What Mamdani's Victory Tells Us

New York City can feel like the center of the American political universe these days.

The president is a New Yorker, as are Democrats’ leaders in the House and Senate. So are the chairs of the Congressional Black, Hispanic, and Asian Caucuses, as well as a faction of Republican congressmen who likely hold the keys to the GOP agenda. Now, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s all-but-certain victory in the NYC mayoral Democratic primary has once again thrust the city into the national spotlight. The official results won’t be tallied until next week, and an unusual general election still looms: Incumbent mayor Eric Adams is running as an independent and Andrew Cuomo, who wildly underperformed expectations on Tuesday, could still do the same.

Mamdani is not the mayor of New York City yet. But he is now the overwhelming favorite, a fact that is a genuine earthquake to American politics. Here are five takeaways from his likely victory.

A breakthrough for the left

The leader of the biggest and wealthiest city in the U.S., the financial capital of the world, is likely to be a democratic socialist; the leader of the city with the biggest Jewish population outside of Israel will be an outspoken, unsparing critic of the Israeli government — and will have secured that position by notching, at the very least, notable support from Jewish voters. New Yorkers have a penchant for believing that what happens here affects the rest of the world. This will.

For the American left, the significance of Mamdani’s victory is enormous: NYC, population 8.2 million, will be the largest U.S. enclave ever governed by a socialist. More than that, his path to victory represents a long-awaited breakthrough. Well-off, college educated, culturally liberal whites have long comprised the progressive base, to the point that lefties’ struggles with working class and non-white voters — from South Carolina to Philadelphia to Texas — have become a central narrative in American politics (even high-profile victories like AOC’s were powered by white yuppies). That was reason enough for many (myself included) to initially view Mamdani’s campaign with deep skepticism. 

He proved those doubts wrong. Affluent whites remained some of Mamdani’s core supporters (contrary to the histrionics of some right-wing pundits, he would have won by more if the electorate was all-white). But he also did what so many leftists before him failed to do: achieve a genuinely multi-racial coalition. According to all available data, Mamdani made huge inroads among Black voters and seems to have outright won Asian and Latino voters. For a democratic socialist, that achievement, on this scale, is without precedent in modern American politics. How he governs will be enormously consequential for future candidates like him. But for now, whatever else, the left finally broke through its longtime wall. 

The end of an era on public safety 

Many will continue to debate the extent to which Mamdani’s success is attributable to his tactics, approach, platform, or personal brand. There are legitimate arguments in different directions: a young, handsome, articulate polyglot defeating a widely disliked sexagenarian with multiple ethics and sexual harassment scandals can only inform so much. One thing, however, seems indisputable: Mamdani successfully articulated a progressive message on public safety and disorder, two issues that have been an Achilles’ heel for the left in recent years. His shift was both substantive and stylistic: a once-vocal backer of defunding police (with the many tweets to prove it) he explicitly denounced the cause, repeatedly saying cops have a “crucial role to play” in public safety and promising not to defund the NYPD. That on its own was telling — a democratic socialist’s rhetoric this cycle was objectively more pro-police than that of many moderate Democrats (including several of his 2025 rivals) even just a few years ago. 

At the same time, Mamdani went on offense, arguing police were being burdened with too many issues and proposing a “Department of Community Safety” that would reassign some crisis situations to social workers. Crucially, he framed the proposals not as an effort to fulfill a certain vision of justice but as the best way to achieve safety. The approach worked, helping neutralize an avalanche of attacks from Team Cuomo and likely aiding Mamdani’s inroads among non-white New Yorkers, whom polls have repeatedly found to be more concerned with crime than their white counterparts. 

A new path for the left

Mamdani’s hybrid approach on crime and disorder — backing police funding while also proposing progressive reforms — was part of a broader shift away from the identity-centric liberalism of the 2010s. While he did not moderate on certain stances, like abolishing ICE, his campaign’s ads and public messaging almost exclusively focused on economic issues. A New York Times analysis found that it was Cuomo who was most likely to invoke Donald Trump and issues of identity — echoing the dynamics of the 2016 Democratic primary, when Hillary Clinton tarred Bernie Sanders as insufficiently concerned with issues of social injustice. Cuomo attempted a similar strategy, accusing Mamdani of radicalism and anti-Semitism.

It failed. There are a number reasons, including the huge shift of Democratic voters' sympathies towards Palestinians in recent years. But Mamdani also demonstrated an adeptness on cultural issues, dispensing with the academic jargon of Democrats past and defining himself with economic populism. His success could provide a playbook for the whole party. If so, the results may reflect the words of a famous New Yorker: “Something is ending, and something begins.”   

The center left is on notice 

Candidates who presented themselves as Cuomo alternatives with deeper experience and wider appeal than Mamdani — including Comptroller Brad Lander, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and state Senator Zellnor Myrie — flopped hard. Some of that can be attributed to Cuomo and Mamdani dominating the conversation and the airwaves. 

But the results are a warning sign for the center-left: At a time in which rank-and-file Democrats are furious with the political and economic establishments, “I have a plan for that” technocracy seems to have lost currency. Mamdani’s platform includes a number of proposals that even some liberal analysts took issue with, from a rent freeze to city-operated grocery stores (I find the grocery store idea neither radical nor effective: Brooklyn, 70-square miles with a population of 2.1 million, would supposedly find relief or oppression from one store in the entire borough). Those warnings didn’t matter — in large part because Mamdani demonstrated an authentic urgency around the affordability crisis that gave him credibility in voters’ eyes. Put simply: Until and unless candidates show they have the same sense of urgency, more and more Democratic voters may slide to the left. That could have real ramifications in primaries next year.

Democrats’ weakness under Biden-Harris has never been more clear

That there’s no direct precedent for Mamdani in American politics is part of what makes his victory so notable. But in terms of candidate strategy, a close analogue may be one man many Mamdani fans have little love for: Pete Buttigieg. In 2019 and 2020, he punched his ticket from small-town mayor to Cabinet secretary and Democratic superstar with a “go everywhere” strategy, blanketing podcasts, non-traditional media, and legacy press alike. It worked, and at this point, Buttigieg’s willingness to venture into uncertain, even hostile, territory is a core part of his political brand. But the strategy only succeeded because Buttigieg is an articulate and smart person capable of those kinds of conversations. Mamdani demonstrated the same ability, mixing it up with leftist, center-left, and centrist voices, and coming out stronger on the other side. (Underscoring the similarity, Buttigieg’s former chief strategist conspicuously praised Mamdani’s approach.)

It is just plain reality that, from 2020 to 2024, the Democratic Party was led by two people who were fundamentally incapable of what Buttigieg and Mamdani, two very different politicians, are good at. It’s also reality that the ability to effectively present oneself and articulate one’s ideas is not a luxury quality for a politician — particularly if one believes the country is in an existential battle for liberal democracy. I have long argued that it’s an overlooked fact that Biden and Harris were the two candidates in the 2020 Democratic primary who lost the most support in 2019. For a party still licking its wounds over the 2024 catastrophe, this is a simple lesson: Elevating leaders with basic speaking and candidate skills goes a long way. 

_{What’d you think of this week’s newsletter? Hit us up at [email protected].}