Mamdani seals remarkable victory – but real challenges await

Zahran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, is an iconic figure in many ways. He will become the city’s youngest mayor since 1892, its first Muslim mayor, and its first African-born mayor.

He entered the race last year with no name recognition, little money and no institutional party support.

That alone makes his wins over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sillois remarkable.

But more than that, he represents the kind of politician that many on the left of the Democratic Party have been searching for for years.

He’s young and charismatic, with his generation’s natural comfort with social media.

Its ethnicity reflects the diversity of the party’s base. He did not back down from the political fray and proudly embraced left-wing causes – such as free child care, expansion of public transportation, and government intervention in free market systems.

Mamdani has also shown an uncanny ability to focus on the core economic issues that have been a priority for working-class voters who have recently turned away from the Democratic Party, but he has not repudiated the cultural tenets of the left.

But critics warned that such a candidate would be unelectable in large swaths of America, and Republicans happily cast this Democratic Socialist as the far-left face of the Democratic Party. However, on Tuesday night in New York City, he was the winner.

By running against and defeating Cuomo, a former New York governor who is himself the son of a governor, he defeated the entrenched Democratic establishment that many on the left view as woefully disconnected from their party and their nation.

For this reason, Mamdani’s campaign for mayor has generated an enormous amount of media attention, perhaps more than a municipal election deserves, even one in the largest city in the United States.

It also means that his successes and failures as mayor will be closely scrutinized.

Twelve years ago, Democrat Bill de Blasio won his race for mayor on a platform of addressing economic and social inequality in New York City. Like Mamdani, Americans on the left had high hopes that his administration would provide a national example of effective liberal governance.

However, de Blasio left office after eight years widely unpopular and with a mixed record of accomplishment as he struggled with the limits of his authority as mayor to implement new policies.

Mamdani will have to deal with those same limits — and the same expectations.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said she opposes raising the kind of taxes needed to fund Mamdami’s ambitious agenda.

Even with adequate funding, Mamdani will not be able to implement programs unilaterally.

He campaigned as a sharp critic of the corporations and business elite who call New York City home and have made Manhattan the financial capital of the world. But to govern effectively, he may have to make some form of peace with those interests, a process he has already begun in recent weeks.

He also condemned Israel’s behavior during the Gaza war and pledged to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal if he sets foot in New York City, a promise that could be tested at some point during his term.

But all these are problems for later. For now, Mamdani will have to get down to the task of making himself known on the public stage before his opponents do.

Although his campaign has attracted national attention, it remains a blank slate for much of America.

A recent CBS poll indicated that 46% of the American public is following New York’s mayoral election “not at all closely.” This provides an opportunity and a challenge for Mamdani and the American left.

Conservatives starting with President Donald Trump will try to portray the newly elected mayor as a socialist threat, whose policies and priorities will bring ruin to America’s largest city and pose a danger if embraced by the nation as a whole.

They will magnify every stumble and highlight every negative economic indicator or crime statistic.

Trump, who has a personal connection to New York, would certainly welcome political conflict with Mamdani and has a wealth of ways to complicate the new mayor’s life.

Mamdani will also be pressed to win the endorsement of Democratic leaders, such as New York Sen. and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has never supported his campaign.

But the opportunity for Mamdani is that he is not burdened by his past, which his political opponents tried to use against him during the election campaign to no avail.

When he is inaugurated in January, he will have the opportunity to build his political reputation from scratch. If Trump falls out with him, it will only give Mamdani a bigger platform to work on.

His talent and political abilities have brought him this far, and it is no easy feat. But this is nothing compared to the tests that await him in the coming years.

New Yorkers like to think their city is the center of the universe, but the race for mayor wasn’t the only election contest taking place Tuesday. In fact, that was probably not Tuesday’s best indicator of the current electoral mood.

Both New Jersey and Virginia – states where Democratic Kamala Harris narrowly won against Trump last year – held gubernatorial elections. In both cases, Democrats won by a more comfortable margin.

The competition in New Jersey was close, and the final results indicate that Trump’s successes in the state last year among working class and minority voters did not last without the president’s name being mentioned on the ballot.

Unlike Mamdani, Sherrill and Spanberger ran establishment-backed centrist campaigns with more modest policy prescriptions. However, all three focused on issues of affordability and cost of living. Exit polls show that the economy, once again, is the topic voters care about most.

With left- and center-center Democrats winning on Tuesday, it may be difficult for those looking to glean some ideas about what kind of policies and candidates Democrats should run to ensure future electoral success.

But last week, Mamdani insisted there was plenty of room in the party for all kinds of viewpoints.

“I think this party should allow Americans to see themselves in it, and not just be a mirror image of a few people involved in politics,” he said.

“For me, what ties us all together is who we fight to serve, which is working people.”

That view will be put to the test next year, as Democrats across the country head to the polls to choose their nominees for the midterm congressional elections. Tensions are sure to escalate and traditional fault lines may re-emerge.

But for one night, Democrats became one big happy party.