However you look at it, Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York is a marvel. A 33-year-old state assemblyman with barely four years in office handily defeated Andrew Cuomo, a former three-term governor who was discussed as a formidable presidential contender just five years ago. Cuomo had much of New York’s Democratic party establishment in his corner, while Mamdani had the city’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter in his. Many prominent billionaires, including former mayor Mike Bloomberg, paid for advertisements attacking Mamdani. Cuomo’s allies spent, at last count, $36m (€30.7m) on the race; Mamdani’s just $9m (€7.6m).
How Mamdani managed to pull it off is no mystery. The Uganda-born son of a Columbia University professor and an Oscar-nominated filmmaker monomaniacally focused his message on the ways that the largest US city had become unaffordable for working-class people. Mamdani’s platform consisted of a handful of bold if fanciful policy promises – free buses, a rent freeze, city-run supermarkets – that he said would bring down costs. It was a pitch that Mamdani made in unconventional venues, such as on podcasts with sceptical hosts, alongside a charming social-media campaign that didn’t look like anything else in politics. A 90-second video in which Mamdani interviewed food-truck operators about why they had increased the prices of their meat-and-rice plates – a type of “halalflation” – became an instant classic of the form. The candidate suggested that the problem could be fixed by loosening regulations.
Mamdani turned most of Cuomo’s advantages against him. Backing from big business demonstrated that the former governor had picked the wrong side in a populist conflict. Endorsements from other politicians (including Bill Clinton) became evidence of unimaginative establishment-style thinking; his decades in government were suddenly an albatross around his neck. The contrast between Cuomo – who departed the governor’s mansion amid scandal in 2021 – and the upstart half his age was best captured in a Murray Kempton line that John Lindsay, another young, dashing mayoral candidate, put on his campaign posters in 1965: “He is fresh and everyone else is tired.”
For Democrats beyond New York thrashing about for a new direction after the Biden-Harris debacle of 2024, Mamdani’s success offers plenty to mull over. Should they move further to the left or lean into class-war politics? Perhaps a focus on cost-of-living and pocketbook issues is the way forward? As they seek candidates for 2026 and 2028, should they look past traditional credentials and connections, and instead recruit outsiders unsaddled with the baggage of the party’s previous leaders? Is the most valuable communication skill not the ability to give a speech or navigate a debate but fluency in the language of Tiktok and podcasts?
There is plenty to study and probably only so much that can be learned. If Mamdani ends up beating incumbent Eric Adams in November, the spotlight will not be his alone. The likely winners of the year’s two other big races – for governor of Virginia and New Jersey – will cut a very different profile. And what works in the politics of the Empire City famously does not travel well. There is a reason that it has been more than 150 years since a former New York mayor went on to win another office.
As Democrats dive into localised neighbourhood data in a bid to forensically analyse Mamdani’s unlikely path to victory, they shouldn’t overintellectualise the nature of his appeal. A winning personality goes a long way.
Issenberg is Monocle’s US politics correspondent. For more insights into Mamdani and the New York mayoral race, click here.
Quality of life – but what kind of quality? And what kind of life? These are the questions now facing New Yorkers as they embark on the first steps in choosing their city’s next mayor. Early voting is well underway for the 24 June Democratic Primary, which sees former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo essentially tied with 33-year-old state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. The winner will then face off against current mayor Eric Adams, once a Democrat and now running as an Independent, who’s opted to sit out the highly contested primary and prepare for the general election in November.
Mamdani makes for an improbable frontrunner. Beyond his age, Mamdani – son of noted filmmaker Mira Nair – is also a registered socialist whose platform is laden with policies such as free childcare and public transport, a freeze on rents and reducing president Trump’s ability to arrest illegal migrants. But crucially, Mamdani wants to invest in a new, unproven Department of Community Safety rather than increase funding for the NYPD. The department, according to his plans, would have a $1.1bn budget to provide services such as mental health response teams instead of police in certain scenarios. Mamdani’s policies would drastically change New Yorkers’ quality of life – but for better or worse they represent a starkly different approach to his competitor.
Cuomo, by contrast, is a seasoned political pro and scion of New York’s most prominent political family. His campaign, at least on the surface, echoes Mamdani’s call for a more liveable, affordable, Trump-free New York. But Cuomo wants to expand, rather than downsize, the police.
Five years after the pandemic, New York – or at least New Yorkers – must figure out what kind of city it wants to be. Is Mamdani’s vision of a more radical, yet more equitable, urban landscape actually viable? Can a city contending with double-digit increases in violent crime numbers rely on citizens rather than cops to maintain an already fragile public order?
Meanwhile, the city is swimming in venture capital. According to a May report from the Center for an Urban Future, a think-tank, New York finds itself in the swell of a tech wave that is adding more jobs to the city than any other sector. This shift is luring the exact type of ‘elite’ young professionals that Mamdani is counting on: highly educated, suspicious of authority, well-paid and open to risk. And Mamdani is certainly a risky choice, as evidenced in a recent New York Times comment piece declaring his agenda “uniquely unsuited to the city’s challenges.”
Considering the outsized power wielded by New York’s City Council, much of Mamdani’s agenda would likely be constrained if he were to become mayor. But his win would send a strong message to other big Democratic-run cities – most notably Chicago and Los Angeles, both of which are also experiencing crime spikes, migrant crises and White House ire – that progressive policy can still cut through with the electorate.
Cuomo is a vote for the status quo: hard on crime, soft on investment – a nod to a middle-class New York somehow managing to survive. While a win for Mamdani – young, Muslim, an immigrant and with relatively radical policies – would be a win for uncertainty, and a shift toward the policies found in progressive cities across Western Europe that are largely unknown here in the US. Both men have a strong chance at winning. But can the same can be said for New York (and its precarious quality of life)? The jury is still out.
Kaufman is an editor and columnist for the ‘New York Post’. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today. And if you’re also struggling to make a decision about how to get the best out of New York, why not check out our City Guide?
