Lessons From New York

As the Republican party implodes it is pressuring the entire party system

Photo by Santi Gomez on Unsplash

Last week, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist named Zohran Mamdani stunned the political world by winning the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. He finished first in a field that included Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who was attempting a comeback four years after resigning his office amidst a sexual harassment scandal.

As you might expect, the nature and magnitude of Mamdani’s victory drew a host of responses from Democratic officials and allies, ranging from excitement to confusion to outright fear. Would his ascendance make it easier for Republicans to define Democrats as a radical party of the left and undermine their chances in more moderate jurisdictions? Or has Mamdani uncovered the key to future Democratic victories?

I’d like to ask a slightly different question. In order to consider what it means for the Democratic party, I’m curious about what Mamdani’s emergence tells us about the state of the American party system.

The New York result could be viewed as an isolated outcome, but it could also be part of the dynamic that saw Bernie Sanders and AOC draw campaign-sized crowds in red states earlier this year to hear a message about fighting oligarchy.

If we take a systemic approach to party politics, it would be surprising if the changes taking place on the right didn’t shape how voters respond to their options on the left. Interest in progressive solutions in the wake of Donald Trump’s right-wing failures will naturally elevate the profile of Democratic Socialists like Mamdani, Sanders and AOC, but it will inevitably touch all components of the center-left and center as voters shop around for better alternatives and Democrats assess their future in the wake of Donald Trump’s rise and eventual fall.

There really was no way the Democratic party could be unaffected by Trump’s transformation of the Republican party from a center-right entity to a personality-based reactionary party advocating positions embraced by a minority coalition of ethnonationalists and the super wealthy. By upsetting the longstanding center right/center left positioning of the parties, Trump created the conditions where new voting patterns and new alliances will arise, and New York is one example of how that might look.

A disruption of this magnitude was bound to reverberate through the entire system, setting the stage for a reaction on the left that’s potentially equal—and opposite—to how far Trump has moved the country to the right. Mamdani’s rapid rise in New York could be viewed as a consequence of this shift.

This makes it worth considering how Mamdani staged his upset for clues to how the electoral terrain may be changing and how successful Democratic campaigns in the post-Trump era might work.

I say this with many caveats in mind. Although high-profile, this was only one primary election, and any observations should be evaluated accordingly. Without diminishing what Mamdani accomplished, Andrew Cuomo was a badly damaged opponent. And Mamdani hasn’t been elected quite yet. Ranked choice tallies need to be finalized before he is officially the Democratic nominee, and while New York is an overwhelmingly Democratic city, he still has to face a fall ballot that will include Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, both of whom have qualified to run as independents.

Also, for the purpose of this discussion, I’m less interested in the controversy generated by Mamdani’s platform and more interested in his message and positioning, which is relevant to the broad matter of how voters are responding to politicians.

With that said, here are a few things the success of Mamdani’s campaign can tell us about where voters may be moving and how candidates can reach them.

1. Economic populism resonates

Republicans win when they use racial and cultural animosity to divide us. Democrats win when they unite the electorate around shared economic interests. Mamdani campaigned on making life in New York more affordable for working class people while having the exceedingly affluent pay for it. As voters catch on to how Donald Trump, despite his words, is doing the exact opposite, more space should open on the left for populist economic agendas—including but not exclusively of the Democratic Socialist variety—as people feel pain from Trump’s policies.

This will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory for some Democrats worried about being labeled extremists for embracing left-leaning solutions, especially among those who are slow to realize that the rules of political engagement from the past four decades are changing rapidly and among those who do not want those rules to change. Economic populism might not have worked in that earlier time, but voters are telling us through their actions that times have changed.

2. Candidates will be rewarded for listening to voters

Mamdani was successful in part because he met voters where they are. To the above point about the growing efficacy of a populist message, he understood how working class New Yorkers are burdened by the exorbitant price of rent, transportation and food.

He understood this because he asked them.

Mamdani made a point of seeking out New York Democrats who voted for Donald Trump to find out what it would take to win them back. In his words:

Again and again what I heard from them was cost of living—an inability to afford the very things they recalled being able to purchase four years ago. And when they told me what it would take, they said again and again a relentless focus on an economic agenda. And ultimately in listening to them, we built a campaign that was explicitly about making this city affordable.

This should sound obvious, but it turns out people respond when candidates talk to them and hear what they have to say.

3. A populist message in the right hands can beat big money and big endorsements

Cuomo was favored because he had all the advantages of a traditional candidate. Name recognition. Major endorsements. Lots of money. Influential Democrats like Bill Clinton and James Clyburn supported him. Michael Bloomberg bankrolled him. For many years, that’s been the formula for how you win an election.

It didn’t work this time.

And it’s not the first time in recent months that endorsements and money failed to overcome populist sentiment. Kamala Harris’ prolific fundraising and star-studded campaign couldn’t overcome Donald Trump’s promise to lower prices. And just last April, liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court nominee Susan Crawford turned Elon Musk’s multi-million dollar investment on behalf of her opponent into a people-versus-elites message that won decisively.

4. Voters want something new

When times are stable and people are content, voters embrace the familiar. During periods of uncertainty when people are unhappy, new faces can emerge from out of nowhere.

The hunger for something different is especially pronounced among the young voters Democrats need to win nationally. The youthful Mamdani energized young people and brought new voters into the process. The largest group of early voters were between the ages of 25 and 34. An estimated one-quarter of early voters hadn’t participated in a Democratic primary at any point in the past twelve years.

Mamdani also ran a smart campaign. He mobilized young people through a communication strategy that blended social media sophistication with peer-to-peer messaging and an effective ground game that helped him overcome Cuomo’s conventional advantages.

Overall, turnout in the New York City primary was way up. People felt energized about having something to vote for rather than against. You don’t see that every day. Democrats don’t see that every day.

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Without over-interpreting the significance of Mamdani’s win, I find the timing of it interesting in that it followed the first wave of MAGA governance, which alienated voters who expected Trump to address their needs. Among younger people in particular and especially among Gen Z men, disgust with Trump’s economic performance spearheaded a dramatic abandonment of support for him.

This leaves us in an especially fluid moment. Coalitions are in flux. Voters who swung to Trump looking to have their needs addressed have swung away. They are up for grabs. They are open to new ideas. And they are looking for candidates who will genuinely listen to them.

At a moment like this, when old partisan alignments have been discredited and old rhetoric sounds stale, uncertain possibilities await.

Democrats will have to wade through these tumultuous currents, recognize why the familiar politics of the past four decades is failing, and figure out where to go next. This promises to be a rocky process, especially because people and interests who were favored in the old system may be out of favor in the new. It can be dislocating and it will take time to sort out. It may take an entrepreneurial presidential candidate catching fire with the public in two years the way the Mamdani campaign captivated New York.

But we have been here before, during other periods when new party systems emerged from the wreckage of the old. It is now up to Democrats to figure out how to approach this uncertainty, and to offer new solutions once they do.

In New York, those solutions might come in the form of a Democratic Socialist mayor. In other parts of the country, they might look more like prairie populism or have echoes of the 20th century progressive movement. However it manifests—and it is unlikely to be one-size-fits-all—the signal from New York is there is a market for a politics that uses government to address the burdens of life in America’s second Gilded Age.