Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2025
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by Hunter Oswald
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22 Comments
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Following Zohran Mamdani’s presumptive victory in New York City’s Democrat mayoral primary on Tuesday, many in the media and political establishment have expressed varying degrees of shock that such a radical candidate could become a major party nominee in the country’s largest city. But his triumph should hardly be surprising; it is only a reflection of how far left the Democrat Party has tilted in recent years – and how much further left it seems poised to go until voters put a stop to it.
Mamdani’s win over runner-up Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of the Empire State, can perhaps be viewed as the last gasp of any sensibility among Big Apple Democrats. Cuomo is hardly a moderate and carried significant baggage into the contest after he was forced to resign from the governorship in 2021 following accusations of sexual harassment. But he is downright conservative compared to Mamdani, who has proposed such policies as freezing rent for one million residents, creating city-run grocery stores, and using taxpayer funds to pay for gender transition surgeries.
Yet with 93 percent of the vote in, Mamdani led with 43.5 percent of all first-place votes, compared to 36.4 percent for Cuomo. Although Mamdani technically won’t be the winner until the second round of votes are tabulated (New York City uses ranked choice voting for primaries, allowing voters to rank up to five candidates in order of preference), Cuomo has conceded the race.
“Tonight, we made history,” a triumphant Mamdani said following a congratulatory call from Cuomo. “In the words of Nelson Mandela, ‘It always seems impossible until it is done.’ My friends, we have done it. I will be your Democratic nominee for the Mayor of New York City.”
Cuomo was seen as the clear frontrunner throughout the campaign. The former governor enjoyed name recognition, support from the Democrat establishment, and substantial campaign funds. But in the final days of the race, the polling suddenly flipped and showed Mamdani in the lead.
While most of the attention has been on how Mamdani pulled off the upset, the bigger story is what his victory means for the Democrat Party – particularly if he wins the general election on November 4, which he is now favored to do.
Mamdani is an official member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and has always been outspoken about his socialist beliefs, especially during his tenure as a State Assemblyman in the New York State Legislature.
Back in 2022, for instance, Mamdani was pushing for a plan to make all city buses “free.” Despite the fact that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was already running an unsustainable multi-million dollar deficit, Mamdani called the plan “urgent and necessary.”
But as is always the case with socialist policies, those buses weren’t exactly “free.” According to his four-year plan to eliminate bus fares, it would have cost taxpayers an extra $438 million.
This past February, Mamdani further demonstrated his socialist and anti-Semitic beliefs by proposing legislation that would allow the New York government to forcefully shut down any non-profit that supports Israel. During his rapping career, he also reportedly “rapped about his ‘love’ for Hamas terror-funding group ‘Holy Land Five.’”
But Mamdani’s toxic blend of socialist policies and anti-Semitic vitriol hasn’t scared away his fellow Democrats. His surge in the final few weeks of the race came following crucial endorsements from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is also an official member of the DSA. These endorsements, compounded by endorsements from other DSA members, only solidified his support among progressives and his socialist base.
In an interview with Politico following Mamdani’s victory, Sanders stated that this victory shows that the Democrat Party’s establishment leadership has failed to recognize the growing power that progressives have within the party. “I think that the Democratic leadership is way out of touch,” Sanders said. When asked about how the results will affect Democrats in 2028 and beyond, Sanders made it clear that the Democrats’ future is a progressive one. “I’m not going to get into individuals,” Sanders said, “But it tells me that the future of the Democratic Party is around a progressive agenda.”
“Having the largest city in the country have a socialist mayor would send an extremely powerful and hopefully empowering message to other socialists and politicians and groups fighting for working class interests across the country,” added Grace Mausser, co-chair of the New York City chapter of DSA.
But while an ascendant progressive-socialist establishment may sound like good news for the left-wing activist class, it will likely mean yet more economic hardship and public safety concerns for New York residents. The city has already seen businesses flee amid the skyrocketing cost of living, rampant crime, and oppressive regulatory regime. A Mayor Mamdani would only supercharge those trends.
Mamdani’s win isn’t an outlier or a fluke; it’s simply a “mask off” moment revealing what Democrats believe and stand for. The difference now is simply volume – Mamdani says out loud what Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and the progressive movement have been telegraphing for years. And slowly but surely, they’re becoming the dominant force in the party.
Hunter Oswald is a Research Fellow for The American Spectator. He is an alum of Grove City College, where he graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. in Political Science. You can follow him on X @HunterOswald8.
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