Notes on Zohran Mamdani’s Win

From the NYT:

A backbench assemblyman who had immigrated to New York City at age 7, he had almost no citywide profile. Even fellow socialists thought his views on policing and Israel would put a hard ceiling on his support. And the field running against the scandal-plagued mayor, Eric Adams, was growing by the day.

Mr. Mamdani later told an ally that he had confided in his fiancée, Rama Duwaji¹, that he didn’t really think he could win. The goal was to build a template for the kind of muscular leftist campaign that might one day crack the Democratic establishment’s hold.

Continues:

Behind the scenes, it featured a key apology to Gov. Kathy Hochul at a Midtown hotel; renewed contact with Mr. Rudin, after a horrific shooting touched the core of his business; a courtship of Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor, that bought Mr. Mamdani time, if not an alliance; and more than a bit of luck.

And:

But his election on Tuesday as the 111th mayor of New York owes as much to the equally improbable backroom campaign that followed. In Midtown C-suites and intimate phone calls, a left-wing populist who had built his brand on taxing the rich wooed, charmed and delicately disarmed some of the most powerful people in America.

No mayor has led New York without at least some tacit support from the business elite since the fiscal crisis of 1970s. Running aggressively against them had worked in the primary, but as summer slid toward fall, his advisers worried that leaders of the group could push both Mr. Adams and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, out of the race.

It’s pretty interesting to see how power moves in the spheres of New York politics. This campaign has been masterfully played and a ginormous upset to the moneyed interests who sede in Manhattan.

And now the nation watches closely as he settles in and starts making moves on his agenda. I’m excited for progressives to finally be back in the spotlight, hopefully learning from past mistakes². The most important issue of our generation is cost of living. The middle and lower class are struggling to build wealth: rent, healthcare, groceries—they’re all soaring in cost without the income to match.

If Democrats progressives effectively tackle this critical issue, fight to push forward zoning reform and take point on public safety–they can build an unstoppable coalition.

The denial was swift and severe

In the meantime, establishment Democrats in podcasts and mass media are in denial. If I hear one more pundit confidently saying “It’s not going to work outside of NYC” I’m going to throw a fit.

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1. He met his wife on Hinge, y’all. There’s hope! 😂↩︎

2. Part of this perception of “past electoral mistakes” being adopting progressive social stances is ackshually moneyed corporate interests co-opting the issue in order to exploit, profit from and undermine them. But that’s a conversation for another day.↩︎