Zohran Mamdani’s dramatic, strong showing in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, where he forced a concession from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, amounts to a massive shot in the arm for progressives and other Democrats who have been imploring their party’s elder statesmen to step aside for a new generation of leaders.
Mamdani ran his campaign as an unapologetic progressive against an established favorite who argued his pragmatism would best meet the moment; a 33-year-old fresh face against a field of experienced candidates; a democratic socialist at a time when many Democrats worry whether that moniker alienates them from swing voters; and a critic of Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas, despite criticism from moderate Democrats who accused him of stoking antisemitism.
Tuesday night’s election was far from a clear test case for any single one of those factors, with Cuomo’s 2021 resignation as governor amid allegations of sexual harassment and Covid mismanagement also in play. And New York City Democratic primary voters are hardly representative of the swing-district and swing-state electorates that determine who holds power in Washington — one reason why Republicans are already using Mamdani as a rhetorical foil to swing-seat Democrats.
But Mamdani’s surge — putting him on the precipice of the Democratic nomination, with the results of the ranked choice tabulation set to come next week — is putting the rest of the Democratic Party on notice.
“Voters are sick of the status quo, sick of being force-fed these old, uninspiring candidates and told to vote for them or else, and they want change. If mainstream Democrats don’t understand that and offer that, voters are gonna look elsewhere,” said Lis Smith, a longtime Democratic operative who was a key part of Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential bid and who previously worked for Cuomo.
“Andrew Cuomo as a candidate combined the worst qualities of Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Smith continued. “He left office in disgraced like Donald Trump did and was running on a vengeance tour, and like Joe Biden, he was old, he didn’t have any new ideas, no ability to inspire people.”
During his victory speech Tuesday night, Mamdani discussed not only the impact he hopes to have on the city, but how he believes his win will echo across the country.
“The mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trump’s fascism, to stop masked ICE agents from deporting our neighbors and to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party, a party where we fight for working people with no apology,” Mamdani said.
He added, “If this campaign has demonstrated anything to the world, it is that our dreams can become reality.”
Maya Rupert, a Democratic strategist who managed the 2021 mayoral campaign of Democrat Maya Wiley, told NBC News that Mamdani’s “decisive victory” is a signal to the left that its candidates can run unapologetically authentic campaigns that take tough issues head-on with progressive solutions.
“These issues aren’t unpopular; we just need a way to communicate them across geography, across a multiracial coalition, across partisan divides. He was able to do that, and more than that, show other people across the country how it can be done,” she said.
“We’ve heard this so much since the election: Democrats have gone too far afield, the vilification of talking about social justice, talking about racial justice, that you can’t do that stuff and also win. You can, and if it’s where your politics are, you can’t do it any other way, I really believe that. So I hope there are more people that are going to take this moment and decide to run like this because it really does seem to be our path forward,” she said.
Not everyone in the party agrees. Reps. Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi, two New Yorkers who are veterans of battleground congressional races, put out statements criticizing Mamdani after his victory — Gillen called him “too extreme” and Suozzi said that his “concerns remain” about Mamdani.
A focus on the economy and affordability
As he did on election night, Mamdani spent much of the campaign grounding his appeal to voters around the economy. His campaign website prominently declares that he’s running to “lower the cost of living for working class New Yorkers.”
His most-talked-about policy platforms centered around affordability: proposals like free city buses, freezing rents, reforms to make housing more affordable, city-owned grocery stores and free child care, all paid for by raising taxes on the top 1% and corporations.
“What Zohran did that was so important was he was talking about finances the way New Yorkers talk about finances,” Rupert said.
“Instead of talking about New York as a whole, he brought it down to a granular level for people, what it meant.”
The focus on the economy is something many Democrats, Mamdani supporters or not, say is a key takeaway for party members looking to glean something from his victory.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, who did not endorse a candidate in the mayoral primary, repeatedly referred to Mamdani’s economic message during an interview Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when asked to explain the election result.
“The relentless focus on affordability had great appeal across the city of New York. He also clearly outworked, out-organized and out-communicated the opposition. So when someone is successful at being able to do all three things at the same time, it’s usually going to work out,” he said.
While Cuomo also discussed his plans to make the city more affordable, much of his campaign was based around his unique experience and history standing up to Trump. But that experience was a double-edged sword, and Mamdani repeatedly reminded voters of Cuomo’s checkered past, at a moment when many Democrats are calling for new faces in their party.
David Hogg, the Florida activist and former national party official who broke with the Democratic National Committee over his decision to support primary challengers running against Democratic officeholders, said that the result reinforced the movement to energize young voters around a push for a new direction.
“The people have spoken — and they’re saying that the establishment is cooked,” he said in a statement.
Hogg’s group, Leaders We Deserve, was the top donor to one of the leading outside groups backing Mamdani’s effort.
Basil Smikle, a former executive director of the state Democratic Party who ran Ray McGuire’s 2021 mayoral campaign, told NBC News that the result was a “repudiation of establishment politics that I think will ripple across the country.” But he also cautioned that Cuomo’s “baggage” was tied up into that anti-establishment fervor, and the consistent anti-Cuomo message from virtually every other candidate in the field was a unique dynamic that wouldn’t exist in most other races.
Smith, the Democratic operative, added that she does believe Democrats of all stripes can learn from Mamdani’s positive message and his “go-everywhere media strategy.” But the longtime party strategist didn’t believe the result was an unconditional victory for the progressive policies.
“Obviously, I’m skeptical that everyone who voted for Zohran Mamdani agreed with all his economic and public safety policies, and I say that as someone who ended up ranking him. A lot of his ideas are going to be nonstarters in most places,” she said.
The race isn’t over
Unlike most Democratic primaries in deep-blue territory, victory for Mamdani won’t assure him a glide path to general election victory in the fall.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is running for re-election as an independent, after Trump’s Justice Department dropped federal corruption charges he was facing. And Cuomo could do the same, running on a ballot line his campaign created months ago. Cuomo said in a statement Tuesday night that he was considering whether to take that path.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the MSNBC host and longtime civil rights activist, said during an interview Wednesday on “Morning Joe” that the dynamics make for a “very interesting fall election.”
Regarding Mamdani, “you have The New York Times saying he’s not qualified; you’re going to a broader base of voters. Will some of the older voters, even in the Black and Latino community, come out and vote for him when you have Eric Adams, the incumbent mayor, on the ballot? … What about Jewish voters where Mamdani, rightly or wrongly, has been called antisemitic?” Sharpton asked.
“He made history last night, the question is whether or not it can stick with a general election,” Sharpton added.
Jeffries and Democrats’ Senate leader, Chuck Schumer (also a New Yorker), put out statements congratulating Mamdani, but they didn’t explicitly call for the party to fall in line behind him.
Rupert told NBC News that after years and years of progressive Democrats being told to unite around the nominee when the establishment’s choice wins a primary, she hopes the party will do the same now that the shoe is on the other foot. She was heartened to see Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin’s quick congratulations for Mamdani on Tuesday night.
“This is going to be a moment for the establishment, for a lot of the people who lined up behind Cuomo. It has to mean something to win the nomination,” she said.
“Democrats have spoken, they made a selection, and I would really, really hope that if he is facing headwinds from different directions, that the party would come together the same way I’ve seen the party come together over and over again when progressives need to say: ‘All right, let’s make sure that people turn out and vote for [someone] who wouldn’t have been our first choice.’”