By Lincoln Mitchell
Top Republicans and Democrats alike are talking about the sudden rise of 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani, a state representative who won the Democratic mayoral primary in New York on June 24, 2025, in a surprising victory over more established politicians.
While President Donald Trump quickly came out swinging with personal attacks against Mamdani, some establishment Democratic politicians say they are concerned about how the democratic socialist’s progressive politics could harm the broader Democratic Party and cause it to lose more centrist voters.
New York is a unique American city, with a diverse population and historically liberal politics. So, does a primary mayoral election in New York serve as any kind of harbinger of what could come in the rest of the country?
Amy Lieberman, a politics and society editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Lincoln Mitchell, a political strategy and campaign specialist who lectures at Columbia University, to understand what Mamdani’s primary win might indicate about the direction of national politics.
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Does Mamdani’s primary win offer any indication of how the Democratic Party might be transforming on a national level?
Mamdani’s win is clearly a rebuke of the more corporate wing of the Democratic Party. I know there are people who say that New York is different from the rest of the country. But from a political perspective, Democrats in New York are less different from Democrats in the rest of country than they used to be.
That’s because the rest of America is so much more diverse than it used to be. But if you look at progressive politicians now in the House of Representatives and state legislatures, they are being elected from all over – not just in big cities like New York anymore.
Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, ran an absolutely terrible mayoral campaign. He tried to build a political coalition that is no longer a winning one, which was made up of majorities of African Americans, outer-borough white New Yorkers and orthodox and conservative Jews. Thirty or 40 years ago, that was a powerful coalition. Today, it could not make up a majority.
Mamdani visualized and created what a 2025 progressive coalition looks like in New York and recognized that it is going to look different than the past. Mamdani’s coalition was based around young, white people – many of them with college degrees who are worried about affordability – ideological lefties and immigrants from parts of the Global South, including the Caribbean and parts of Africa, South Asia and South America.
When you say a new kind of political coalition, what policy priorities bring Mamdani’s supporters together?
Mamdani reframed what I would call redistributive economic policies that have long been central to the progressive agenda. A pillar of his campaign is affordability – a brilliant piece of political marketing because who is against affordability? He came up with some affordability-related policies that got enough buzz, like promising free buses. Free buses are great, but it won’t help most working and poor New Yorkers get to work – they take the subway.
He has been very critical of Israel and has weathered charges of antisemitism.
In the older New York, progressive politicians such as the late Congressman Charlie Rangel were very hawkish on Israel.
What Mamdani understood is that in today’s America, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party does not care if somebody is, sounds like or comes close to being antisemitic. For those people, calling someone antisemitic sounds Trumpy, and they understand it as a right-wing hit, rather than the legitimate expression of concerns from Jewish people. Some liberals think that claims of antisemitism are simply something done just by those on the right to damage or discredit progressive politicians, but antisemitism is real.
Therefore, Mamdani’s record on the Jewish issue did not hurt him in the campaign, but he needs to build bridges to Jewish voters, or he will not be able to govern New York City.
How else did Mamdani appeal to a base of supporters?
He got the support of “limousine liberals” – including rich, high-profile, progressive people. His supporters include Ella Emhoff, a model and the stepdaughter of Kamala Harris, and the actress Cynthia Nixon, but there were many others. Supporting Mamdani became stylish – almost de rigueur – among certain segments of affluent New York.
Mamdani is also a true New Yorker and the voice of a new kind of immigrant. His parents are from Uganda and India. But he is also the child of extreme privilege – his mother, Mira Nair, is a well-known filmmaker, and his father is an accomplished professor. Mamdani went to top schools in New York and knows how to play in elite circles and with white people. He is a Muslim man whose roots are in the Global South, but he is not threatening because he knows how to speak their language.
To people of color and immigrants, Mamdani is also one of them. Because of Mamdani’s interesting background, he brought the limousine liberals together with the aunties from Bangladesh.
Finally, on the charisma scale, Mamdani was so far ahead of other Democratic candidates. Who is going to make better TikTok videos – the good-looking, young man whose mother is a world-famous movie producer, or the older guy who is a loving father and husband but gives off dependable dad, rather than hip young guy, vibes?
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Is New York City so distinct that you cannot compare politics there to what happens nationwide?
I think that nationwide or at the state level there is a potential for something similar to a Mamdani coalition, but not a Mamdani coalition exactly. But in a place like Oklahoma, there are people who are in bad economic shape and who will also respond positively to an affordability-focused, Democratic political campaign. Mamdani remade a progressive New York coalition for this moment. Other progressives politicians should copy the spirit of that and reimagine a winning coalition in their city, state or district.
When Trump was campaigning, he focused at least on making groceries cheaper. Mamdani is one of the few Democrats who took the affordability issue back from Trump and addressed it head on and in a much more honest and relevant way. Trump has the phrase, “Make America Great Again!” That’s a popular slogan on baseball caps for Trump supporters.
If Mamdani wanted to make a baseball cap, he could just print “Affordability” on it. Boom.
Other Democratic politicians can take that approach of affordability and reframe it in a way that works in Kansas City or elsewhere.
Lincoln Mitchell is Lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
JC says
What this means is more people moving to Florida. In matter of fact, there were people that I talked to who were planning to move to FL from NYC. With this mayor race, their plans were moved up a bit. People are voting with their feet and money, and some people don’t want their tax money to pay for other people’s stuff.
In a way this sound super hypocritical, but it is what it is.
don miller says
he’s another obama. divide the classes , spread the wealth around, tax the rich , give those taxes to the less industrious, free everything, etc…
and retire with 100 million more than you go into office with.
Deborah Coffey says
In other words, “It IS the economy, stupid?” America will never be the 1950’s America again if we continue to widen the already huge wealth gap between rich and poor…which is exactly the aim of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. I’m not a progressive of the Bernie and AOC type, but it’s a much better track than the oligarchy-dictatorship track we are on now. God save America…somehow.
Dennis C Rathsam says
The Democratic party is imploding right in front of your very eyes! Socialism, Communism…. There’s no place for this in America! 5 or 6 fools have divided the party. Seems to me, the more you wine, cry,& let this disease fester in America, the more folks join the GOP!
Pogo says
@Amy Lieberman, and Lincoln Mitchell
Your qualifications to opine are estimable, as even a perfunctory vetting establishes. I put it to you that what is conspicuously absent here is the significance of ranked choice voting in this particular election. Otherwise, I’m in great agreement with what was expressed by both of you.
Thank you (and FlaglerLive.)
More is more, as stated:
https://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+mayorial+primary+ranked+choice
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
I’d say that maybe the Democratic party could learn a thing or two from him but learning requires the ability to store new memories and they’re all too addled with dementia to learn anything
Judith G. Michaud says
I would rather see a Muslim mayor than a felon president !!!!
Pierre Tristam says
I understand that the sentiment is well-intended, but it is nevertheless misguided in the sense that it still implies that Muslims are somehow not on the level as, say, Presbyterians or Catholics, about whom this would be a non-issue. It should be a non-issue with Muslims as well. The preference of Muslim over felon also creates an indefensible equivalency when you think about it, like saying for instance, “I’d rather have a gay president than a pedophile,” as if the two are ever comparable or have any association whatever.
Laurel says
This is what NY wants. He’s clearly a threat to Trump, as he wants Mamdani deported…of course, so that means the guy may actually be good! I’m hoping he is. We need more grassroots politicians, as the current parties are both not succeeding in positive change for all of us. Many problems could have been solved, but both parties won’t do it. They are too beholding to big money, and big corporations. “Citizens United” was one of the worst things to happen to this country. Big money buys our government, and now, they don’t even try to hide it. Trump is a transactional President. Musk bought the Presidency, and now that he is no longer in favor, Trump wants him deported…of course. So, now, Musk states he will financially back anyone who is attacked by Trump.
Wow. What a shit show these idiots are playing.
Citizens United should be reversed, and the campaign funding should be limited to us as individual citizens. Our country needs to be returned to We the People.
Atwp says
A Democratic Mayor in NYC is better than a Republican anyway. As Democrats we must vote for Democrats all over the country. We need common sense Democrats instead of the no brain, non caring Republicans we have. Come on Democrats let us out vote the greedy non caring, greedy Republicans.