On the cusp of electoral victory, New York mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani marched over the Brooklyn Bridge on Monday and arrived at City Hall, where he greeted cheering supporters with a promise.
“We stand on the verge of ushering in a new day for our city,” he said. Their conviction would “be the light that our city and our nation so desperately need.” Put differently: His importance won’t stop at the shores of the Hudson.
If public polls are accurate, Mamdani will be elected mayor of America’s largest city, his national prominence guaranteed. He will likely beat Andrew Cuomo, the former governor turned mayoral candidate who has tried to paint Mamdani as inexperienced and ineffective. He must also defeat Republican Curtis Sliwa, who has turned heads with his acerbic quips and omnipresent red beret.
For the progressive left, it will be a signal achievement — the highest executive office ever held by a self-identified democratic socialist in the United States. After a decade that began with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ insurgent presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton — continuing with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s improbable 2018 congressional win, the formation of the “Squad” of lefty lawmakers and the pulling of the entire party to the left — Mamdani’s victory would be the capstone of a 10-year ideological project, and give democratic socialists an enormously powerful bully pulpit for the next four years.
In New York, his supporters are lapping it up. In Washington, the mood among Democrats was less celebratory.
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