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Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, is notable in many ways. He will become the city’s youngest mayor since 1892, its first Muslim mayor and its first mayor born in Africa.
The 34-year-old entered the race last year with next to no name recognition, little money and no institutional party support.
That alone makes his victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa remarkable.
But more than that, he represents the kind of politician that many in the Democratic Party’s left have been seeking for years.
He is young and charismatic, with his generation’s natural comfort with social media.
His ethnicity reflects the diversity of the party’s base. He hasn’t shied away from a political fight and has proudly espoused left-wing causes – such as free childcare, expanded public transportation and government intervention in free market systems.
Mamdani has also shown a laser-like ability to focus on the kind of core economic issues that have been a priority for working-class voters who have drifted from the Democratic Party recently, but he hasn’t disavowed the left’s cultural principles.
But critics have warned that such a candidate is unelectable in broad swathes of America – and Republicans have gleefully held the self-avowed democratic socialist up as the far-left face of the Democratic Party. Still, on Tuesday night in New York City, he was a winner.
By running against and defeating Cuomo, a former New York governor who is himself the son of a governor, he has vanquished the entrenched Democratic establishment viewed by many on the left as woefully out of touch with their party and their nation.
Because of this, Mamdani’s campaign for mayor has generated voluminous media attention, perhaps more than a municipal election, even one for America’s largest city, deserves.
It also means that, as mayor, his successes – and failures – will be closely scrutinised.
Twelve years ago, Democrat Bill de Blasio won his race for mayor on a platform of addressing New York City’s economic and social inequalities. Like Mamdani, Americans on the left had high hopes that his administration would provide a national example of effective liberal governance.
De Blasio, however, departed office eight years later widely unpopular and with a mixed record of achievements as he struggled with the limits of his mayoral power to implement new policies.
Mamdani will have to grapple with those same limits – and those same expectations.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat, has already said she opposed raising the kind of taxes necessary to fund Mamdami’s ambitious agenda.
And even with sufficient funding, Mamdani would not be able to implement programmes unilaterally.
He campaigned as a sharp critic of the corporate and business elite that call New York City their home, and have made Manhattan the financial capital of the world. To effectively govern, he will probably have to make some form of peace with those interests, however – a process he has already begun in recent weeks.
He has also condemned Israel’s conduct during the Gaza war and pledged to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal if he sets foot in New York City, a promise that could be tested at some point during his term.
All those are problems for a later date, however. For now, Mamdani will need to set about the task of defining himself on the public stage – before his opponents do.
While his campaign has generated national attention, he is still a blank slate for much of America.
A recent CBS poll indicated that 46% of the American public were following the New York mayoral election “not closely at all”. That provides both an opportunity and a challenge for Mamdani and the American left.
Conservatives from US President Donald Trump down will be trying to paint the newly elected mayor as a socialist menace, whose policies and priorities will bring ruin to America’s largest city and present a danger if embraced by the nation as a whole.
They will amplify every stumble and highlight every negative economic indicator or crime statistic.
Trump, who has a personal connection to New York, is sure to welcome a political tussle with Mamdani and he has a wealth of ways to complicate life for the new mayor.
Mamdani will also be pressed to win over Democratic leaders, like New York senator and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who never backed his campaign.
The opportunity for Mamdani, however, is that he is not burdened by his past, which his political opponents unsuccessfully tried to wield against him during the campaign.
When he is inaugurated in January, he will have the chance to build his political reputation from scratch. And if Trump does feud with him, he will only give Mamdani a larger platform on which to work.
His political talent and abilities have taken him this far, which is no small feat. But that is nothing compared to the tests that await him in the years ahead.
New Yorkers like to think their city is the centre of the universe, but its mayoral race was not the only electoral contest taking place on Tuesday. In fact, in all likelihood it wasn’t even Tuesday’s best indication of the current electoral mood.
Both New Jersey and Virginia – states Democrat Kamala Harris narrowly carried against Trump in last year’s presidential contest – held elections for governor. And in both cases, the Democrats won by more comfortable margins.
Of the two, the New Jersey contest was closer. Yet the results suggest the inroads Trump made in the state last year among working class and minority voters did not hold up without the president’s name on the ballot.
Unlike Mamdani, Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger ran establishment-backed centrist campaigns with more modest policy prescriptions. All three, however, focused on affordability and cost-of-living issues. Exit polls showed the economy, once again, was the topic voters cared about most.
With Democrats on the left and centre winning on Tuesday, it may prove difficult for those looking to glean some insight on the kind of policies and candidates Democrats should advance to ensure future electoral success.
Last week, however, Mamdani insisted there was plenty of room in the party for all kinds of viewpoints.
“I think this has to be a party that actually allows Americans to see themselves in it and not just be a mirror image of just a few people who are engaged in politics,” he said.
“To me, what binds all of us together is who we are fighting to serve, and that is working people.”
That view will be put to test next year, as Democrats across the nation head to the polls to select their candidates for the congressional midterm elections. Tensions are sure to mount and traditional fault lines could re-emerge.
For one night, however, the Democrats are one big, happy party.
