The meaning of Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York

LOOKING a bit shell-shocked, Andrew Cuomo, New York’s former governor, conceded to Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary on June 24th.  Until recently, even the most enthusiastic Mamdani supporter could not have imagined that the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist, who until a few months ago was little known outside the neighbourhood in Queens that he represents as a legislator in Albany, would topple one of the biggest names in New York politics. Confirmation of the result will come once all ranked-choices votes have been counted, which will take until mid-July. The debate over what the result means, for the city and the Democratic Party, won’t wait.

One way of interpreting this result is as a battle between left and centre, in which the centre could not hold. Mr Cuomo is a business-friendly centrist. The people and the money behind him reflect this. He won endorsements from ageing Democratic heavyweights such as Jim Clyburn, a congressman, and Bill Clinton. His donors included Bill Ackman, a hedge-funder who also supported Donald Trump, and Mike Bloomberg, a former mayor (who donated $8.3m to Mr Cuomo’s Super PAC).

On the other side is Mr Mamdani, a fan of “solidarity” and free buses. He wishes to put city-run supermarkets in areas without them. He wants to tax the rich. He is a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, which endears him to some New Yorkers and alienates others, but which says little of his ability to oversee the city’s 10,000 sanitation workers, 36,000 cops or battle its innumerable rats. He has been ambivalent about whether the intifada should be globalised. Support from the Working Families Party, a small progressive party, was useful too.

A second way to interpret the result is less about ideology than campaigning. Mr Mamdani is good at it, both online and off. Mr Cuomo ran like someone who first campaigned in 1982, which in fact he did. Days before the election Mr Mamdani walked the length of Manhattan: 21km (13 miles), from the top of Inwood, down to Washington Heights, a largely Dominican immigrant enclave, through the Upper West Side, with its dutiful progressive voters, across Times Square, and finally to Battery Park, grabbing slices of pizza as he strolled. Mr Mamdani said he had 46,000 volunteers who blanketed the city.

Mr Cuomo rarely campaigned outside orchestrated rallies in union halls or black churches. He coasted on his name recognition (that 1982 campaign was for his father’s gubernatorial race). This may possibly have reflected some complacency. He led polls even before entering the race, despite having resigned as governor because of allegations of sexual harassment (which he denies) and of undercounting the number of elderly New Yorkers who died in care-homes during the covid-19 pandemic.

Perhaps this race was not about campaigning or ideology, though. Mr Clinton and Mr Clyburn were both born in the 1940s. Mr Cuomo is twice his opponent’s age, but by the standards of many centrist Democrats is a sprightly 67. Democratic primary voters are to the left of the electorate as a whole, even in New York. But they are also fed up with the generation of leaders that has lost to Donald Trump twice and yet clings on. This election was about that too. Precinct-level results show Mr Mamdani did best in areas with the highest share of millennials.

The contest is not over yet. Having fallen for Mr Mamdani, the Democratic Party could find that the prize of running America’s biggest city slips out of its hands. In November’s election he could face Mr Cuomo, running as an independent, and the incumbent, Eric Adams, who won as a Democrat but is one no longer. Mr Mamdani would start that race with an advantage. But the rest of New York City might not agree with Democratic primary voters about the wisdom of handing an annual budget of $116bn to someone who is great on TikTok. At least one prominent New York Republican will be delighted, though. “President Donald Trump might not mind having a pro-intifada, socialist, 33-year-old radical governing New York City as his foil for the next three years,” says Jesse Arm of the Manhattan Institute, a think-tank.■