Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
One reason the New York City mayoral race is attracting significant attention is because in an odd-numbered year, there really aren’t many other races grabbing people’s attention, according to Damon Cann, professor of political science at Utah State University. Aside from the occasional governor’s race (New Jersey and Virginia this year), most of the electoral action in odd-numbered years is in municipalities. “If national news is going to pick up any municipal election, it’s going to be a large and consequential city like New York,” Cann notes, where mayors like Michael Bloomberg or Rudy Giuliani have “long had a national profile.” But it’s more than that, Cann and others explain. Seeking future national elections Five New York mayors have pursued the presidency since the city was incorporated in 1898 (George B. McClellan Jr. in 1904, John V. Lindsay in 1972, Giuliani in 2008, Bill de Blasio and Bloomberg in 2020), although none has actually won their respective party’s nomination. Several other New York mayors have served in Congress, including Fiorello H. LaGuardia twice between 1917 and 1933. Since front-runner Zohran Mamdani was born in Uganda, he is ineligible to run for U.S. president (which requires a “natural-born citizen”). But Mamdani could be a future candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate, which requires seven and nine years of citizenship respectively (Mamdani was naturalized seven years ago, in 2018). Given how far out of the Democratic mainstream Mamdani is, his surprisingly popular candidacy has prompted abundant commentary about what it means for the political horizon. ‘Like a young Obama’ Accompanying his critique of what he calls the “corporate Democratic party,” Robert Reich, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, wrote last week that Mamdani’s candidacy “should mark the birth of the people’s Democratic party,” insisting that he and “others like him are its future.” U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries disagreed, insisting that the future of the party is broader than one person. Yet young voters across the country especially have been excited by Mamdani’s willingness to push against the status quo. Democratic voter Lea Ash told NPR “he’s been really the only bright spot for me this year,” explaining that his likely victory “gives me hope that it can happen in other places across the country.” This echos Frank Sinatra’s famous line about New York: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” “He is, like a young Obama,” political analyst Ross Barkan said. “He has a real charm, a way with people.” A new liberal lightning rod? New York City often leads in social movements, which gives the city mayor’s stance on issues disproportionate influence, especially when drawing the attention of other leaders nationally. President Donald Trump called the upstart candidate a “Communist Lunatic” the day after his surprise primary victory in June. Since then, the president has continued to reference him, threatening the next month to arrest Mamdani if he interfered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. In this weekend’s “60 Minutes” interview, he suggested “it’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York, because if you have a Communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.” Trump added that he’s “much better looking” than the 34-year-old candidate. For years, Republicans made former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., what writer Andrew Solender called their “bogeywoman” to animate their base. A new memo by the the National Republican Congressional Committee outlined a similar plan with Mamdani, stating, “Democrats are no longer running from the socialist label; they are embracing this toxic agenda, providing Republicans a tremendous opportunity to draw a contrast and go on offense.” “If Mamdani’s socialism can take over in New York, it can anywhere,” the memo continued. “This isn’t about one race in New York, it’s a national story of a party bending the knee to socialism and the far left.” After Jeffries endorsed Mamdani in late October, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., described the moment as a “seismic shift in politics.” “We saw our clearest sign yet that this radical insurgent movement in the Democrat Party is succeeding, and they are ending what has always been known as the Democrat Party in America.” A bellwether of future political winds? “New York has long been a stronghold for Democrats and this election may be a bellwether for the future direction of the party,” Cann tells the Deseret News — with this election representing “a signal of the direction the Democratic Party may wish to take in the midterm elections and beyond.” This is one reason Mamdani’s resounding lead over the old guard of the Democratic Party has attracted so much attention nationally — representing, as this candidate does, the more progressive impulses of the Democratic Party that have often been associated with politicians like Bernie Sanders, who identifies as a “democratic socialist.” Mamdani openly identifies with the Democratic Socialists of America, focusing his campaign promises on affordability issues, with vows to freeze rent, build new apartments for poorer New Yorkers, create city-run grocery stores and make city buses and child care free. These promises sound appealing to many. Yet Cann underscores, “the question for these hard-charging progressives has been whether they are electable or whether they are too ideologically to the left to win and might damage the party’s broader brand.” “This race can be seen, in part, as a test case for how harder-charging progressives like Mamdani might be received in primaries and general elections in congressional races in the years ahead.”
