This is an initial statement by Socialist Alternative (ISA in the United States) on the New York City mayoral election, published on 25 June. We will publish a fuller analysis in the coming days.
In a dramatic upset, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani has won the Democratic Party New York mayoral primary in a blowout, forcing his main rival, former NY governor Andrew Cuomo, to concede. The results of the first round of ranked choice voting, which was expected to favor Cuomo, showed Mamdani leading by eight points.
Zohran’s victory was a massive electoral rejection of the ruling class and the political establishment which serves it. It will greatly encourage working people fighting for a better life in the financial heart of Western capitalism. The enthusiasm for Zohran’s campaign was clear from the massive amount of small donations it raised and the strong and energetic door-knocking operation led by young people, knocking on over 1.5 million doors.
Zohran and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) built a campaign that became an inspiration across the country, with demands such as a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments, a $30 minimum wage, “free and fast buses,” free child care, city-owned grocery stores with price caps, and seizing properties from slumlords.
This is exactly the type of fighting, working-class platform that the billionaire-backed Democratic Party refuses to adopt. Eric Adams won the 2021 mayoral election as a Democrat with a strong “law & order” and pro-business agenda—in the context of broad demoralization from the Black Lives Matter movement failing to win its key demands. Now, Zohran’s victory comes as an expression of the long-simmering desire for a working-class fightback of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers hungry for fundamental change in how society is run and who runs it.
That said, the vote also exposed a certain class and racial divide that Zohran’s campaign will need to urgently address. Zohran’s vote was higher among white people, men, those with higher incomes, and college-educated voters. Cuomo won the Black vote by 18 points, won those making less than $50,000 by 19 points, and performed better with voters with no college education. This is largely due to the significant influence of pro-Cuomo establishment misleaders in the Black and Latino communities, which means Zohran’s campaign will need to take much more seriously campaigning in Black neighborhoods, with mass community meetings to discuss how working people can win his program.
Going into November, Zohran will face current mayor Eric Adams running as an independent, and potentially Andrew Cuomo as well, who already prepared an independent ballot line in case he lost the primary. We need to escalate the fight against corrupt and unchecked billionaire power characterized by the current Eric Adams administration, and Cuomo’s campaign as a continuation of it.
We only need to take a glimpse at the 2021 Buffalo mayoral race to know what the establishment of the Democratic Party and big business of NYC will be preparing against Zohran and the left. In Buffalo, democratic socialist India Walton won the Democratic primary but lost the general election after the Democratic and business establishment turned to heavily back incumbent mayor Byron Brown, who ran an independent write-in campaign after losing the Democratic primary. The billionaires and their candidates will throw their party loyalty out the window in favor of defeating working-class candidates.
Cuomo and the establishment were taken by surprise in the primary. They still ran a vicious slander campaign, focusing on Zohran’s alleged antisemitism while themselves engaging in Islamophobia and old-fashioned red-baiting. But they will come much more prepared in November and will escalate these attacks manifold.
If Zohran succeeds winning the November election, we should expect an all-out war by the establishment against his administration, including the Democratic Party itself, Trump, and global investors who see New York as their speculative playground. In order to win the very positive platform Zohran is running on, we need an all-out fightback. Winning a rent-freeze, $30 minimum wage, and free childcare will take on-the-ground mass organizing by the working class, independent from the Democratic Party.
A wing of the establishment will also attempt to bring Zohran closer in an attempt to co-opt him. This has already begun, with Chuck Schumer posting on X that he is “looking forward to getting together soon” with Zohran. But Zohran must be crystal clear: any association with the Democratic establishment is like drinking poison for a socialist. Following the election of several democratic socialists in 2018, then Seattle socialist councilmember and member of Socialist Alternative, Kshama Sawant, sent an open letter to AOC and others, warning exactly about that.
Zohran alone will not be able to achieve the far-reaching change he promises. The only defense against whatever the Democratic establishment and wider ruling class throw at him—attempts at co-optation, harsh attacks, or both—is an offensive campaign that refuses to water down its program and builds a fierce, multi-racial, independent working-class movement to achieve it.
