How Zohran Mamdanis win upended the economics of NYC voting patterns
New Yorkers woke up to a new reality on Wednesday: A proud socialist won the New York City mayoral primary, beating out his nearest rival, former Gov.Andrew Cuomo, by nearly 10 points.
Zohran Mamdani ran an avowedly far-left campaign, one focused on kitchen table issues rather than the woke cultural battles we’ve become accustomed to from the left. Instead of promising to Defund the Police (though he supported that movement in the past) or hyping the historic nature of becoming the first Muslim mayor of New York City, Mamdani promised free busing, a rent freeze, government-owned supermarkets and free childcare — which he said he’d pay for by raising taxes on businesses and the rich.Despite the promise of redistributing from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, in an ironic twist, the socialist beat Cuomo handily with wealthy New Yorkers.Meanwhile, Cuomo crushed Mamdani by a staggering 19 points with New Yorkers who make under $50,000 a year.
Mamdani also lost in a big way in New York’s majority Black neighborhoods, which overwhelmingly chose Cuomo, as did neighborhoods with the highest Hispanic concentration. Cuomo succeeded with voters without a college degree, while Mamdani absolutely slaughtered him among voters with advanced degrees.Mamdani’s support was strongest with “youthful, renter-heavy neighborhoods known for their left-leaning politics,” as The New York Times pointed out.Gentrifiers of the World, unite!Welcome to the new Democratic Party, same as the old, with a slight twist: Instead of imposing cultural doctrine on working-class people of color with zero interest in their woke ideology, the Dems are now imposing a socialist economic agenda on those same recalcitrant normies who just won’t get with the program.Mamdani’s success with the educated continues a decades-long political realignment in which the working class has been steadily leaving the Democratic Party for the GOP, a process that turbocharged un...