Most of what I know about today's Democratic primary for the New York City mayor comes from posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, from people who follow NYC politics much more closely than I do from my perch some 3,000 miles away in Oregon.
I learned that Andrew Cuomo, the former Governor of New York, was trying to mount a comeback after he resigned following allegations of sexual abuse and mismanagement of the Covid pandemic. Cuomo has been leading in the polls over his chief primary rival, Zohran Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani
Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, was expected to lose to Cuomo, though NYC's ranked choice voting process would make the primary race interesting. Final results weren't expected until next week, as the number of candidates in the primary for mayor made it unlikely that anyone would get more than 50% of the vote and win outright.

Well, Mamdani surprised the pundits by coming out ahead of Cuomo, who has conceded to Mamdani. A Politico story talks about the implications of Mamdani's victory for the Democratic Party nationally.
If Mamdani’s lead holds, it would mark a humiliating defeat for Cuomo, a fixture in New York politics who tried to resurrect his career four years after resigning in disgrace, following sexual harassment and Covid mismanagement allegations.
A Mamdani victory would also be tantamount to a political earthquake that will reverberate across the country, as the Democratic Party — still reeling from its losses last year — tries to chart its path forward. His lead late Tuesday night portends what will likely be an historic triumph of the party’s left wing in the biggest city in the United States, for one of the highest-profile jobs in American politics.
The hard-fought local fight mirrors the national Democratic divide: A young, inexperienced socialist running on a hopeful message with the backing of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez versus a 67-year-old, three-term former New York governor who worked in Bill Clinton’s Cabinet and got the ex-president’s endorsement in the race’s waning days.
It is also the most high-profile Democratic primary in the country since President Donald Trump won a second term seven months ago. Seen as a referendum on how Democrats should counter the White House, New Yorkers lined up in droves during nine days of early voting, many of them matching the profile of a prototypical Mamdani supporter: Young, white and in gentrifying areas of the city.
If the results Tuesday night hold, they will have chosen a new voice focused on affordability over a party elder who leaned into his prior experience fighting Trump and promised to restore order to Adams’ chaotic City Hall.
Buoyed by that relentless focus on affordability — Mamdani pledged to freeze the rent on more than a million regulated apartments and push for a tax increase on the rich to fund free buses and create city-owned grocery stores — the social media savvy state lawmaker earned a devoted following that included more than 50,000 volunteers. That workforce is unprecedented in a New York City race, according to Jerry Skurnik, a longtime political consultant.
Being a Democrat who desperately wants my party to make a strong showing in future elections, I find Mamdani's apparent victory to be really encouraging. Democrats have to break out of their stale identity politics where they attempt to craft election wins by targeting traditional Democratic voting blocs with traditional policy messages.
It's great that Mamdani is a young Muslim who takes bold stands that don't sound like they've been fashioned out of polling and focus groups. I don't know him at all well, but my impression is that he is able to speak authentically, from the heart, which is valued by voters these days over carefully tailored speeches.
Sure, Republicans will seize on his Democratic Socialist leaning, hoping to brand Democrats nationally with what they consider to be the socialist epithet. But I doubt this will work very well. After all, Trump is a convicted felon with lots of other personal negative baggage, and he's sitting in the White House.
I find it admirable that NYC voters chose Mamdani over Cuomo even though Cuomo hammered his opponent for criticizing Israel and promoting Palestinian rights. I agree with Mamdani's position on these issues, as do most Americans.
It's absurd to equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. Plenty of Jews in both the United States and Israel find a lot not to like in how Israel has conducted its war against Hamas and treated Palestinians in the West Bank.
M. Gessen wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times, "The Attacks on Zohran Mamdani Show That We Need a New Understanding of Antisemitism." Here's how it starts out:
Last Wednesday, the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani held a press conference in Harlem to announce that the civil rights activist Maya Wiley had endorsed him. As the event was wrapping up, the thing that always happens to Mamdani happened: Someone in the crowd wanted the candidate to prove that he was sufficiently opposed to antisemitism. “It pains me to be called an antisemite,” Mamdani said, and then, as he went on to describe what it’s been like, he choked up.
He has plenty of reasons to be upset. He has been subjected to a relentless barrage of anti-Muslim slurs and threats. Someone messaged, “The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.” He has had to hire security. Meanwhile, proposed mailers illustrated with photographs of Mamdani doctored to make his beard fuller, darker and longer have been circulating online.
An anti-Mamdani TV ad includes a montage of him wearing a kurta — a long shirt in a style often worn in South and Central Asia (though on the campaign trail Mamdani usually wears a jacket and slacks). Billionaires who support the candidacy of the former governor Andrew Cuomo bankrolled glossy fliers that warn that “Mamdani’s radical plans would make New York less safe.” The message: He is a Muslim fundamentalist who poses an existential threat to this city and its Jewish residents.
When I spoke to Mamdani on the phone a couple of days after that press conference, it became clear to me that there is another reason he chokes up: It’s hard to keep defending yourself against a false accusation. It’s logically impossible to prove an absence. And as anyone who has ever been falsely accused knows, it hurts.
The mayoral campaign isn’t the first time that Mamdani, who has spoken out in support of Palestinian rights, has faced accusations of antisemitism, but this time critics have focused on two events. In the June 4 Democratic debate, candidates were asked which foreign country they would visit first after becoming mayor. Cuomo named Israel. Mamdani said he would stay in the city and added, “As mayor, I will be standing up for Jewish New Yorkers and will be meeting them wherever they are across the five boroughs, whether it’s at their synagogues and temples or in their homes or at the subway platform.”
A moderator then insisted that Mamdani declare whether he believes in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. He answered that he believes “that Israel has a right to exist as a state with equal rights.” Cuomo cut in to score a point: “He said he won’t visit Israel!”
If there is such a thing as correct answers in politics, Mamdani had them. It ought to be uncontroversial for a mayor to focus on his city and for a politician to assert the value of equal rights. But the exchange fueled accusations of antisemitism.
Last week, Mamdani was interviewed on “FYPod,” a podcast aimed at a young political audience. One of the hosts asked Mamdani to comment on the slogan “Globalize the intifada,” which, the host acknowledged, means different things to different people. “Antisemitism is a real issue in our city,” Mamdani responded. “It’s one that can be captured in statistics,” he continued. “It’s also one that you will feel in conversations you will have with Jewish New Yorkers across the city.”
He talked about a Jewish man who told him about being at services at his synagogue, hearing a door creak open behind him, and feeling terrified. Mamdani talked about a Jewish man in Williamsburg who had started locking a door he’d always kept open. Then Mamdani said he would fight antisemitism not by banning words but by increasing funding for anti-hate-crime programming by 800 percent.
His response showed deference to the American tradition of free speech, evidenced commitment to tackling the issue at hand and showcased his remarkable talent for articulating the feelings behind the politics. More accusations of antisemitism followed.
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