Happy Thursday! National Review’s political reporter Audrey Fahlberg here, your substitute Morning Jolter this Thursday and Friday before Jim returns to your inboxes next week.
On the menu: Democrats get a new superstar — or nightmare, depending on your perspective — in self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, the Queens assemblyman who is now Democrats’ presumptive nominee for New York City mayor.
How a Strong Ground Game and Clever Campaign Propelled Mamdani to Victory
In the end, 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo’s near-universal name recognition and decades-long career in politics wasn’t enough to overcome his opponent’s strengths and his own weaknesses. Charismatic socialist Zohran Mamdani swamped Cuomo in the first round of New York City’s complicated ranked-choice voting primary on Tuesday by carrying 43.5 percent of the vote to the former governor’s 36.4 percent. (The primary technically won’t be decided until a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in another round of counting, but Cuomo has already conceded the Democratic contest, and no other candidate has a clear path to victory.)
Of course, Cuomo was hardly the ideal candidate to contrast with Mamdani’s youth, inexperience, and wild ideas. In the end, he couldn’t overcome his candidates’ insistence that he’s too old and too corrupt for the job. The pandemic-era nursing-home scandal certainly didn’t help, nor did the years-old sexual-harassment allegations against him (which prompted him to resign from office and which he has denied.). Nor did the “Don’t Rank Cuomo” campaign that banded even low-polling candidates in opposition to the former governor’s mayoral bid.
As the editors observed yesterday, Cuomo took for granted his front-runner status from the beginning and “ran his campaign as a joylessly inevitable coronation rather than an appeal for votes.” Ultimately, his campaign simply didn’t have a clear throughline beyond pledging to crack down on antisemitism and leaning into his own experience as a get-things-done governor of the Empire State. As his 33-year-old opponent gained momentum in the polls, Cuomo struggled to push back effectively beyond warning New Yorkers that a Mamdani mayoralty would turn the city into a socialist hellscape.
And indeed, he might! Throughout the campaign, Mamdani pledged to freeze New York City rents, create city-run grocery stores, make buses “free,” provide free child care, and implement a $30 minimum wage. He also plans to create a Department of Community Safety that will rely on mental-health workers rather than police officers to address the city’s public-safety crisis within its subways. How does he plan to pay for these proposals? By raising taxes on the rich, he insists, even though that power lies with the state legislature and the governor. (Oh, and he’s an avid anti-Israel activist, calling for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest and refusing to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada.”)
To his credit, Mamdani ran a clever campaign that demonstrated his understanding of the electorate. He’s a strong public speaker, had a clear campaign message, and his team produced slick social-media videos that made him seem relatable to young New Yorkers. Cuomo thought he could leverage his political experience as an asset, but Mamdani also used Cuomo’s age against him at a time when grassroots progressives are eager to confront their party’s gerontocracy problem in the wake of Joe Biden’s presidency.
The New York Times has a helpful breakdown of the primary’s voter trends:
Mr. Mamdani, who campaigned on addressing New York’s affordability crisis, performed stronger than his rivals in areas where a majority of residents are college graduates, as well as in middle-income and higher-income neighborhoods. He won most areas with a majority of Asian residents and was modestly outpacing Mr. Cuomo in majority Hispanic areas.
Mr. Cuomo, 67, had more support in areas with a majority of Black residents and in areas where a majority of residents are low-income. There were some exceptions, most notably Mr. Cuomo’s strong performance on the Upper West and East Sides in Manhattan, where Mr. Mamdani struggled to win over an older, wealthier electorate, which includes a sizable segment of Jewish voters.
Word of the Day for Swing-Seat New York Democrats? ‘Concerned’
Take it from Representative George Latimer (D., N.Y.), the freshman Democrat who ousted progressive anti-Israel Representative Jamaal Bowman last year. “The concern that I have is that running New York City is an extremely complicated situation,” he told reporters yesterday. Latimer spoke about his own experience as a Westchester County executive for seven years — a very important job with a high population and a massive budget. “New York City makes Westchester look like nothing in comparison.”
The problem, he said, is that Mamdani may be over-promising a suite of progressive items that will be tough to deliver. Westchester now has free buses, he said, but that required three summers of sweating “bullets” to come up with the requisite financing.
“To provide free buses is not going to be a walk in the park. To create some of the things that he’s talked about are going to be hard to do. If he does it, then that’ll be to his credit, but it’s not going to be simple. He’s probably going to have to go to the state legislature to get authority to do those things,” Latimer said. “I try to be careful about what I promise, because whether I can deliver it or not becomes the first test of whether I’m effective in that office, and if I over-promise and under-deliver, you add to the cynicism of the society.”
Then there’s Representative Tom Suozzi, another former county executive from Nassau County who now represents the state’s third congressional district. “I had serious concerns about Assemblyman Mamdani before yesterday, and that is one of the reasons I endorsed his opponent,” Suozzi wrote in a Wednesday social-media post. “Those concerns remain.” (Sign of the times: National Review tried to grab Suozzi for a quote during House votes yesterday, but after dipping to the bathroom for a quick break and pledging he’d come back to chat, he ducked back into the chamber before I could grab him for comment.)
Others are feigning optimism. As the editors wrote yesterday, “Disappointed independents and Democrats are reacting to the outcome in New York by hoping against hope that Mamdani will somehow be suddenly moderated by the weight of his responsibilities; that once he takes office and has to wrestle with a budget and city politics, he will be forced to come to his senses and recognize he cannot run New York as a progressive fantasyland.”
What Comes Next?
The city’s billionaires are hoping and praying that scandal-plagued Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for reelection as an independent, can somehow pull a rabbit out of a hat before November. Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s John McCormick with a helpful breakdown on the state of the race after Tuesday:
Mamdani is widely expected to clinch the official nomination next week when the city finishes counting mail-in ballots. He will then face off against several contenders in November’s general election.
That field is expected to include Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee who ran unopposed in the primary, independent Jim Walden, and current New York City Mayor Adams. Adams opted to sit out the Democratic primary and has said he wants to run in November under party lines he created: “Safe&Affordable” and “EndAntiSemitism.”
Cuomo’s future in the race remains unknown. The former governor could re-enter the general election under his separate party line, Fight and Deliver — but it isn’t yet clear if he will want to.
The New York Post reported on Wednesday that Cuomo is not expected to run an independent candidacy. “Several insiders close to the Cuomo camp said Wednesday that the thrice-elected Democrat will almost certainly not run in the general election as an independent candidate, seeing no obvious path to victory.” In the same story, Cuomo insisted he hasn’t yet made up his mind: “I’m looking at the numbers from last night. I want to get an idea of what the general election looks like and what landscape looks like, and what the issues are, and then make the decision,” he said. “It’s one step at a time, and we haven’t even gotten all the numbers from last night.”
Republicans Have a Field Day
Pressed for his reaction to Mamdani’s stunning electoral performance, Senator John Fetterman (D., Pa.) told reporters: “I’d describe it as Christmas in July for the GOP.”
Republicans are indeed gleeful about Mamdani’s victory. On Wednesday, top Trump aide Stephen Miller reposted progressive Representative Ilhan Omar’s social-media post congratulating Mamdani’s “incredible victory” — a clear sign Republicans will not hesitate to tie the socialist would-be mayor to congressional Democrats in Washington. The president also condemned Mamdani’s primary success, writing in a Wednesday social-media post that Democrats have “crossed the line” in overwhelmingly support him in the first round of the city’s ranked-choice primary and calling him a “100 % Communist Lunatic!”
Expect New York Republicans to talk nonstop about Mamdani through the 2026 midterms. “He very much is the face of the Democratic Party, and they need to make very clear whether or not they embrace and support him or not. This isn’t a situation where they can be ambiguous,” Representative Mike Lawler (R., N.Y.) told reporters yesterday. “The fact is, this is someone who supports defunding the police. This is someone who believes in providing free housing, clothing, food, education, health care to anyone and everyone, wants to raise taxes astronomically, [and] has engaged in rank antisemitism across the board.”
And as Dan McLaughlin observed earlier this week, New Jersey Republicans’ 2025 gubernatorial nominee is also likely to benefit from having Mamdani “all over the NY metro news from now until November,” when New Jerseyans cast their ballots in the race to succeed outgoing Democratic Governor Phil Murphy.
ADDENDUM: Given Trump’s typically strong nickname game for politicians he dislikes, social media was displeased with yesterday’s Truth Social post. One user had some . . . creative alternatives, which you can peruse here.
Also, the clock is ticking ahead of Senate Republicans’ self-imposed July 4 deadline to pass the president’s reconciliation bill. Even though lots of disagreements remain over the legislation’s Medicaid, green-energy tax credits, and state and local tax deduction provisions, it’s looking likely that Senate Majority Leader John Thune will push ahead with a vote and essentially dare vocal critics — in the House and Senate — to vote against the president’s signature domestic policy bill. More on that soon.