Zohran Mamdani’s Historic Primary Victory Must Be a Wake Up Call for the Democrats
The energy and vision of the NYC mayoral candidate's campaign stands in stark contrast to an increasingly moribund national party, argues Matt Bernardini
At the beginning of June, I wrote about the important New York City mayoral primary election, and how the results could chart a new path forward for the Democratic Party. The young and leftist candidate Zohran Mamdani represented a breath of fresh air for a stale old (literally) political party. I thought that if he could beat the scandal-ridden former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, it might send shockwaves down the spines of Democratic leaders.
Yet as someone who passionately supported Bernie Sanders during the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries, I wasn’t naive enough to think that Mamdani could actually win against a longtime party soldier like Cuomo. And yet he did.
In the first round of New York City’s ranked choice voting system, Mamdani delivered a stunning seven point victory over Cuomo, leading the former Governor to concede on election night. Many astute political observers originally thought that it may take several days to know the full results. Mamdani will be the heavy favorite going into the general election in the fall, but will still have to navigate several hurdles, including his own party. More on that later. While Mamdani’s win is undoubtedly good for New York City, it also has important national implications and may help to solidify a fractured and outdated opposition party struggling to resist the rise of fascism.
With all the complaints about the Democratic party being a gerontocracy, Mamdani’s victory showed that the youth are ready to step into the spotlight. In a virtually unheard of statistic, the largest voting bloc in the primary were 18-24 year olds. This group has consistently turned out the least, often ceding ground to more conservative voters over the age of 50. Yet the electoral results completely turned convention on its head. Younger voters turned out the most, while the smallest voting blocs were the normally reliable older voters of 65 plus. Now a little of this could be blamed on the historic heat wave that hit New York city the day of the election. But it’s undoubtedly the case that much of this was due to Mamdani’s campaign turning out a large number of new voters.
According to the New York Times, an astounding 37,000 new people registered to vote in the two weeks before the election, compared to only 3,000 during the same period in the 2021 primary. The paper of record also noted the energy that Mamdani’s campaign possessed and the dedication to the issues that much of his staff had. He did in New York City what Bernie Sanders had been trying to do across the country.
Furthermore his election was a direct rebuke to the Democratic establishment and the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, both of which were light on policy and whose main hope for turnout rested on “I’m not Trump.” I even wrote about this dynamic before the 2024 election, where I saw Harris making the same mistakes that Clinton made.
“She has, mistakenly in my opinion, made it a point to appeal to suburban women who typically would vote Republican but who may feel turned off by Donald Trump,” I wrote at the time. “Undoubtedly those voters are out there, and probably are more motivated after the overturning of Roe v Wade. But I’m not sure how many there are.”
Unfortunately my concerns turned out to be justified as Harris failed to garner the same kind of excitement that Mamdani has been able to whip up. Pew Research just recently came out with the most comprehensive look yet at the voting dynamics of the last presidential election.
According to Pew’s study, Trump was able to slightly increase his vote share amongst key minority groups, while also continuing to dominate with white men in rural areas. But the biggest difference was in the turnout.
“Between 2020 and 2024, 85% of those who backed Trump in 2020 did so again in 2024,” the study found. “Harris received 79% of Biden’s 2020 voters. Compared with Trump’s 2020 voters, a larger share of Biden’s didn’t vote in 2024 (15%), and 6% voted for Trump or another candidate.”
That right there was the difference. A chunk of voters, uninspired by Harris’s campaign, stayed home. Contrast that with how Mamdani was able to bring a large number of new voters into the political process. In all likelihood he will have those voters again in the general election, along with standard Democrats who do not want to see Republican Curtis Sliwa come into office, or a second Eric Adams term. Mamdani has shown Democrats the way forward.
Unfortunately however, the party’s reaction afterwards shows that many are still not ready to give up the old system dominated by big money. Several big name leaders, including New York Senator Chuck Schumer, have so far not endorsed Mamdani. And New York’s other senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, even resorted to racism in her attempt to imply that Mamdani should not be the city’s leader.
After Mamdani’s victory, Gillibrand went on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show and falsely implied that Mamdani would target Jewish owned businesses. She also alleged that he has made statements supporting global jihad.
Seemingly realizing that this was not a good look, Gillibrand’s spokesman said that the Senator “misspoke.”
Gillibrand was instrumental in forcing former Minnesota Senator Al Franken out of Congress for a joke that he had previously apologized for. She also called on Andrew Cuomo to resign as Governor when sexual harassment allegations came out against him. Yet she declined to speak out against Cuomo when he jumped into the mayoral race.
Gillibrand, and the party establishment broadly, are once again reusing the same tired failed system and lack of leadership that so many in the Democratic Party are weary of. Their wishy-washy statements are not only disingenuous, they lack a cohesive and strong vision that can inspire voters to get involved in the political process. Contrast that with Mamdani, who has a clear and concise message, sticks to it, and comes across as genuine to much of the public. That’s the way forward for the Democratic Party. During the Trump era, Republicans have learned that old school politics are a thing of the past. It’s time for their colleagues on the other side of the aisle to have the same revelation.