Zohran Mamdanis win leaves NYC staring at the curse of interesting times but hes not theprohibitivefavorite

Zohran Mamdani came in a clear first in the Democratic mayoral primary, and so a pretty sure bet to win once all the ranked-choice rigamarole-counting concludes — and thus becomes the favorite to be New York City’s next mayor.But not the prohibitive favorite.Andrew Cuomo failed, and that humiliation should be enough to prompt him to drop out even though he set up a ballot line that would let him fight on in the general election.Credit Mamdani for running an energetic campaign with a forward-looking feel, for charm and grace under fire.Pity those who voted for him, believed his false promises and mistake his idealistic social-media feed for real life.And blame Cuomo and the spineless Democratic Party machine for not really standing for anything at all, and for relying on “we’re your only hope” blackmail of the city’s beleaguered business classes to gin up enough support to make it over the finish line.Cuomo ran on “competence” without ever actually having ever been that competent — a less-crazed leader than Eliot Spitzer, a cannier, more cutthroat politician than David Paterson and a more-engaged executive than was George Pataki in his later years, but still only a good governor if judged by what a former US president called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”Whichever Cuomo scandal most outraged you, the fact is that he’d run out of steam even before being run out of office, and couldn’t even summon much passion for this run at redemption.Instead, he basically bet that lining up every special interest behind him could do the trick.Forget any calculations as to the impact: The decent, honorable thing for him to do once his loss is official is to drop out of the fall race, and out of public life.We remain convinced that a Mayor Mamdani would be a disaster for New York City, and believe a majority of voters will agree ..

.if he faces a credible opponent in November.This is certainly an opportunity for Mayor Eric Adams, who’s ri...