Mamdani wins: How a democratic socialist toppled the Empire State machine

A year after the party totally collapsed, Democrats, or at least their voters, are getting a glimmer of hope. Zohran Mamdani, a previously little-known state assembly member from Astoria, Queens, romped to victory on Tuesday, trampling the disgraced former governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and the constellation of corporate interests, billionaires, Republicans and establishment Democrats that propped up his shambolic campaign.

At one watch party tucked away on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, a crowd of supporters erupted in cheers when the first results rolled in, showing what most had expected going into election day: Cuomo had been routed and Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City.

Preliminary results showed Mamdani leading Cuomo by nine points, with 52% of the vote counted.

AP reported that over 2 million people voted in this election, the biggest turnout in a mayoral election since 1969. This election night will also see the city wave goodbye to Mayor Eric Adams. Once hailed as the future of the Democratic Party, the mayor leaves the stage as the only New York mayor to be indicted while in office.

Even the state’s moderate governor, Kathy Hochul, who was once Cuomo’s handpicked number two, has been able to put a finger to the wind and has supported Mamdani throughout most of his general election campaign. The same can’t be said for many New York Democrats, including the party’s highest-ranking leaders, like Sen. Chuck Schumer, himself a soon-to-be constituent of Mamdani, who has refused to endorse the mayor-elect.

Nonetheless, questions remain about Mamdani’s place in the Democratic Party, after some Democrats embraced his brand of politics as others show Mamdani the cold shoulder. At one Queens watch party, Mamdani voters expressed hope that the Democratic party would follow his lead, even though they were skeptical there was the will, or even ability to do so.

One Mamdani supporter, Tyler, 33, told Salon that the campaign had nonetheless reinvigorated his interest in politics. He also said that how politicians treated Mamdani would be important as he considers who to vote for in future Democratic primaries.

“I begrudgingly voted for Harris because I thought Trump was worse, and I think that that’s been borne out by reality. But I was actually excited to go vote today. I waited until election day to do it, but I was very excited to go out and vote,” Tyler said.

Asked whether he thought Democrats might learn from Mamdani’s success, Tyler expressed skepticism.

“They’re not willing. They might get dragged. But also I think, no. There are enough structural impediments that the sort of program that Zohran ran on is sort of antithetical to what the Democratic Party stands for,” Tyler said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., shared a similar sentiment in a statement on the race, saying Mamdni won on an affordability agenda that niether “the entrenched political establishment or corporate media” would acknowledge.

“They’ll leave out the hard truths: Chuck Schumer and the Democratic establishment are losing relevance, AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby have become toxic forces in Democratic politics, voters are fed up with the gerontocracy and political corruption, and a united grassroots movement built on a working-class agenda can—and will—beat the billionaire-backed status quo,” Sanders said.

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At the same time, Republicans are already showing just how afraid they are of Mamdani and his brand of politics. The New York Post reported that Republicans are considering invoking the Constitution’s “insurrection clause”  — a back-room scheme cooked up to deny the will of voters and prevent Zohran Mamdani from being sworn in. It’s an echo of Speaker Mike Johnson’s, R-La., refusal to swear in the representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, which also conveniently prevents the House from voting to release the Epstein files.

Other congressional Republicans are meanwhile plotting to denaturalize and deport Mamdani, with Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., falsely accusing him of being “a communist who has publicly embraced a terroristic ideology.” Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who Trump had briefly nominated to be United Nations ambassador, has already outlined that calling Mamdani a “jihadist terrorist sympathizer Commie” will be her main tactic in next year’s gubernatorial election.

While Americans might expect no less than this level of racism and Islamophobia from Republicans, it’s been Cuomo who has shown his colors in the final stretch of this mayoral campaign.

Cuomo simply said, “that’s another problem,” as one right-wing radio host said that Mamdani would be “cheering” if “another 9/11 happened on his watch.” While a spokesman for Cuomo later denied that he was agreeing with him, his campaign tells a different story.

Cuomo, a one-time “#resistance” hero, closed his campaign on a diversity “can also be a weakness” message, which he delivered while mixing up the two Black panelists on MSNBC’s “The Weekend.” A Cuomo spokesman later said he was sitting “in a mobile van unit with an earpiece and staring directly into the camera and couldn’t tell who was talking.”

Cuomo’s campaign also had an explanation for an AI-generated ad posted (and quickly taken down) by his campaign, which depicted an AI-generated Black man in a keffiyeh shoplifting before declaring himself as “a criminal” in support of Mamdani. A Cuomo spokesman later explained that this had been “inadvertently” posted by a junior staffer before being taken down.

It’s safe to say that Cuomo did not wrap up this bizarre and embarrassing coda to his political career with grace. New Yorkers, however, may be able to find some solace in the fact that Cuomo will still get a chance to make good on one of his campaign promises, that he’d move to Florida if Mamdani wins.

While the attacks on Mamdani are sure to continue among Republicans and conservative Democrats, and though it’s clear that the rich and powerful are already aligning on ways that they could undermine New York’s incoming democratic socialist mayor, for tonight, Mamdani’s win is an unabashed victory for Democratic voters in New York City.