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      Zohran Mamdani offered New Yorkers a political revolution – and won | Bhaskar Sunkara

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      Zohran Mamdani’s triumph in New York City’s Democratic primary represents more than just an electoral upset. It’s a confirmation that progressive politics, when pursued with discipline, vision, and vigor, can resonate broadly – even in a city known for its entrenched power structures.This was no ordinary primary. Andrew Cuomo, a former governor whose political fall from grace seemed irreparable only a few years ago, had positioned himself as the overwhelming favorite. Backed by millions from corporate interests, super PACs, and billionaire donors such as Michael Bloomberg and Bill Ackman, Cuomo relied heavily on institutional inertia and top-down endorsements. Yet Tuesday night, it became clear that this alone couldn’t carry him across the finish line.Mamdani, a 33-year-old legislator from Queens, ran a relentlessly disciplined campaign built around cost-of-living issues, zeroing in on essentials such as housing, transport, childcare and groceries. Repeated attempts to define Mamdani as merely a “Muslim socialist” with radical ideas, to force divisive identity politics to the fore, or to make the election a referendum on Israel, failed.But it wasn’t simply messaging discipline that made Mamdani successful. Mamdani has a political talent rooted in genuine charisma. His fluency with language, clarity of purpose, and authenticity allowed him to speak convincingly to voters from many different backgrounds. He wasn’t just another activist-politician; he proved himself to be a natural leader – someone capable of communicating moral truths without sounding moralistic.Meanwhile, Cuomo’s attempt to reinvent himself in New York City politics was flawed from the outset. His candidacy was perceived by many voters as an arrogant power grab, a rehabilitation project rather than a serious commitment to addressing the city’s challenges. He neglected to engage seriously with New York’s relatively new ranked-choice voting system, stubbornly isolating himself rather than building coalitions, even among centrist figures.The difference in campaign styles was stark and instructive. Mamdani’s campaign was fundamentally grassroots, driven by committed volunteers, including young activists from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). It was also modern and intelligent, recognizing that an ever-growing share of the electorate forms its opinions through social media and finding innovative ways to communicate policy proposals. Remarkably, almost one quarter of the early vote in this primary came from first-time voters in New York elections.Yet the results make clear that his voting base wasn’t limited to young, college-educated voters most engaged by his campaign. Notably, Mamdani succeeded in neighborhoods like Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, Sunset Park, and Brighton Beach — all areas that swung rightward in the 2024 presidential election.This was a reward for his consistent efforts to reach out to young, working-class voters who felt alienated by the Democratic party; Mamdani’s first viral video of this campaign came in November, when he interviewed New Yorkers who had voted for Trump about their cost-of-living frustrations. In the face of a skeptical public, Mamdani was even able to communicate democratic socialism as a universal politics rather than a niche identity or a dangerous ideology.Yet coalition-building factored in just as much as political resolve. Crucial to Mamdani’s broad success was the principled support of progressive figures like Comptroller Brad Lander. Lander advocated for himself as the person best suited to be mayor but accepted the nature of rank-choice voting and the imperative of defeating Cuomo by cross-endorsing Mamdani. Lander’s approach helped forge a coherent, united front — something increasingly rare in fractious progressive circles — and it proved decisive.Voters, for their part, proved that they were ready for change. They refused to succumb to cynical fearmongering about a supposed tide of crime and antisemitism that would come from a Mamdani victory. Instead, they took a clear-eyed look at their lives, assessed the failings of the Democratic party, and chose something fresh, new, and fundamentally different over a failed political establishment.Still, Tuesday’s results carry deeper questions about the future. Mamdani’s victory in this primary, significant as it is, must now be tested against Eric Adams and likely Cuomo again in the November election. Beyond that lies a far more challenging test: governing. Progressives across America have watched closely as Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, another promising left-wing mayor, has stumbled against entrenched opposition and due to his own administrative failings. Mamdani will need to navigate obstacles better if elected.Historical precedent may offer some reassurance for those who wish New York’s mayoral frontrunner well. The tradition of successful municipal socialism in America, including in cities like Milwaukee under the “sewer socialists” and, more recently, in Burlington under Bernie Sanders serve as real examples of socialist governance marked by competence, effectiveness and popularity. Sanders’s legacy in Burlington, especially, stands as a template Mamdani could follow: pragmatic yet deeply principled governance that steadily builds broader legitimacy among skeptics and opponents.New York mayors have traditionally been considered men who come from nowhere and go nowhere, politically speaking. But Mamdani could break that mold, following Sanders’s trajectory from effective municipal leadership to becoming a durable voice in national politics.However, to succeed, Mamdani must trust his own judgment — one that has already proved incisive and strategically sound. He must maintain independence from two city establishments: the corporate one, which opposed him at every turn, and the NGO-driven progressive establishment, whose political instincts failed them in recent election cycles.Mamdani’s platform, which couples a supply-side focused “abundance agenda” with demands for equitable redistribution and expansive public-sector investment, offers precisely the kind of social-democratic governance model New York desperately needs. There’s nothing fundamentally radical about these demands; rather, what’s genuinely radical is the excitement they have inspired among voters, including many who previously disengaged from local politics altogether.Tonight, Mamdani has undoubtedly delivered a major victory in America’s largest city. But we must be sober about the challenges ahead. Electoral wins are meaningful only if they translate into tangible improvements in people’s lives, and political momentum can dissipate quickly if governance falls short. Mamdani faces an enormous responsibility – not only to his immediate constituency but also to a broader progressive movement watching closely from across the country and the world.

      Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of The Nation, the founding editor Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in An Era of Extreme Inequalities More

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      New York Primary Election Results 2025

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      Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press.By The New York Times election results team: Michael Andre, Emma Baker, Neil Berg, Andrew Chavez, Michael Beswetherick, Matthew Bloch, Lily Boyce, Irineo Cabreros, Nico Chilla, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Leo Dominguez, Andrew Fischer, Martín González Gómez, Joyce Ho, Will Houp, Jon Huang, Junghye Kim, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Jasmine C. Lee, Joey K. Lee, Alex Lemonides, Ilana Marcus, Alicia Parlapiano, Jaymin Patel, Dan Simmons-Ritchie, Charlie Smart, Jonah Smith, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang. Additional reporting by Dean Chang, Maya King and Benjamin Oreskes.
      Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press. More

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      New York City Council Primary Election Results 2025

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      Christopher MarteC. MarteMarte 49% Elizabeth LewinsohnE. LewinsohnLewinsohn 24% 91% Helen QiuH. QiuQiu Uncontested Harvey EpsteinH. EpsteinEpstein 39% Sarah BatchuS. BatchuBatchu 21% 83% Jason MurilloJ. MurilloMurillo Uncontested Erik BottcherE. BottcherBottcher 74% Jacqueline LaraJ. LaraLara 25% 81% Virginia MaloneyV. MaloneyMaloney 26.8% Vanessa AronsonV. AronsonAronson 25.4% 79% Debra SchwartzbenD. SchwartzbenSchwartzben Uncontested Julie MeninJ. MeninMenin 73% Collin ThompsonC. ThompsonThompson 26% 81% Alina BonsellA. BonsellBonsell Uncontested Gale BrewerG. BrewerBrewer Uncontested More

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      Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace – but New York’s big beast won’t stay dead

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      When Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace four years ago, few would have predicted him to make a comeback.Yet the former New York governor, who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, is the frontrunner to become the next mayor of New York City, a role that he hopes could rehabilitate him and, allegedly, give him a platform to run for president.Through the early months of the Democratic primary, the winner of which is likely to be elected mayor in November, Cuomo was polling well ahead of his opponents – his name recognition and wealthy backers making for a formidable candidate.In recent weeks, it has become clear that Cuomo, a centrist who worked in Bill Clinton’s administration before turning his attention to state politics, is unlikely to have it his own way.Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative who has garnered the endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and excited young and leftwing voters in New York, has emerged as a serious challenger to the former governor, cutting into Cuomo’s lead.As Mamdani has risen in the polls Cuomo, a pugnacious politician whose aggressive style contributed to a long-running feud with former mayor Bill de Blasio, has responded in typical fashion. In the closing days of the campaign, groups supporting Cuomo have pumped millions of dollars into attacking Mamdani through TV ads and mailouts, portraying Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as a “dangerous choice for mayor”.Money has been one of Cuomo’s biggest assets in the primary, which he entered in March this year. Fix the City, an organization supporting Cuomo’s bid, has raised about $20m – the most raised by any Super Pac in New York City history, the New York Times reported – including $5m from the billionaire former mayor Michael Bloomberg. Other backers include donors typically known for donating to Republicans, including John B Hess, the billionaire oil company CEO; Ken Langone, the billionaire Home Depot co-founder, and Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager and Donald Trump supporter.It’s an atypical list of supporters for a Democratic candidate, and one that has drawn attention from Cuomo’s rivals.“Our city is under attack by an authoritarian Trump administration. And it is under an attack that is now being echoed by Trump’s allies right here in New York City,” Mamdani said during a debate in early June.“We deserve to have a mayor who is not funded by the same billionaires that put Donald Trump in DC. We deserve to have a mayor who will actually fight back.”Cuomo’s response to criticism has been to largely try to stay out of the spotlight. Mamdani has held rallies attended by thousands of people, but Cuomo has kept his campaigning small and private, like the intimate event at a trade union in May where he pledged to raise the minimum wage to $20/hr in the next two years.Instead, Cuomo appears to be relying more on name recognition, his lengthy record of government experience, and those ads. His campaign and supporting groups repeat similar messages: Cuomo “delivered as governor”, and will bring crime down and build affordable housing.“We’re not talkers, we are doers. We get the job done. And we’re going to build 500,000 units of affordable housing. If anybody has any question whether or not we can do it, I have got a bridge to show you,” Cuomo said in May, before referencing the Mario Cuomo bridge – a structure named after Cuomo’s late father and a former governor. Cuomo signed the bill to name the bridge himself.For all Cuomo has attempted to sell voters on his record, his past has sometimes proved to be a drawback, with rivals seeking to profile the allegations that led to him resigning as governor in 2021. An investigation by the New York’s attorney general found that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, most of whom worked for him, and reported that the governor retaliated against some of those women after they made complaints.“Mr Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace. I have never cut Medicaid. I have never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA [the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway, buses and trains],” Mamdani said during the final primary debate.“I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment. I have never sued for their gynecological records, and I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr Cuomo.”Cuomo claimed the complaints were “all political” in the final debate.While Cuomo definitely has the support of the wealthy, that’s not his only reason to be confident ahead of Tuesday’s election. He has been endorsed by a slew of labor unions and New York elected officials, and continues to lead Mamdani in the polls, including among key voting groups. On Wednesday a Marist poll found that 48% of Black voters and 40% of Jewish voters back Cuomo, compared to 11% and 20% for Mamdani. Support from both communities has proved crucial in previous New York City primaries.“When he was governor he looked out for New York. He was for the people of New York, compared to Eric Adams,” Yvonne Telesford, a 71-year-old from Brooklyn who voted early for Cuomo, told the Guardian.Telesford is a registered Democrat, but said she had voted for Republicans in the past, including Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor, and Ronald Reagan.“I always look and listen and see what the candidates have to offer, and then I come up with my decision,” she said. “And one thing I have to say, I think Andrew Cuomo will stand up to our president now.” More

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      Socialist Zohran Mamdani could be New York’s next mayor. This is what the western left could learn from him | Owen Jones

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      The Zohran Mamdani phenomenon should not be happening, if received wisdom is a reliable predictor of events. He’s the 33-year-old Muslim leftist and Queens assemblyman running for the New York mayoralty with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the vitriolic campaign against him suggests his momentum has caused panic in gilded circles. His chief opponent for the Democratic nomination, Andrew Cuomo, could not scream party establishment more loudly: he’s New York state’s former governor – just like his father was – and a former cabinet secretary. He married into that classic Democratic royalty, the Kennedys; his endorsements include the former president Bill Clinton; and billionaires such as Mike Bloomberg are pouring millions into his Super Pac.In another age, someone like Mamdani would have been a no-hoper. What changed was the 2016 presidential campaign of the long-marginalised socialist senator Bernie Sanders, which re-energised the US left. But Donald Trump’s recent victory on a more extreme platform led to predictions of a general rightwing lurch in US politics, with progressive positions scapegoated for the Democratic loss (even though Kamala Harris ran on a squarely corporate, “centrist” ticket). I was scheduled to interview Mamdani on the night of the US presidential election, but his campaign asked to postpone as results started to come in suggesting a Trump victory was likely. Presumably, they wanted to reassess strategy in the coming US political winter.But just a few months later, Mamdani is surging, and his campaign offers lessons for the western left in an age of chronic economic insecurity, rising far-right authoritarianism, war and genocide. The primary election vote is tomorrow, but a poll released during crucial early voting shows Mamdani overtaking Cuomo in “ranked choice” voting: it’s within the margin of error, but five months ago the insurgent candidate was polling only 1% support. In only a month, Mamdani has leapt from 22% to 32%, particularly powered by a 2:1 lead among the under-50s.Yes, the millennial has been helped by Cuomo’s chronic liabilities – the former governor resigned in disgrace after an investigation by the state attorney general found that he had sexually harrassed several women – but rival candidates with bigger profiles and more political experience could have gained from that instead. The New York Times pleaded with readers not to rank Mamdani in the preferential voting system, rich New Yorkers are threatening to flee the city if he wins, he’s been attacked for inexperience, and smeared over his championing of Palestinian rights. “Zohran Mamdani is a public menace,” screeches rightwing magazine the National Review.So what’s the universal lessons for the western left? Three Ms are key: messaging, medium and movement. Grace Mausser is the co-chair of New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). When I suggested that Mamdani’s campaign would surely originally have been driven by revitalising the left, rather than the prospect of an actual election victory, she disagrees.“When we started, we knew the path to victory was narrow,” she conceded. But, she emphasised: “We don’t run races for purely moral reasons or to make a point like the Green party in the US which has failed in their project.” Indeed, the DSA played a pivotal role in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s shock defeat of another Democratic luminary, the former chair of the House Democratic Caucus Joe Crowley back in 2018. In turn, Ocasio-Cortez has bolstered Mamdani with her endorsement, underlining how progressive victories feed off one another.“Super-clear messaging” is how Mausser sums up the Mamdani strategy. The early campaign settled on three main messages: “Fast and free buses, freeze the rents, free childcare. That’s so easy to remember. People know it, and it’s said over and over and over again.” Mamdani has other pledges, too – such as launching publicly run grocery stores – but key to his success are core, endlessly repeated commitments focused on a cost of living crisis triggered by a broken economic system.This strategy is essential in combating a “culture war” designed to force leftists into a defensive posture. It doesn’t mean abandoning marginalised minorities – Mamdani has unequivocally committed to transgender rights, for example. It just means emphasising unifying economic messages. Anger is redirected from the disenfranchised to thriving economic elites, whom Mamdani seeks to tax to fulfil his pledges. The campaign has settled, too, on not backing down to bad faith attacks: Mamdani has not given an inch in his pro-Palestinian advocacy.View image in fullscreenThen there’s the medium. What Mausser calls “high-quality video production” has been pivotal. Across the west, the far right has proven adept at using platforms such as TikTok to radicalise supporters, with the left mostly not even playing catch-up. Mamdani’s campaign made slick videos that are witty, sassy and snappy, communicating its messages to wide audiences. “All the conversations after the election [were] about needing a ‘Joe Rogan of the left’, how people aren’t getting their news from traditional media, how they’re getting their news from TikTok, Instagram and YouTube,” says Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid. “And that is exactly the story of Zohran.”When Sanders endorsed Mamdani, he declared how he was “very impressed by the grassroots movement that he has put together”. Mamdani’s campaign has an army of door-knockers, often visiting districts traditionally ignored by Democratic machine politicians. For many of these canvassers, this is their first political experience. Mausser reports: “If you ask them, ‘How did you hear about Zohran?’, it’s like: ‘Oh, I saw his video on Instagram or TikTok.’” The message and the medium raised an army. There’s another factor, too: Mamdani, like Ocasio-Cortez, is charismatic and telegenic. It’s not fashionable to discuss this on a left which prioritises the collective over the individual, but we need compelling communicators who look the part.Mamdani may not win the Democratic nomination. Even if he does, Cuomo will stand as an independent candidate, although the socialist challenger may do this, too. His campaign’s weaknesses reflect those of the wider US left: too little inroads among Black and older voters, as well as those with little online political engagement. But Mamdani’s against-the-odds success underlines why the far-right surge doesn’t have to weaken the left – far from it. Indeed, Mamdani positions himself as best-placed to resist Trump, rather than kowtow to his agenda. When the Republicans won, one of Mamdani’s first viral videos was visiting local districts where Trump enjoyed his biggest swings.Whatever happens, Mamdani shows that the US left lives on after what Shahid calls “a shitty year”: along with Trump’s triumph, there have been dispiriting primary defeats of progressive representatives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush at the hands of notorious pro-Israel lobbyists Aipac. Mamdani has built a movement in New York, but his campaign has also given a shellshocked western left a gift: a strategy to take on the establishment even in adverse circumstances.

      Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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      Free buses, more housing, taxing the rich: how Zohran Mamdani has gone viral in the New York mayor’s race

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      Zohran Mamdani trailed Andrew Cuomo, the frontrunner to be the next New York City mayor, by 30 points just a few months ago.Now, just ahead of the Democratic primary on Tuesday, the 33-year-old democratic socialist has bridged the gap with Cuomo, a politician so of the establishment that a giant bridge north of New York literally bears his last name.The surge in support for Mamdani, an aspiring rapper turned state politician, with a penchant for turning out snappy social media videos and a track record of progressive, leftwing ideas, has shown his clear ability to win over young voters. It also didn’t hurt when he won the backing of the progressives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders this month.Mamdani’s rise has lent a new edge to an election that was in danger of becoming a procession for Cuomo, the former New York governor who resigned in disgrace in 2021 after being accused of sexual harassment.For a Democratic party struggling to stand up to Donald Trump and his “make America great again” acolytes, the closely watched election will offer an insight into what rank-and-file Democrats desire: a good old boy promising a steady hand on the tiller, or a fresh outsider who has energized parts of a weary New York electorate with plans to freeze rent and make buses free citywide.Mamdani’s rise has been boosted by a social media following that dwarfs his rivals’.He has almost a million followers across Instagram and TikTok, where he posts funny and self-aware videos selling himself to the public. The clips frequently show him walking through New York, or riding the subway, things that are unlikely to come naturally to the multimillionaire Cuomo.After supporters commented on Mamdani’s frequently exuberant hand gestures in the videos, he posted a clip where he promised to keep his hands in his pockets, removing them twice only to have them slapped down by a man on the street.“This election is in your hands,” a caption read on the video, in which Mamdani urged people to register to vote. The video was left to roll at the end as Mamdani laughed at the shtick.Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani moved to New York City when he was seven years old, and had a long-term interest in politics. Last week, a former classmate shared a video in which she recalled how Mamdani won a “mock presidential election” in 2004. A cricket and soccer player – “he usually played defense or defensive midfield, and would sprint down the field and score”, a former teammate told the Guardian – he was elected to represent an area of Queens in the state assembly in 2021.View image in fullscreenMamdani has bold ideas for what he would do as mayor. In a city with a longstanding affordable housing crisis, he wants to freeze rent increases for people in applicable buildings, and build 200,000 new units over the next 10 years. He says he would eliminate fares on city buses, something which would cost at least $630m but, according to Mamdani, would generate $1.5bn in economic benefits. (New York City has an annual budget of $115.1bn for 2026.) He says he can fund his proposals by increasing the corporate tax rate and bringing in a flat tax on people earning more than a million a year.But Mamdani’s limited political record, more than his proposals, has come under scrutiny as he has flown closer to the sun.There was more than a whiff of jealousy from Mamdani’s opponents during the Democratic debate on 4 June, with even his progressive rivals taking a shot. Jessica Ramos, a state senator – theoretically a more powerful position than Mamdani’s role as state representative – lamented that she had not run for mayor four years earlier, adding: “I thought I needed more experience, but turns out you just need to make good videos.”Ramos’s slight mirrored Cuomo’s persistent refrain that Mamdani lacks the experience to be mayor. As Mamdani has risen in the polls, Cuomo has stepped up the attacks on his rival, painting him as too radical and inexperienced to lead the city in a barrage of TV ads and mailed-out flyers. In one proposed mailer, a pro-Cuomo group appeared to have darkened the skin and beard of Mamdani, who would be New York’s first Muslim mayor, a move Mamdani criticized as “​​blatant Islamophobia”. A spokesperson for the group said the ad had been proposed by a vendor and upon review “it was immediately rejected for production and was subsequently corrected”.For his part, Mamdani has repeatedly sought to tie Cuomo to Trump, pointing out that many of his donors backed Trump in the presidential election.“Oligarchy is on the ballot. Andrew Cuomo is the candidate of a billionaire class that is suffocating our democracy and forcing the working class out of our city,” Mamdani’s campaign said in an email to supporters on Tuesday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a more pointed critique of his opponent, Mamdani said on the debate stage: “I have never had to resign in disgrace. I have never cut Medicaid, I have never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA, I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment, I have never sued for their gynecological records, and I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr Cuomo.”The New York Democratic primary will use ranked-choice voting, allowing voters to select multiple candidates, which Mamdani hopes could boost his chances. Last week, he announced he was “cross-endorsing” with Brad Lander, a fellow progressive who on Tuesday was arrested by Ice agents while visiting an immigration court.The winner of the primary is not guaranteed to become the 111th mayor of New York, but it is highly likely in a city where registered Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans. The incumbent, Eric Adams, who won the 2021 election as a Democrat but is running this year as an independent candidate, is deeply unpopular in the city. Last year, Adams was charged with taking bribes and accepting foreign campaign contributions. The charges were dropped in April after the Trump administration intervened.While popular with young people and the left of the party, Mamdani has lagged behind Cuomo among Black and Latino voters – though a recent poll showed Mamdani gaining support from both.The Cuomo campaign and its backers have also raised the issue of Mamdani’s criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza. He has said the country is committing genocide, a characterization that Cuomo, a fiercely pro-Israel Democrat who has courted the city’s large Jewish population, has sought to exploit. In a recent post on X, Cuomo all but accused Mamdani of fomenting antisemitism. Mamdani says he has built a coalition including Jewish New Yorkers, and would form a department to investigate hate crimes.In an election where Cuomo’s strategy has been to largely avoid the press and the public, the energy has been with Mamdani.A rally with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman and a fellow democratic socialist, drew thousands of people to a music venue in Manhattan in mid-June, and Mamdani’s appearances at hip music venues across the city have drawn enthusiastic crowds.“For the longest time, mayoral candidates have been kind of the same type of guy. Either they’re like legacy New York politics people, or businessmen that kind of pivoted through,” said Tomas Carlson, a 23-year-old Mamdani supporter.“This is the first time in a while where I saw a candidate that had new ideas. And I think the Democratic party in general, we need a sort of fresh breath of air.” More

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      in US Politics

      Israel is playing an outsized role in New York City’s mayoral race. Will it matter?

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      Speaking from a Jerusalem bomb shelter last week as Iran and Israel exchanged fire, a New York state senator posted a video message to New York City voters: “There is a mayoral primary coming up this week where one of the candidates does not believe the Jewish state has a right to exist,” said Sam Sutton, the senator from Brooklyn. “We don’t want to be in a situation like this in America.”Sutton called on New Yorkers to elect a “great friend of the Jewish people”: Andrew Cuomo, New York’s former governor.The appeal was a stark illustration of the outsized role a foreign country and its conflicts have come to play in local elections. While Tuesday’s vote is just the primary, the winner of the Democratic contest historically has gone on to win the mayoral contest in November – though this year could be different.“This election has turned into a two-person contest between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mandani, two candidates with very stark views on this matter,” said Jacob Kornbluh, a senior politics reporter with the Forward Jewish newspaper.With New York City’s nearly one million Jews making up the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, mayors of the past have always claimed support for the country with little pushback. But the war in Gaza has fundamentally changed the dynamic. Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinians might have previously tanked his candidacy, but his insurgent campaign has galvanised voters. Cuomo has responded by portraying Mamdani as “dangerous” and himself as uniquely positioned to fight antisemitism, a growing source of anxiety among Jewish voters.Cuomo’s campaign – flush with millions from pro-Israel billionaires like Bill Ackman – has ramped up attacks against Mamdani as he surged in the polls, including by distributing mailers condemned as racist. The former governor has stated unequivocally that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism”.It’s not just Cuomo appealing to the fears of Jewish voters. Eric Adams – the current mayor, who is running as an independent given his plummeting popularity – recently adopted a contentious definition of antisemitism and floated running on an “EndAntisemitism” party line.Mamdani grew emotional last week while discussing the personal toll of the attacks, including multiple death threats, and has invoked his experience as a Muslim New Yorker to say he understands the pain of the Jewish communities that he pledges to protect.“The attacks on Zohran are textbook post 9/11 Islamophobia,” said Sumaya Awad, a Palestinian New Yorker and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, one of the first groups to back his candidacy. She praised Mamdani for not “backing down”.Mamdani co-founded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, and as a state assembly member, introduced legislation to stop the funding of illegal Israeli settlements. He has built an enthusiastic coalition of young, progressive, and unabashedly pro-Palestinain New Yorkers, as well as immigrants and many of the city’s roughly 800,000 Muslims.View image in fullscreenCity comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander, who is Jewish and has cross-endorsed Mamdani, has sought to find a middle ground and accused Cuomo and Adams of “using Jews as pawns”, he told the Guardian in an interview – “not with the intention of making Jews any safer, but with the intention of gaining political advantage for themselves”.“Thankfully it’s not the job of the mayor to find mutual recognition and peace and safety for Israelis and Palestinians,” he said. “It is incumbent on the next mayor, whatever their position is, to find ways to reach across the divide.”As some candidates stoke fears, anxiety around the election is palpable among many Jewish voters.Alex Kaufman, a leader of LGBTQ Zionists of NYC, which endorsed Cuomo, said he had always prioritized issues like housing affordability, sustainability, and racial inclusion. “But this year, my number one issue is antisemitism,” he said. “I’ve never felt this unsafe.”With election day around the corner, the race has turned into an Israel-Palestine proxy war of sorts, even as voters on both sides wish the focus remained on local issues. Candidates have been asked in mayoral debates about their support for Israel and whether they would visit – with Mamdani’s answers that he supports Israel’s right to exist as a state “with equal rights” and that as mayor he would stay in the city rather than travel to a foreign country drawing both praise and condemnation (including some from the left, who criticised him for recognising Israel at all). In recent days, Cuomo has seized on Mamdani’s position on the words “globalize the intifada”, saying they fuel “hate” and “murder”.Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace’s advocacy arm, which has been canvassing for Mamdani, said that his success challenges the long-held wisdom that a New York mayor must support the Israeli government. “If you believe in safety, freedom, dignity, and justice for people here at home, you can’t have a Palestine exception to that,” she said.‘The status quo is being bent’New York’s Jews are a diverse constituency – ranging from some anti-Zionists and others variously critical of Israel to orthodox communities traditionally voting as a unified bloc for more conservative candidates. A recent poll of the city’s Jewish Democrats showed 31% supporting Cuomo, 20% backing Mamdani, and 18% behind Lander.In the middle are New York Jews who consistently vote Democratic and espouse a host of liberal and even progressive causes. Many are still reeling from the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel, are uneasy about the tone of US protests against the war in Gaza, and are increasingly worried about Jewish safety, pointing to recent violent attacks in Washington DC, and Colorado, and defacing of Jewish businesses and synagogues in the city.View image in fullscreen
      Kaufman, of LGBTQ Zionists, said he wished there were “better options” but that many of his acquaintances were coalescing around Cuomo even as they have reservations about his past conduct, including the sexual assault allegations that ended his governorship. Others gravitated toward Lander, but were troubled by his endorsement of Mamdani. Some said they were “terrified” of the latter, pointing to his refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and his presence at protests where Houthi flags were on display.Cuomo has promised to run as an independent if Mamdani wins on Tuesday. Because Adams is running as an independent, and Mamdani is also expected to remain on the ballot as the Working Families Party candidate, the contest is far from over.But to some, the fact that an openly pro-Palestinian candidate has made it this far is a sign of a profound shift in the city’s politics.“The status quo is being bent,” said Awad. She said she cried when filling in her ballot early. “Hope is such a rare thing to feel these days.” More

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      ‘New Yorkers have been betrayed’: can Zohran Mamdani become the most progressive mayor in the city’s history?

      by

      Zohran Kwame Mamdani is huddling with advisers surrounded by agitated protesters, New York police department (NYPD) officers and lines of metal barriers penning us in. An hour ago Brad Lander, the elected comptroller of New York who is running against Mamdani in the race to become the city’s next mayor, was arrested by masked agents of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) as he accompanied an individual out of immigration court. Video shows the agents shoving Lander against a wall, handcuffing him, and scuffling him away.The incident has clearly rattled Mamdani. He looks tense, and when greeted by supporters his trademark beaming smile is replaced by a tight grin.Days earlier Mamdani cross-endorsed with fellow progressive Lander ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary, which makes this personal. “This is horrifying,” he says.Behind us looms the brutalist tower of the Federal Building, its tombstone-grey granite and glass exterior wrapped in fine mist. It is a setting out of a dystopian Gotham City.“No peace, no justice,” the protesters chant. “Ice out of the court, Ice out of the city.”View image in fullscreen“This is an authoritarian regime that has dispatched masked men in unmarked cars to detain and disappear as many immigrants as they can find, and anyone standing in their way,” Mamdani says. “Ice agents attempted to rough up Comptroller Lander and make an example of him – if that’s what they are willing to do to an elected official, what will they do to an unknown immigrant?”There is a potent family link too. “That’s the very court I took my father to a few months ago for his citizenship interview,” he explains.“I hugged him tightly, not knowing if I would see him at the end or if he too would be detained, as so many immigrants have been. I waited in a coffee shop for four and a half hours hoping he would come downstairs, and he did.”It is not impossible, given the state of the race, that in three days’ time Mamdani, until recently a virtual unknown, will prevail in the primary ballot and take a giant leap towards becoming the next occupant of Gracie Mansion. Should he go on to win the general election in November, he would be propelled onto the front lines of the battle to protect New Yorkers from Donald Trump’s mass deportations and other legally-dubious incursions.Could he handle it?“I do believe that I could. I will unabashedly stand up for our sanctuary city policies which have kept New Yorkers safe, and use every tool at the city’s disposal to protect our immigrants.”And then he adds: “There is no option of surrender.”That Mamdani should be a serious contender for the leadership of America’s largest city is both a sign of the times and of his individual capabilities. Polls show him within striking distance of the frontrunner Andrew Cuomo in what is now essentially a two-horse race, with Lander trailing a distant third.Mamdani came to the US aged seven from Uganda where he was born to parents of Indian descent. His father is a political scientist Mahmood Mamdani, and his mother, Mira Nair, is the Oscar-nominated director of Salaam Bombay! and Monsoon Wedding.He is a democratic socialist endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He has been outspoken on the Gaza war, which he views as a genocide, and is unrestrained in his criticism of Trump, whom he calls an authoritarian. He denounced Lander’s arrest as “fascism”.He is equally scathing about the establishment of the Democratic party, which he tells me has “betrayed” the people of New York. And yet here he is, an unashamed progressive Muslim immigrant, snapping at the heels of the ultimate Democratic machine politician, the thrice-elected former governor of New York, Cuomo.The outcome of the ranked-choice vote could illuminate so much more than the future of New York, important though that is.There’s age. Mamdani, if elected, would become at 33 the youngest mayor in a century; Cuomo, 67, would be its oldest in a first term. Could this election deliver a blow to what Ocasio-Cortez has called the “gerontocracy” of American politics?There’s Trump. Lander’s arrest could be just the start – only a day before the comptroller was apprehended, the president announced he was prioritizing deportations from New York and other Democratic-run cities, putting whoever wins the mayoral race in the line of fire.And there’s the Democratic party itself. Mamdani calls the election a referendum on the future of the party – and given the parlous state in which it currently finds itself, trapped in the headlights of a president who appears hell-bent on destroying American democracy as we know it, he may not be wrong.This is gearing up to be a seismic clash at a turning point for the country. No wonder Mamdani looks tense.View image in fullscreenOur interview was not meant to be like this. The plan was for us to meet in Mamdani’s campaign office near Madison Square Park, but the shock of the Lander arrest sends him scrambling down to Federal Plaza, the Guardian in hot pursuit.It’s a bit like a game of cat and mouse. We follow the candidate as he moves away from Federal Building, and takes off with his posse of campaign managers to find a quiet place to talk. He says we’ll regroup at a sandwich bar nearby then abruptly changes the location, but amid the confusion he’s always impeccably polite. “Thank you for your understanding,” he says to me.We finally get to sit down in a Le Pain Quotidien around the corner from where Lander is being detained. Mamdani asks if I mind that he eats while we talk – it’s mid-afternoon by now and it’s his first meal of the day. When I express sympathy, he gives a maudlin smile and says: “I chose this.”We begin by discussing his explosive rise, from a barely known member of the state assembly representing Queens into a political phenomenon. The previous Saturday, at a rally at Terminal 5, a music venue in Hell’s Kitchen, Mamdani was introduced by Ocasio-Cortez, who likened how he has burst onto the scene to her own unlikely eruption as Bronx bartender turned congresswoman in 2018.Did Mamdani expect to be where he is now when he launched his run last October?From the start he believed in the possibility of his campaign, he says, but did not expect his numbers to surge until the end. “Instead we’ve been firmly in second place for the last few months, and we’ve narrowed a 40-point gap with Cuomo down to single digits despite Republican billionaires spending close to $20m in attack ads against me.”That Mamdani has caught the imagination of young New Yorkers is self-evident at the Saturday night rally. The venue is packed with over 3,000 supporters, most in their 20s and 30s, waving placards saying “A City We Can Afford”.Comedian the Kid Mero hosts, a marching band performs Empire State of Mind, and the DJ plays hope and change-themed tracks (the rally closes with Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’). It all has the razzmatazz of a premature victory party.View image in fullscreenMamdani commands the stage, displaying an ease with TikTokable soundbites and a beguiling charisma which are essential qualifications for high office these days. He echoes the lyrical rhetoric of Barack Obama: when he wins on 24 June, he orates, “it will feel like the dawn of a new day, and when the sun finally climbs above the horizon that light will seem brighter than ever”.A key to his success among young voters – and in turn, the amassing of a vast army of 46,000 volunteers who have knocked on more than a million doors – has been his savvy use of social media. He has posted a stream of viral videos, shot on gritty New York streets, infused with the humor and pace that he first honed during his younger years when he was an aspiring rapper going by the name of Mr Cardamom.To publicise his plan to freeze the rents of all rent-stabilised apartments, Mamdani posted a TikTok video in which he dives fully clothed into the frigid waters off Coney Island. It was titled: “I’m freezing … your rent.”When Cuomo entered the mayoral race, Mamdani filmed in front of Trump Tower to visually connect the two men as bullies accused of sexual misconduct – Trump was found liable for sexual abuse, Cuomo was forced to resign as governor in 2021 following reports that he sexually harassed female staff, which he denies.Such grabby stuff has spawned a whole cluster of fan-based Instagram groups. Among them: Hot Girls for Zohran and, not to be outdone, Hot Boys for Zohran.Fun this may be. But it’s also serious politics. It’s earned him the adoration of countless young voters at a time when social media is increasingly critical to winning elections – just ask Trump who, with his 106 million X followers and his Truth Social platform, literally owns political social media, leaving most Democratic leaders languishing in the wilderness.“New Yorkers of all ages are engaging with the world around them through their phones,” Mamdani says. “One reason we’ve been able to get so many to engage with us is that they’ve heard about our politics in places they typically would not.”He calls his social media strategy the “politics of no translation”. What is that?“It’s when you speak directly to the crises that people are facing, with no intermediaries in between. We need a politics that is direct, that speaks to people’s own lives. If I tell you that I’m going to freeze your rent, you know exactly what I mean.”View image in fullscreenMamdani puts his spectacular popularity with young New Yorkers down to a hunger for a “new kind of politics, one that puts working people at the heart of it and showcases a new generation of leadership”. There’s maybe something else also at play: he has a magnetism that just seems to draw people towards him.The young waiter who takes his order of grilled chicken salad appears starstruck, and after we finish talking the waiter comes back to the table and engages Mamdani in intense conversation. The candidate obliges, despite his frantic schedule that will see him dashing between boroughs late into the night.I get flashes of that magnetism as we sit at our table. Like any politician, Mamdani has his talking points, but he drops his guard when I ask him what he remembers about arriving in New York as a kid. He leans towards me, and his face opens, and he seems transported.“I remember going to Tower Records around 66th Street or so, and browsing all the different CDS, then stepping outside and buying my first bootleg copy of Eiffel 65, the euro pop group with the song Blue (Da Ba Dee). I remember playing soccer in Riverside Park, I remember falling in love with chess.”Reverie over, Mamdani the mayoral candidate is back, shoveling down food in between espousing political strategy. And this is when we get down to it, and the real challenge he faces. Because his appeal to young New Yorkers is not enough to win.To defeat Cuomo on Tuesday he has to reach beyond young voters. He has to get to the older African Americans and Hispanics in the outer boroughs who dependably turn out to vote, and thus often decide the outcome of New York Democratic primaries.Polls suggest that such voters are still favouring Cuomo as a safe pair of hands, though there has been a recent uptick among older Latinos. Mamdani is candid about how hard this has been.“It was very difficult for us to get into these spaces to make our case,” he admits. “Especially as we began with 1% name recognition. But things are shifting, now we’re finding that we are double-booked for churches on a Sunday morning.”Paradoxically, the outer borough communities that he has to convert are home to the very same voters with whom Trump made astonishing inroads last November. It’s the guilty secret of New York, which is so proud of its status as a liberal bastion: Trump enjoyed his biggest swing of any state in the country here – about 11.5% – and increased his vote by double digits in both the Bronx and Queens.“It wasn’t just the scale of the swing,” Mamdani says. “It was that it took place far from the caricature of Trump voters, and into the heart of immigrant New York.”After Trump’s victory, Mamdani had to turn the political impulse of lecturing into listening and went on a listening tour to the outer boroughs. “I went to Fordham Road in the Bronx and Hillside Avenue in Queens, and asked these New Yorkers, most of whom are Democrats, who they voted for and why. I learned that many did not vote, and many voted for Trump, and they did so because they remembered having more money in their pocket four years ago.”The plea he heard over and over again was for an economic agenda that would make people’s tough lives easier. “And that is how we have run this race,” he says.That’s where his affordability ticket kicks in. Rents will be frozen in rent-stabilised apartments that house 2 million New Yorkers, two-thirds of whom are people of colour. Childcare will be provided at no cost, the minimum wage will be raised, city-run groceries will be opened offering cheaper healthy food, buses will be made fast and free.To pay for all that, taxes will be raised for corporations and for the top 1% of earners with incomes above $1m. When I ask him to imagine how he imagines New York would look after he had been in Gracie Mansion for two terms, he replies: “It is a city that is more affordable, that works better, and where we have restored public excellence into public service.”Mamdani’s affordability manifesto is a conscious blueprint for reconnecting working-class Americans, of all races, back to the Democratic party in the fight against Trump. It’s also a damning indictment of where he believes the Democratic leadership has gone wrong.He goes so far as to use that word “betrayal”. “New Yorkers have been betrayed by the politics of our city,” he says.As evidence he points to Trump’s deportations. We’re still sitting in Le Pain Quotidien, Mamdani’s salad now half-eaten and his tie off, and we are both painfully, though unspokenly, aware that Lander remains in custody as we speak (he was released a few hours later without charge).Up to 400,000 New Yorkers are at risk of Trump’s deportations, he says, yet under the current Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, whose corruption charges were dropped by Trump in what was widely seen as a quid pro quo, the city has assisted fewer than 200 people facing imminent removal.Mamdani pledges that under his leadership, the city would provide legal representation for all immigrants in detention proceedings. That would boost their chances of going home to their families some elevenfold.His critique of the Democratic party doesn’t end there. For him, Cuomo is the epitome of where the established party has gone off the rails.“I believe we lost the presidential election because we had left the working class behind a long time ago. They were told time and time again that their leaders would fight for them, and those leaders, like Andrew Cuomo, sold them out.”He’s in his flow now, his arms flapping in grand gestures of the sort that his staff have worked hard to get him to tone down. There’s animation in his portrayal of Cuomo, containing a hefty dose of venom, and even disgust.“We are considering electing a former governor who resigned in disgrace, one who cut Medicaid, stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA [which runs the subway], hounded the more than a dozen women who credibly accused him of sexual harassment even suing them for their gynecological records. It begs the question: what high ground do we have in the Democratic party when we critique Donald Trump?”View image in fullscreenTowards the end of his Terminal 5 rally speech, Mamdani warned his supporters to expect a barrage of negative attack ads from Cuomo and his billionaire backers in the closing stage of the race.But it’s not just the barrage of TV ads that are attacking Zohran. The most withering criticism has come from the New York Times editorial board, which went so far as to opine that he didn’t deserve a spot on the ballot. Mamdani swats that one away with the curt remark: “These are the opinions of about a dozen New Yorkers. They’re entitled to them.”The paper described his proposals as unrealistic. That’s paradoxical, he says. Working-class Americans are losing faith in the Democratic party, yet anyone who comes up with policies that address their daily struggles is castigated for being pie in the sky.“If you want to fight for working people priced out of their own city, then you are told you are out of touch.”The Anti-Defamation League, the Holocaust Museum, and several Jewish leaders have also blast out to scorch him in the final stretch. Shortly after we meet, a podcast is posted by the Bulwark in which Mamdani was asked whether he felt uncomfortable about the use by some pro-Palestinians of the phrase “globalize the intifada”, which has been condemned by some Jews as a call to violence.He would not denounce the expression, saying it spoke to “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights”. The comment led to rapid backlash from some Jewish groups.That was just the latest in a pattern in which, stepping outside a campaign tightly focused on affordability, he has been prepared to speak out about the highly contentious issue of the Middle East.He has decried the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, and championed the cause of Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian student activist at Columbia University who was released on Friday after more than three months detention on the orders of a federal judge.Given the nature of his economically-focused campaign, wouldn’t it have been expedient to skirt around the issue of Gaza? .“I have always been honest,” he says. “I am honest because I believe it is incumbent upon us to have a new kind of politics, consistent with international law, and I believe there are far more New Yorkers looking for that consistency than one would imagine.”Mamdani has clearly been riled by the attacks made on him, which he calls Islamophobic. “I have been smeared and slandered in clear racist language,” he says, pointing to mailers from a Cuomo-supporting super PAC which altered his face to be darker and his beard to be thicker (the super PAC denied any intentional manipulation).In the days after our interview, the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force announced they are investigating threats made against Mamdani, by an unidentified man who said he was a “terrorist” who is “not welcome in America”.None of this is new for him. He’s had to deal with Islamophobia since 9/11, when he was nine and had been living in the city for just two years. He was spared the worst of the anti-Muslim fallout of the attacks, he says, partly thanks to a kind teacher who pulled him aside and told him to let her know if he was ever bullied.But 9/11 left its mark. “Living in the shadows of that moment, it politicized my identity. It forced a nine-year-old boy to see himself the way the world was seeing him.”That young boy is now three days away from a vote in which he seeks to become the first Muslim mayor of New York City.As he finishes up his salad and downs a cup of hot water with honey and lemon, before rushing off to his next engagement, he looks a strange mix of bone tired and fired-up for the battle ahead. More