NEW YORK: Young self-declared socialist Zohran Mamdani was on the cusp of a stunning victory on Wednesday (Jun 25) in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary – pummelling his scandal-scarred establishment rival in a race seen as a fight for the future of the Democratic Party.
Results were not yet final, but Mamdani – who is just 33 and would become the city’s first Muslim mayor – had such a commanding lead that his biggest rival, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, conceded defeat overnight.
Mamdani’s success was seen as a rebuke to Democratic centrists who backed the powerful Cuomo, as the party flails nationally in search of a way to counter Republican President Donald Trump’s hard-right movement.
The Ugandan-born state assemblyman was behind Cuomo in polls until near the end, surging on a message of lower rents, free daycare and other populist ideas in the notoriously expensive metropolis.
Commenting on the primary result in his former hometown, Trump lashed out at Mamdani as “a 100 per cent Communist Lunatic”, adding that Democrats had “crossed the line” by choosing him.
The top two Democrats in Congress, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries – both from New York – separately applauded Mamdani’s victory, but did not explicitly endorse him.
“Tonight we made history,” Mamdani said in a victory speech to supporters.
On Wednesday he suggested his campaign and shock upset could serve as a model for the future for Democrats.
“It has been tempting, I think, for some to claim as if the party has gone too left, when in fact what has occurred for far too long is the abandonment of the same working-class voters who then abandoned this party,” he told public radio WNNY.
Cuomo, a 67-year-old political veteran vying to rebound from a sexual harassment scandal, said he called his rival to concede.
Mamdani had taken 43 per cent of the vote with 95 per cent of ballots counted, according to city officials. Cuomo was at around 36 per cent and appeared to have no chance to catch his rival.
However, the contest is ranked-choice, with voters asked to select five candidates in order of preference.
When no candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the vote outright, election officials start the time-consuming process of eliminating the lowest-ranking candidates and retabulating.
For political scientist Lincoln Mitchell, the vote was “a clear referendum on the future of the Democratic Party”.
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Cuomo had big money and near universal name recognition in the city, as a former governor and son of another governor.
However, he was weighed down by having quit in disgrace four years ago after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. He was also accused of mismanaging the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.