Copyright The New York Times
The instinct to treat Zohran Mamdani as a local New York City phenomenon ignores the reality of the American voters behind his historic win. Most of the people who voted for Mr. Mamdani for mayor are at the heart of the Democratic Party coalition, not at its fringes. Black voters in particular swung hard toward Mr. Mamdani in the general election. In precincts where Black residents make up a majority of the population, Mr. Mamdani outperformed Mr. Cuomo by 26 points. In Hispanic-majority areas of the city, Mr. Mamdani beat Mr. Cuomo by 20 points. Mr. Mamdani also won every single precinct in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Canarsie, which is majority Black and working and middle class. In last year’s presidential election, some voters in these areas shifted toward President Trump, igniting a debate about whether the Democratic Party had veered too far to the left. The willingness of many of the same Americans to vote for Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, on Tuesday raises the possibility that many Black and Hispanic voters — and plenty of other Americans — simply no longer see their interests and aspirations in what much of the political establishment and its gatekeepers are offering. Mr. Mamdani’s political talent helped enormously. Some of his promises may be difficult to achieve and to pay for, especially with a hostile president vowing to thwart them at every chance. And in a large, polarized and complex country, this kind of campaign might look and sound different in different places. In New York, these Americans found a vehicle in Mr. Mamdani, 34, whose candidacy came to represent many of the people and ideas under attack in Mr. Trump’s America. Mr. Mamdani will be the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first immigrant to lead New York in decades and the youngest in more than a century. But the real power of the campaign came from voters who rallied around a set of simple beliefs: that every person deserves a home; that child care should be free; that elections shouldn’t be bought; that racial diversity is a strength worth defending; that working people matter; that the time for generational change in politics has come. What began as a race about affordability became a campaign for human dignity. Instead of apology, Mr. Mamdani championed these values and beliefs, deeply held by millions of Americans, with confidence and often with joy. It was a bracing contrast not only with the politics of destruction and cruelty of Mr. Trump, but also with the hemming and hawing of a Democratic leadership in Washington that seemed paralyzed by inaction. This is why videos on Instagram show Democrats in cities far away celebrating Mr. Mamdani’s win. I saw the phenomenon firsthand when Mr. Mamdani canvassed taxi drivers outside LaGuardia Airport in Queens in the final days of the race. Drivers left their yellow cabs idling in the street and raced to shake his hand. A taxi dispatcher helping tourists abandoned his post, hugging Mr. Mamdani, then called his wife so the candidate could introduce himself to her over FaceTime. At a campaign stop outside a public hospital in Queens, health care workers on the night shift huddled around Mr. Mamdani, who patiently answered their questions. Dr. Heather Irobunda, an OB-GYN, said the candidate shocked her with his knowledge of the racial disparity for Black women in the city, who are nine times more likely to die from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes than white women are. Steps away, Rodney Estiverne, a 25-year-old tech at Elmhurst Hospital, said Mr. Mamdani had inspired him to vote for the first time. “He speaks for me,” Mr. Estiverne told me. Mr. Estiverne, who was born in Haiti, said he believed Mr. Mamdani had faced attacks by Mr. Trump and others for standing firmly with Black Americans and other marginalized people. “They’re after him. That means he’s doing something right.” Central to Mr. Mamdani’s success was championing housing and child care, among the most intimate experiences for Americans and people everywhere. Mr. Mamdani’s declaration that they are basic needs that should not be out of reach for working people or anyone was a powerful and tangible contrast to milquetoast calls for “affordability” among so many Democrats and Republicans. New Yorkers voted for this vision despite threats by Mr. Trump to send National Guardsmen to “clean up the crime” in the city if Mr. Mamdani won. Voters chose this vision over the meddling of billionaires. They embraced it despite the fear tactics of Mr. Cuomo, who resorted to Islamophobia in a sad, 11th-hour bid to save his visionless campaign. “He was a citizen of Uganda,” Mr. Cuomo said of Mr. Mamdani shortly before the election. “He just doesn’t understand the New York culture, the New York values.” In the end, the threats from Mr. Trump and attacks by Mr. Cuomo only made both men look small and weak, and heightened Mr. Mamdani’s appeal. The owner of my local bodega, an immigrant from Yemen, told me recently that he “didn’t do politics.” When I stopped into the store on Tuesday, he was wearing an “I voted” sticker and a grin. “I changed my mind,” he told me. Then he asked if Mr. Mamdani had a chance. Around one in three people who live in the country’s largest city are immigrants. Others are the descendants of Americans who arrived from the South, seeking refuge from Jim Crow, or the grandchildren of people who fled persecution in Europe, or people rejected elsewhere who found the city a place to call home. What could possibly be more American? This time in New York City, the race-baiting didn’t work. The fear tactics failed. The hope of those who believe in better ideas lives on.
