OPINION:
Zohran Mamdani won the New York City Democratic primary for mayor, immediately becoming the favorite to win the general mayoral election — and an object of both adulation and concern.
Mr. Mamdani defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and in so doing destroyed what remained of the now unloved, unhonored and unlamented Cuomo political dynasty, which has dominated politics in New York for more than 40 years. Good riddance.
Because most of the truly bad ideas in American government start in or around New York City, it is worth taking a moment to think about what Mr. Mamdani’s victory might mean for those of us who live elsewhere.
It’s important not to read too much into any single election. That said, the most simple and enduring rule in campaigns is that something always beats nothing. Mr. Cuomo didn’t bother to explain what he intended to do as mayor; he just collected endorsements and cash (about $30 million). In contrast, whatever you think of his ideas, Mr. Mamdani, a New York state representative, aggressively presented a coherent and fairly thorough set of policies that he believes will improve the quality of life of New Yorkers.
Those ideas are, of course, what we are going to spend the next few months discussing. Mr. Mamdani wants the city to run grocery stores, provide “free” child care and “free” mass transit, set the minimum wage at $30 per hour, freeze rents, defund the police, globalize the intifada, etc.
Keep in mind, this is a city where residents already pay the highest taxes in the nation, a city that has surrendered to shoplifters (locking goods in cabinets), criminals, fare jumpers, vagrants living in the transit system, failing schools, illegal immigrants housed in midtown hotels on the taxpayer tab and more.
For Democrats, a Mamdani campaign will be a nightmare. Even if he loses, he is not going away; his agenda and rhetoric will set the tone for the party into the 2026 election cycle. Should he win, which is certainly possible — and may be likely given that the city broke for Vice President Kamala Harris by 38 percentage points in November — he will be the best-known Democrat in the United States well into the 2028 presidential election cycle. Consequently, his agenda will be the de facto starting point for Democrats for some time.
That makes sense. All the energy in the Democratic Party is found on the farthest leftward part of the spectrum and has been for at least a decade. The “moderates” — the ones who want only half your money and are willing to tolerate 10 million illegal immigrants but no more — have been marginalized for obvious reasons. Why buy a bad copy when you can buy the original?
Mr. Mamdani is a faithful representative of the new Democratic Party, a party that is culturally at war with most of America, especially working-class America, a party whose identity is now entirely associated with all the worst impulses of the left. That is a lovely gift for a Republican Party that is having trouble finding its north star on policy and is likely to have an identity crisis of its own in 2028.
Candidates and elected officials like Mr. Mamdani also will make things infinitely easier for President Trump as he sails toward the last few years of his tenure and provide perfect foils for Republican presidential primary contestants in 2028.
As for the people of New York City? One of the most difficult and durable rules of life is that you really can’t help people who refuse to help themselves. Some residents, like Mr. Trump, will join the diaspora and leave the city, which may lose as many as three congressional seats after the next reapportionment and which has already lost 800,000 people in the past five years.
They will move, as they have done for years, to the South and West and will immediately start annoying their neighbors by complaining that their new community is not as good as New York. But none of them will ever go home.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times. He was born and raised in New York City.
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