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Democrats are jubilant: not only did they win elections in blue-state Virginia and New Jersey, they also elected a Democratic Socialist as mayor of New York City, the citadel of capitalism.
My guess: they will rue the day that Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old con man political newcomer with zero management experience who hoodwinked his followers with unrealistic promises and a great TikTok-ready smile, became the face of their party.
Democrats are already divided; that ripping sound you hear is the fabric of a once-great political movement coming apart at the seams. Mamdani’s win will inspire progressive candidates to challenge moderate Democrats across the country, backed by the leftist billionaires they pretend to hate.
Establishment officials like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, already tormented by the threat of being primaried by upstart Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will be pushed to adopt one extreme policy after another. That may help Schumer survive in deep-blue New York, but will it help moderate Democrats in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states that are home to the toss-up districts set to determine who wins control of the House next year? I don’t think so.
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The progressive left, blinded by ideology, will interpret Mamdani’s election as a mandate rather than the result of a pileup of political mishaps. They will imagine that Americans are actually ready to take cops off the streets and task social workers with keeping the population safe. They will leap to the defense of criminal illegal aliens and rally around Hamas in its battle for dominance in Gaza. They will advocate for higher taxes and greater government interference in people’s lives—more stifling rules and regulations — because that’s what the left does.
A member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s steering committee said at a conference last month that Mamdani will provide free gender-affirming care and even fly people into the city to receive it. That will not win the hearts of American voters.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who dithered for weeks before finally endorsing Mamdani, gets it. Asked this week if the young Socialist is the future of his party, the House minority leader answered with a cryptic “No.”
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But Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, celebrated Mamdani’s win, posting online: “Mamdani brings Rooseveltian vision, youthful energy and pragmatic hope to the Big Apple.” The Maryland congressman, safe in his blue district, is fantasizing. Pragmatic hope? As in proposing to freeze rents on subsidized apartments, which every economist since the dawn of time has declared the best way to clobber a city’s housing stock? Because, in fact, everywhere it has been tried, it has been a disaster.
Or maybe it’s promising free buses and free child care, which the struggling city cannot afford. Mamdani vows to raise taxes to generate the requisite funding, which is sure to accelerate the exodus of high earners from the city, making the Big Apple’s fiscal woes even worse. Is that the pragmatic part?
Demanding that the government play a bigger role in citizens’ lives is not a hopeful message—far from it. It suggests that individuals cannot manage on their own, that they lack opportunity and that their future is bleak. What a depressing message.
Here is the reality: Mamdani won because the only other credible contestant was Andrew Cuomo, a profoundly unpopular former governor who was forced to resign in disgrace. Cuomo ran an abysmal campaign, utterly lacking in energy and vision. He did his very best to make Mamdani look good.
And then there was Curtis Sliwa, a Republican who had zero chance of winning but refused to bow out. Exit polls show that had Sliwa exited the race, Cuomo might have pulled off a surprise win.
Success has many fathers, it is said, while failure is an orphan. But in fact, we know who is to blame for Mamdani’s win. Sliwa is on the list, but he is not alone. Unhappy New Yorkers can also blame Republican leaders who did not conduct a primary battle but instead anointed a candidate they knew stood no chance.
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And where was New York’s fabled business community? Why didn’t Wall Street tycoons, bodega owners and all the firms hurt by rampant shoplifting and the flight of wealthy patrons make some noise and get in the race earlier, before it went off the rails?
Here’s what must happen: all those business owners and managers whose fortunes depend on the successful growth of New York City must rally to elect Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik governor of New York next year and back moderate Democrats on the City Council. A Republican governor can rein in Mamdani’s effort to raise income taxes; property taxes are under the control of the City Council, which is currently dominated by progressives.
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Was the New York City mayoral race a referendum on Donald Trump? Democrats have tried to make every contest about the president and hope to tap into what they perceive as his unpopularity next year in the midterm elections. In fairness, it may not have helped that Trump threw his support to Cuomo in recent days or that he vaguely threatened to withhold federal funds from New York if Mamdani was elected.
It was also not helpful, in New York or elsewhere, that Democrats have dishonestly blamed the GOP and the president for the government shutdown. Trump’s decision to cut SNAP benefits in half may also have taken a toll.
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But the New York race was mainly about local issues and “affordability.” The irony, of course, is that it has been under Democratic leadership—and because of Democratic policies—that the cost of living in New York has skyrocketed. Why would voters want more of the same?
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