GOP’s slim majority once a winner is sworn in, reports the Associated Press (AP). Menefee, who serves as Harris County attorney, and Edwards, a former Houston city council member, received the most votes in a crowded field of 16 candidates. Neither received more than 50% of the vote, sending the race to a runoff that is expected early next year.The winner is to serve out the remaining term of Democratic rep Sylvester Turner, who died two months after taking office representing the deep-blue 18th congressional district.After Turner’s death, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott defended not holding a special election until November by arguing that Houston election officials needed time to prepare. Democrats criticized the long wait and accused Abbott of trying to give his party’s House majority more cushion. Menefee said his message for President Donald Trump and his allies is, “We’ve got one more election left, and then you’re going to have to see me”. Menefee said:
For months, as this seat sat vacant, I heard from voters who were ready for someone willing to take on Donald Trump and the far right – not just talk about change, but deliver real results.
“It’s not enough to me just for us to fight back against the attacks waged by our president,” Edwards said, speaking to supporters after polls closed. “We must do that and forge a path for our future.”Menefee ousted an incumbent in 2020 to become Harris County’s first Black county attorney, representing it in civil cases, and he has joined legal challenges of Trump’s executive orders on immigration. He was endorsed by several prominent Texas Democrats including former congressman Beto O’Rourke and rep Jasmine Crockett.Edwards served four years on the council starting in 2016. She ran for US Senate in 2020 but finished fifth in a 12-person primary. She unsuccessfully challenged US rep Sheila Jackson Lee in the 2024 primary, and when Lee died that July, local Democrats narrowly nominated Turner over Edwards as Lee’s replacement. More

Inside an election watch party hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene, under the din of pet-nat wines being cracked open, there was a sense of nervous anticipation. “I’m not sure if this is an accurate recreation of Solomon’s Temple,” said one supporter in a Zohran Mamdani T-shirt. “This is like a who’s who of everyone I’ve slept with,” said another.The suspense didn’t last long. Just after 9.30pm, someone jumped on the mic to announce that news outlets had called it: a record number of New Yorkers had cast ballots in this electric – and often ugly – race between Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, ultimately choosing the 34-year-old democratic socialist of seemingly boundless energy who had shocked party establishment in the primary by winning on a clear-eyed affordability agenda. The DJ immediately started playing I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas. And, indeed, tonight was a good, good night for those in the room, who erupted in tears, hugs and twerking.Mamdani will be the first Muslim mayor of New York and its youngest in over a century – but not its first immigrant mayor, nor its first mayor to champion socialist ideals. New Yorkers celebrated his monumental election at official and unofficial parties spread across the five boroughs.“I’ve been a DSA member for over 10 years,” said 40-year-old health department worker Will, at the Fort Greene party. “This just shows that our politics are not radical, that New Yorkers actually think what we believe is sensible, and maybe the rest of the country is ready for sensible, commonsense, Democratic socialism.”As the dancefloor was in full swing (even as the house lights remained dangerously bright), Ellie, a 28-year-old bartender from Bed-Stuy, felt “absolutely ecstatic”. “This is the first time we’ve had hope in so long. I can’t remember a – ”She cut herself short to scream along to the chorus of Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone.These are the people who fought for Mamdani when he was polling at 1%, who celebrated his socialist principles when others said they disqualified him. As his speech played, there was a sense not just of political hope but a project come to fruition, the work of a lifetime building to a moment that might change the city – and all soundtracked to the 90s Eurodance anthem Freed from Desire.Across the borough, in what has been affectionately called by pollster Michael Lange “the commie corridor” – so called because Mamdani pulled autocrat numbers there in the primary – the line for a dance club on the edge of Bushwick and Ridgewood was equally lively.Hundreds queued up on the sidewalk outside Nowadays for another DSA watch party, cheering and holding signs, and, in the case of one woman, a cardboard cutout of Mamdani. Those who made it in wore various unofficial merch – Hot Girls for Zohran, Bisexuals for Zohran, at least one pair of hot pants with “Zohran” blazed on the butt – and bummed cigarettes or sipped mixed drinks as they waited for the race to be called. They were confident, if slightly scarred from past election upsets. “He’s good. We’re all just traumatized from 2016,” a man in a black beret said to no one in particular.The crowd was a genuine mix: Black, white, brown, young folks and old folks, party gays, butch lesbians, bridge-and-tunnel kids who couldn’t even vote in the election but felt its reverberations nonetheless. Amber Pease, 25, lives in Nassau county in Long Island. Her inability to cast a vote didn’t stop her from traveling in to volunteer for Zohran’s campaign. She wants to get a job and move into the city soon. “I’ve been waiting to see a good progressive candidate, and to have one so close to home, it gives me a lot of hope.”View image in fullscreenWhen the election was called for Mamdani, the cheers could be heard inside and on the street, and someone started a “DSA! DSA!” chant (not to be mistaken with a “USA! USA!” chant). Soon a representative for the DSA named Kareem took the stage. He referenced Mamdani’s meteoric rise. “This didn’t just start last year,” he said. “This is the culmination of years of work.” He spoke of the progressive New Yorkers who campaigned against the Iraq war, and the Occupy Wall Street movement, and those who stumped for Bernie Sanders. He also noted how Cuomo’s campaign trafficked a message of fear, with Mamdani’s “antidote” being solidarity. At Nowadays, the victory felt communal.In Astoria, Mamdani’s home turf, hijabi girls wearing keffiyehs raced to watch parties while uncles outside hookah bars kept an eye on the streets. (“We like this guy Mamdani. We’ll be watching him,” one said.) A large crowd gathered outside of Moka & Co, a Yemeni cafe, to hear the results come in over loudspeaker.Nisa Ganiestry, a 41-year-old homemaker living in Astoria, stood with her young son. She recently worked to secure her citizenship so that she could vote for Mamdani; she’s known Mamdani since he became Astoria’s assemblyman in 2021. Over the past five years, she said, Astoria has rapidly gentrified. “We couldn’t afford newer space, we couldn’t afford to get groceries, but I am really, really optimistic that he can fix the situation.”“We’re in the belly of the beast here in New York. We’re the financial capital of the world,” said Shivana Jorawar, an organizer based in the North Bronx. “If we can elect a socialist mayor in New York, we can do that anywhere.”View image in fullscreenPassing cars, buses, and cabs honked in celebration with the crowd as the night wore on. Every now and then, chants of free Palestine would ring out. Many cheered, some cried, and all waited patiently for their new mayor to speak.For Shehab Chowdhury, 34, co-chair of Bangladeshi-Americans for Political Progress, Mamdani’s participation in a 2021 hunger strike to win debt relief for taxi drivers and dedication to the Palestinian cause earned his respect. He said Islamophobic attacks on Mamdani have been felt throughout the entire Muslim community. “As Zohran has said: for so long we’ve stood in the shadows. Now it’s time to stand in the light.”Zayed Chowdhury (no relation), who runs a cybersecurity startup in Virginia, grew up in the projects of New York in the 1980s. He can’t vote in New York any more, but the election still mattered. “We were here when there were no Muslims in New York. My grandfather has a plaque that says he’s the second Muslim ever to land on Ellis Island,” Chowdhury said. “In 85, when I was in kindergarten, they didn’t even know what a Muslim was. Thirty years later, it’s like we won the championship.”View image in fullscreenEarlier in the night, in Jackson Heights, one of New York’s most diverse neighborhoods, Cherry Ann Chishti had a Mamdani sign outside the window of her halal restaurant. “Finally someone younger, someone with new ideas, someone connected to the people has arrived to make real change,” said Chishti, 38, who also works as a behavioral analyst in Ozone Park. “The bussing. The healthcare. I work with kids with autism. Every dollar we invest in childcare has a return of $11-17. They grow up more social. And it allows their moms, their dads to focus better on their jobs. Better workers means more taxes that benefit the city.”As midnight approached, Paul Aljoon, 62, exited a bodega in Bushwick yelling: “Mamdani!” He had canvassed for the candidate since the primaries. Now he’s looking ahead to Mamdani’s inauguration, and the daunting task of making the city affordable that awaits the new mayor. “Let him settle in office,” Aljoon said. “Let him get his team together. And then, move on. He has to do stuff with sanitation, then the police department, and then hope that no virus comes back to New York.”For Daniel Dale, a 23-year-old actor from Bed-Stuy and an immigrant from Colombia, it was time to bask in the moment. “I’ve never felt in the right place,” Dale said. But Mamdani’s message has drawn him in. “It’s full of a couple simple things that everybody knows they want.” For Dale, as many others across the city, this was an emotional night. More