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A Litmus Test
New York City mayoral candidate Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani has emerged as an unexpected force challenging political norms and energizing a disillusioned electorate.
It is remarkable that whether or not Indian American candidate, 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani, wins (New York’s mayoral election) has become a sort of litmus test for the Democratic Party.
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Although many political observers do not consider New York’s mayoral contest as a national bellwether, it is clear that the Democratic Party is being at least partly seen from Mamdani’s prism. That alone is an extraordinary political achievement for Mamdani, son of Mahmood Mamdani, a Mumbai-born Ugandan academic and political commentator and Mira Nair, a Rourkela-born, Oscar-nominated filmmaker.
Growing Support
There are those who are already using the term “Mamdani Democrats”, meaning extra left-of-center progressives who wear their leftist convictions on their political sleeve unapologetically.
Early voting trends in the city indicate that Mamdani has a substantial lead even as the election day is on 4 November. According to the final Emerson College poll, Mamdani has a 25-point lead over his nearest rival, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, leading 50%. He leads his Republican Party rival Curtis Sliwa by 29%.
“Since last month, Mamdani’s support increased seven percentage points, from 43% to 50%, Cuomo lost three points, 28% to 25%, and Sliwa gained eleven points, from 10% to 21%,” the poll said.
Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, has been quoted as saying, “Mamdani appears to have built a coalition across key demographics, increasing his margin among Black voters since last month, from 50% to 71%, whereas Cuomo dropped ten points among Black voters since September. Mamdani continues to have a base of young voters: 69% of voters under 50 support him, whereas 37% of voters over 50 support Mamdani, while 31% support Cuomo and 28% Silwa.”
First Muslim Mayor?
If the poll holds, Mamdani will become New York’s first Indian American, South Asian, and Muslim mayor after 4 November. It is not a given that his much-anticipated victory will have the effect of pushing the Democratic Party more leftward nationally. New York is considered a uniquely different electoral landscape, given its diversity, unrivaled by any other city.
The Republican Party, particularly its strong MAGA (Make America Great Again) base supporting President Donald Trump, is closely monitoring the mayoral election because a Mamdani win will come in handy for them to color the entire Democratic Party as “lunatic left” as part of their strategy for the 2026 mid-term elections nationwide. It is from that standpoint that Mamdani’s dramatic rise is particularly instructive. The popular wisdom is that for the Democratic Party to win next year, the leadership will have to appeal to moderate independent voters who may not necessarily be Democratic but may be disillusioned with the Republican Party.
Mamdani’s hard left-of-center positions could be viewed as an obstacle for his party in the national election if New York is seen as a national bellwether. At the very least, his win could compel the Democratic leadership to ponder whether his kind of coalition is the way to take on the Republicans nationwide.
Political Blockbuster
For many in the Democratic Party, Mamdani is an acquired taste, as was evident in the 11th-hour endorsement of his candidacy by the House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries. It was almost as if he was waiting until the last moment in the hope that things might shift dramatically in Mamdani’s fortunes and save Jeffries from casting his lot behind a sort of renegade Democrat.
Mamdani has been astute in building his entire campaign around the affordability of living in New York, but his solutions, such as freezing rent increases on rent-stabilized housing or making buses free, may not be feasible in its replicability nationwide. It is conceivable that once he gets down to running the city, a lot of his promises will be altered under the pressure of realpolitik.
Nonetheless, irrespective of the outcome of the New York election, Mamdani’s rise with some nationwide reverberations is the political blockbuster of the season.
This article was first published in www.sapannews.com