New York City Tremor

What Does Zohran Mamdani's win the NYC Democratic Primary for Mayor portend for the city and the Democratic Party

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First off, apologies for the slow posting this week — but my kids are off to camp this week, and I wanted to spend as much time as possible with them before they left.

Also, I wanted to take some time to wrap my head around the New York mayor’s race and the apparent victory of 33-year-old socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Did Mamdani Win Or Did Cuomo Lose?

As my post earlier in the week noted, this was not the outcome that I preferred. Having said that, when I finally went to the polls on Tuesday and cast a fourth-place vote for Andrew Cuomo, I was not happy about it. As much as I dislike Mamdani, I dislike Cuomo far more and was delighted to see his arrogant and self-serving run for mayor go down in flames. Whatever one thinks of Mamdani, Cuomo ran a lifeless and uninspiring campaign that never bothered to explain to New Yorkers why he wanted to be mayor or why they should vote for him. He deserved to lose.

I raise this point about Cuomo because I think it’s a very good explanation for why Mamdani won. I don’t mean to take anything away from Mamdani. He ran a great campaign. He energized young progressive voters to rally to his cause, but you will have a tough time convincing me that he prevails if not facing off against an opponent as flawed and disliked as Cuomo.

Last year, when I first heard that Cuomo was planning to run, I assumed it was a joke. Turns out I was partially correct. For people who don’t live in New York, I can’t tell you how much genuine antipathy Cuomo engenders. Liberals never liked him (and for good reason), his sexual harassment scandal created even more ill-will, and even those who begrudgingly noted his policy success were largely sick of him by the time he left office. I think I met one person this Spring who had a positive word to say about him (and lots of people I know were voting for him, if only to stop Mamdani).

Cuomo’s substantial polling numbers were mainly a byproduct of name recognition, and his only real constituency was poorer Black voters, which proved insufficient for him to win. However, those strong poll numbers not only kept other, better candidates out of the race, but they also masked Cuomo’s weaknesses and susceptibility to a young upstart like Mamdani. Indeed, I don’t know that Mamdani gets the pickup that he does when people start paying attention to him if a different candidate is leading the polls. The power of Mamdani’s message was magnified because he ran against such a discredited, past-his-prime candidate like Cuomo. Beyond that, Mamdani comes across as a happier, more positive guy. He’s the kind of person you’d probably want to have a beer with. No one feels that way about Andrew Cuomo.

Beware of The Overinterpretation

With that in mind, I’m wary of the post-election takes that have portrayed this election as a political earthquake and the death knell of the Democratic Party establishment.

It’s certainly true that lots of members of the Democratic establishment endorsed Cuomo — from former mayor Mike Bloomberg and President Bill Clinton to Rep. Jim Clyburn. They looked pretty out of touch on Wednesday morning. But take these endorsements with a grain of salt. By the time most of these figures jumped on the Cuomo bandwagon, it was a two-person race between him and Mamdani. What political option did they have, particularly if they viewed Mamdani as too inexperienced and too politically toxic to govern New York City?

Then there are arguments like this.

Barkan is an astute observer of New York politics, but there are major reasons to question this takeaway.

The first and most obvious problem is if New York Democrats are sick of legacy politicians— and have been for a decade — why did they reelect Andrew Cuomo three times (the last time in 2018), and after he resigned in disgrace, nominated and elected his two-term lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul?

As for the national party, in the last two contested presidential primaries, Democrats chose Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, neither of whom was an anti-establishment candidate.

Moreover, earlier this month, two relatively moderate female candidates with traditional political backgrounds won gubernatorial nods in Virginia and New Jersey. Maybe Democrats are sick of establishment candidates. Perhaps they want true outsider candidates, who don’t rise through the party system. But one election does not prove that, especially an election in New York City.

I would expect that in the midterms next year, Democratic voters will, as they did in 2018 and 2020, prefer middle-of-the-road candidates who they believe are electable and can defeat MAGA Republicans. There will be some Democrats who want to burn things down, but I’d expect the dominant view will be: who is best positioned to beat Republicans and challenge Trump in Washington?

It’s The Economy, Stupid (ish)

The other major takeaway from this campaign comes courtesy of Politico reporter Holly Otterbein, who quotes a “Mamdani World” source: “It's the economy, stupid. Voters have been screaming for people to be laser-focused on costs and affordability, and making people's lives better, and to communicate in an authentic voice. Period. He did that. This is so fucking simple."

This argument makes a lot of sense, but I’m not sure it’s the reason why Mamdani won. Indeed, if you examine the results, Cuomo, not Mamdani, performed the best in areas where low-income or working-class people reside.

In areas where the media income is under $62,800, Cuomo won by 13 points.

Mamdani, to his credit, did quite well with middle-income voters. He won them by 10 points. Counterintuitively, he won high-income voters by 13 points.

To be sure, people who live in NYC and make up to $117,000 worry a great deal about costs and affordability — so I don’t doubt that Mamdani’s message resonated with them. But Mamdani’s strong performance among wealthy voters kind of gives away the ghost. These are voters better positioned financially to vote on vibes, culture, and progressive ideals. They have less to lose if Mamdani wins and can afford to take the risk of voting for him, also secure in the knowledge that there’s zero chance that a Republican will defeat him in November. Voting for a 33-year-old socialist with no management experience and some rather unorthodox policy positions is a luxury — and not one that Democratic voters in purple states enjoy. So I am skeptical that Mamdani’s success will be replicated in Democratic primaries elsewhere.

Indeed, it should come as absolutely no surprise that non-NYC Democrats want nothing to do with Mamdani. Indeed, several Long Island members of Congress went out of their way to distance themselves from him. I expect that to continue, especially as GOP attacks on Mamdani intensify. For Republicans, Mamdani and his left-wing politics will make for an effective political punching bag. His policy positions, from antipathy to Israel and his calls for free buses to government-run bodegas, are ripe for conservative mocking, and many Democrats don’t want to be in the position of defending them.

This is why I was highly skeptical about Mamdani’s ability to govern. He needs Democratic support in Albany to pass many of his policy priorities, and that backing likely won’t be forthcoming (Hochul has already shot down Mamdani’s calls for higher taxes). Nothing that’s happened since Election Day has made me feel better about his chances of policy success.

Having Said That …

Up to this point, I’ve eschewed addressing the Jewish question. I’m referring to Mamdani’s public disdain for Israel and his failure to perform genuine outreach to the Jewish community in New York, which is genuinely concerned about what his potential mayoralty could portend. I want to think more about this issue, but I wanted to share an email I wrote, sparked by the question of what Mamdani could do to reassure the Jewish community in NYC (slightly edited).

This is a good question to ponder but the reality is that Mamdani had plenty of chances to do this before the election and he didn’t take them. When a NYC mayoral candidate, a week before an election in which concerns have been raised about this embrace of anti-Semitic rhetoric, refuses to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” he knows exactly what he’s doing (if he’s as smart as everyone claims he is!). This is a guy whose introduction to politics came as the co-founded of an SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) chapter at Bowdoin University. His views on the conflict are probably one of the few things he actually believes deeply.

Having said that, I don’t think he’s a lost cause and the strategy of concerned Jews to kill him with kindness might actually be effective. Hostility might push him to hunker down in a more obstinate position. If he’s as smart as everyone says then he perhaps recognized that “globalize the intifada” rhetoric might work in a primary campaign with very progressive Jews who hate Israel but won’t work as well in a general election. Barack Obama ran as anti-war hawk in the Democratic primaries in 2008 but by the DNC was sounding more like a war hawk. Politicians can change course — though Mamdani could certainly conclude that if being hostile to Israel didn’t hurt him in the primary it won’t hurt him in the general.

I’m not smart enough to know specifically WHAT Mamdani should do on the outreach front but I think we’ll get a pretty good sense of what kind of politician he is by the choices he makes on this issue in the next few weeks. If he refuses to modify his views, then I wouldn’t hold out much hope for his political future. If he does the kind of outreach that pacifies concerned Jews it bodes well for his tenure. To be sure, this is a larger issue than just Israel and Jews.

Mamdani just ran on a bevy of policy ideas that have received very little scrutiny and are DOA in Albany. Will he make nice with Hochul and Albany Dems and trim his sails a bit or will he act like DeBlasio and demand that Albany support him. Time will tell, but I do think his political judgment is about to get tested in a major way.

Mamdani has an opportunity here. It’s really up to him as to whether he takes it.

Musical Interlude