Copyright The Hollywood Reporter
Here’s how you know the ascent of Zohran Mamdani has captured national attention — voters in Kentucky had to be reminded they couldn’t vote in New York. Yes, the Secretary of State in the land of bluegrass was forced to post a message Tuesday that “We’re getting calls about polls being closed. They are closed because we do not have elections today….You cannot vote today in Kentucky for the mayor of New York City.” Gotham’s mayoral contest, which with nearly all of the vote in Tuesday evening had the Democrat Mamdani leading by an ironclad nine percentage points, has reverberated throughout the country, as liberal Democrats scored the first major win of the Trump II era. And, needless to say, reverberated throughout Hollywood. The entertainment industry’s liberal core has been divided over the candidacy of the Democratic Socialist and how much the ideology should be the face of the anti-Trump resistance. Mamdani’s win should settle some of those divisions — maybe. It’s hardly the only race that lands with media and entertainment pros — a governor’s race in the suddenly hopping production area of New Jersey and the fight over Proposition 50 as an anti-Trump tool in California have also seized the town. Here’s The Hollywood Reporter’s breakdown of these three key races as their results come in Tuesday night. New York Zohran Mamdani came out of nowhere earlier this year to lead the Democratic field for New York City mayor just weeks before the crowded June primary. He won that the Oscar-esque Ranked Choice Voting race handily and never looked back. Though there was Meryl Streep-level drama as Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams entered the race (and in Adams’ case, withdrew from the race) as independents, Mamdani never relinquished his hold on the lead. The 34-year-old Queens assemblyman (also of course the son of Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake director Mira Nair), put together a coalition of Gen Z, Muslim, South Asian and progressive Democrat New Yorkers to coast to a victory; with nearly 90 percnet of the vote in Tuesday night, he held a nine-point lead over his nearest challenger, Cuomo. All major news outlets called the race for Mamdani, and he hovered above the 50 percent mark, suggesting a popular mandate in the three-man race with Republican Curtis Sliwa. In addition to his film pedigree, (for how a Nair film was a formative influence on his politics, read THR’s story here), Mamdani’s trajectory carries a whiff of the Hollywood, the little-known figure suddenly surging to the fore the stuff of so many sports movies. And of course he shrewdly made use of both social media and Hollywood tropes; he and his young staff unleashed numerous popular TikToks, often on the streets of New York, while also running more traditional legacy ads playing off The Bachelor and other entertainment hits. And don’t forget his Bollywood-style campaign visuals. Mamdani also provided a template of sorts for how to handle Trump and trolls in general, often smiling but rarely giving ground — and, with his affordability themes, rarely breaking message. Indeed of all the contrasts with the president who is his ideological foil, perhaps Mamdani’s biggest is his approach: the leader who never met a tangent he didn’t like versus the upstart whose rhetoric rarely took a step off the path. For all of Mamdani’s skill and appeal, though, his win is a reminder of politics’ constellative forces beyond any one person’s control in politics. Trump’s comeback (itself a function of a national Democratic party in disarray), a war in Gaza and an affordability crisis brought on by housing-market speculation and dynamics all gave momentum to Mamdani’s candidacy in ways no elected official could orchestrate. As for Hollywood personalities, Mamdani has certainly become a hero to some of the more politically vocal entertainers. Spike Lee, Bowen Yang, Cynthia Nixon, Emily Ratajkowski and Lupita Nyong’o all endorsed him; Ilana Glazer and Mark Ruffalo phone-banked for him. Many of them are people who’ve supported other progressive upstarts in the past; the interesting question now, paralleling the interesting question in the broader political landscape, is whether more moderate celebrities also rally to Mamdani’s side. History and especially Hollywood tends to love a winner, and the candidate’s victory will provide incentive for many who might have been on the fence previously (and, OK, for a few bandwagoners too). But Mamdani has taken some positions that could also prove unpalatable for some celebrities, including his stated belief that Israel should not exist as a majority-Jewish state. And many celebrities have taken a much quieter approach toward activism generally than they did during the first Trump administration, either out of fatigue or tactical restraint; it remains to be seen whether Mamdani energizes them to change their ways. But maybe the most important determinant could be the mayor-elect himself. How effectively Mamdani governs will go a long way toward informing whether the entertainment industry will embrace him. The only thing Hollywood loves more than a winning candidate is a popular leader. California As of Tuesday evening, California’s Proposition 50 — which would gerrymander the Congressional map and potentially reduce the number of Republican representatives from nine to as few as four — seems to be in strong shape. Polls show that many left-leaning California voters have mixed feelings about Prop 50 after authorizing an independent commission to draw Congressional maps some 15 years ago. But they believe they have no choice given Republicans’ own gerrymandering efforts in other states. Prop 50 amends California’s constitution to allow a one-time mid-decade map-redrawing by elected officials. It is designed to counter efforts by GOP lawmakers in Republican-controlled states like Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to redraw congressional maps to increase Republican seats in those states. Governor Gavin Newsom has staked his political future on the measure. Newsom has already said that he’s considering a presidential run and a No on Prop 50 would be catastrophic to his chances. In September, the drama surrounding Prop 50 spiked when former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (and the last Republican to hold that office) came out publicly against the measure. But a gaggle of famous Democrats including former president Barack Obama, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Chris Murphy were featured in an ad supporting the measure that blanketed the state during the World Series. Celebrity enthusiasm has been relatively muted. Nine-time Grammy winner Billie Eilish took to Instagram to urge her followers to vote yes, which prompted blowback from actor James Woods and former reality-television-star-turned-podcaster Spencer Pratt, who called Eilish’s comments “stupid.” Even billionaire real-estate developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, who’s hardly a partisan Democrat (he’s switched party affiliations several times in the last two decades) became a supporter of Prop 50 ahead of a potential gubernatorial run next year. That left Schwarzenegger, who as governor helped lead the effort to create the commission, as one of the sole dissenting public voices. With the backing of Charles Munger Jr., a longtime Republican donor who gave $30 million to an anti-Prop 50 campaign, Schwarzenegger seemed to have some ammunition to work with. But no significant opposition ever really materialized. “There’s been very little room to mount a campaign against this because you’re talking about a referendum on Donald Trump in a state where his approval rating is 26 percent. That’s what this is,” says Steve Caplan, a strategic communications consultant who teaches at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “To change that narrative to something about good governance is not a message that’s going to resonate in this political climate.” New Jersey The Garden State has a generous film tax incentive program, which has attracted massive investments from Hollywood production companies in recent years. But Governor Phil Murphy, the Democrat who oversaw this boom, is setting sail into the Barnegat Bay after eight years in office, as Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democrat Mikie Sherrill vie to take his place. On Tuesday night news outlets called the race for Sherrill, a congresswoman who was once a prosecutor and a naval officer. She led by more than 12 points with nearly all votes tallied, scoring a resounding win over her Trump-backed opponent. A few hundred miles south, Democrat Abigail Spanberger scored a similar-sized victory in the Virgina governor’s race. Also boarding the ship is key Murphy cabinet member Tim Sullivan, the CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), who has previously announced he is stepping down at the end of 2025. It was Sullivan, an investment banker-turned-business advocate, who truly captained the state’s film incentives program. They leave behind a major legacy. Netflix is famously reimagining shuttered Army base Fort Monmouth in central New Jersey, redeveloping hundreds of abandoned and mostly dilapidated acres into a massive $848 million production facility. (The Hollywood Reporter was there in May when the streamer broke ground.) And just last week, Paramount revealed itself as the anchor tenant for Bayonne’s giant 1888 production campus. The companies are not coming for the Springsteen and Bon Jovi music: thanks to Murphy and Sullivan, New Jersey’s film incentives are among the most attractive in the nation, offering qualified productions up to a 40 percent tax credit. And it’s working. In production-spend dollars over the first half of 2025, New Jersey ranked fourth in the nation, behind only California, New York and Georgia. Those who take advantage get many of the locations of New York City, at a fraction of the rates. The consensus is that Sherrill will not back away from the incentives given how much growth they’re spurring, though a new administration of course always brings its own ideas. (No one in the film and TV industry vocally backed either candidate, perhaps as a strategy in a close race.) Entertainment professionals in The Garden State said they were happy with the shape of the race. “The Board of Directors of the Screen Alliance of New Jersey (SANJ) met with each of the candidates and they both expressed a strong desire to continue the state’s Film and Digital Media Tax Credit and support the growth of the film industry in New Jersey,” Nick Day, the SANJ president, told THR. “They both recognize the industry as an important growth sector of the economy and an avenue for more jobs.”
