New York State assemblyman Zohran Mamdani stunned the country on Tuesday with his apparent victory over Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who conceded overnight in the race to win the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City.
Mamdani’s win was a significant victory for progressives and younger Democrats in both New York and nationwide who have been calling for change in the party.
It will lead to new calls for Democrats to move to the left, and to lift up a new generation of leaders.
At the same time, centrist voices in the party will argue it would be a mistake to interpret Mamdani’s victory in New York to mean the rest of the country is ready to embrace other democratic socialists.
Still, Mamdani’s win represents a significant defeat to the Democratic establishment, even if some argue Cuomo brought his own baggage to the race.
Excluding the biggest winner, Mamdani, here are the other major winners and losers from the primary.
Winners
Progressives
Tuesday night was a huge night for progressives, who saw a democratic socialist catapulted into one of the most powerful local offices.
It was a particularly good night for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (D-N.Y.), who backed Mamdani, as well as progressive groups like the New York Working Families Party and New York City Democratic Socialists of America.
The primary results offered a much-needed shot in the arm for the left, who have suffered several high-profile losses recently, including former Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamal Bowman (D-N.Y.).
The night was in some ways also reminiscent of Ocasio-Cortez's equally surprising primary win in 2018, and ushers yet another rising progressive star onto the national stage at a time when the left is looking to make inroads around the country.
Progressives will argue that lawmakers in Congress, prospective 2028 presidential candidates and Democrats across the country should take notice.
David Hogg
Hogg, who ignited controversy over his decision to get involved in Democratic primaries while serving as a DNC vice chair, also came out ahead.
Hogg’s Leaders We Deserve group endorsed Mamdani in the lead-up to the primary and spent time with the New York lawmaker on the campaign trail.
Hogg’s political group also gave $300,000 to a Working Families Party super PAC, which ranked Mamdani first on its slate of endorsed candidates.
Mamdani is the first member the group has endorsed who has won a primary this cycle. The gun control activist wasn’t shy about taking a victory lap.
“It’s gonna be a fun next couple years,” Hogg wrote on X.
Republicans
Progressives weren’t the only ones reveling in Mamdani’s win. Republicans gleefully goaded their Democratic counterparts over the New York City race, too.
In Mamdani, they see a new target, and one they can effectively link to Democrats across the country.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller described Mamdani on X as a “an anarchist-socialist," while the House Republicans’ campaign arm called the New York legislator the “new face of the Democrat.”
“If you engineered the modern Democrat Party in a lab, you’d get Zohran Mamdani: Antisemitic, anti-police, and anti-American. Every vulnerable House Democrat will own him, and every Democrat running in a primary will fear him,” Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the campaign arm, said in a statement.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who’s widely presumed to be running for governor next year, fundraised off of Mamdani’s win.
Republicans are already seeking to tie Mamdani to vulnerable Democrats ahead of next year’s midterms.
“I call on Kathy Hochul and all New York Democrats to immediately state if they endorse Zohran Mamdani for NYC Mayor, and all the radical socialist policies he has endorsed on his campaign,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who could also launch a bid for the governor’s race next year, wrote on X.
Young Democrats
Young Democrats also had a reason to be optimistic after Mamdani became the first Millennial to win the Democratic nod for New York City mayor.
Young voters, a voting bloc that Democrats struggled with last cycle, were core to Mamdani’s coalition, as his social media-savvy campaign sought to connect with younger Democrats on TikTok, Instagram and X.
He also had plenty of young Democratic surrogates and endorsers, including Hogg; Ocasio-Cortez; model and actress Emily Ratajkowski; and Ella Emhoff, the stepdaughter of former Vice President Harris.
Losers
Andrew Cuomo
Cuomo suffered the biggest blow on Tuesday as the scandal-ridden former governor saw his comeback attempt — which only months ago seemed virtually predestined — fail miserably.
Despite the fact that former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg spent $25 million in outside efforts to boost Cuomo in the race, it wasn’t enough to put help carry Cuomo in the primary.
While a winner has not officially been declared, Cuomo concession tells the story. It was a stunning development for the former governor, who appeared to be the clear favorite in his bid to regain power after resigning from the state’s top executive office in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations.
Cuomo hasn’t taken the idea of running in the general election under a separate party line off the table. But even if he does, Cuomo still faces serious questions around his viability.
The Democratic establishment
The Democratic establishment was a big loser on Tuesday night, as a number of centrist and establishment figures their weight behind Cuomo.
Bloomberg, former President Clinton, influential Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), and New York Reps. Adriano Espaillat, George Latimer, Tom Suozzi and Ritchie Torres were among the high-profile figures who threw their weight behind the former governor. Others, like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), stayed out of the primary.
The setback for the establishment wing of the party comes amid a large internal battle with progressives over the future of the party. Many Democrats have accused the party’s leaders of being out of touch and have pushed for a younger generation of leadership.
While Cuomo’s loss by no means the establishment has lost the larger battle taking place within the party, it’s a significant black eye for those resisting the progressive, populist direction favored by the likes of Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders.
The New York Times editorial board
The newspaper’s editorial board, which declined to make an endorsement in the mayoral race, also lost on Tuesday after it came out against Mamdani.
“We do not believe that Mr. Mamdani deserves a spot on New Yorkers’ ballots. His experience is too thin, and his agenda reads like a turbocharged version of Mr. de Blasio’s dismaying mayoralty,” the board wrote last week.
The editorial board was not in favor of electing Cuomo either. Some of its members, though, were reading the tea leaves Wednesday morning over what Mamdani’s victory meant.
“Tuesday night, Democratic voters said they were ready to move on,” Mara Gay, a member of the editorial board, wrote in her own op-ed on Wednesday. “That kind of coalition is there for the taking in many places for the politicians who recognize how to build it.”
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