This Tuesday, New York citizens are called to choose who will be their next mayor. There are three options. The first is called Curtis Sliwa; the candidate of Republican Party. The second is called Andrew Cuomo; the former Democratic governor of the entire state of New York until a series of scandals forced him to resign in 2021 (he now runs as an independent). And the thirty-year-old Zohran Mamdani; the person currently leading the polls.
The fact is that Mamdani is not only the official candidate of the Democratic Party (much despite its centrist wing) after winning, a few months ago, the party’s primaries. He is also a politician who embraces the Muslim faith and defines himself as a socialist. A “radical,” by the standards that dominate American politics. Or, as those in front of him claim, an “extremist.”
What’s more: his possible victory is so worrying that even he himself Donald Trumpaware that Sliwa has no chance of being elected, declared this weekend in an interview given to the program 60 Minutes that “between a bad democrat and a communist I will always choose the bad democrat.” In other words: “I hope Cuomo wins.” Support for the former governor that he has tried to cement in recent days by saying that if Mamdani wins, the White House will drastically cut the federal funding that New York receives.
It happens that Mamdani not only moves like a fish in water in what they call “new politics” – he manages the timing of the story wonderfully – but he has also been criticizing for months what it costs to live in the city. Criticizing, in short, the price of housing, the shopping basket and a whole series of things that, in effect, increasingly affect more and more New Yorkers.
That is why a good part of his promises have to do with addressing economic inequality. Through a universal child care program, for example. Through – to cite a second example – a substantial improvement in public transport (which, as he has promised, will be more efficient as well as free if he wins). Or raising the minimum wage to $30 per hour. And to achieve all this and more things, he said, he intends to raise $9 billion through increased taxes on both large fortunes and corporations based in the Big Apple.
“He starts from a very simple premise: his beliefs,” the journalist commented a few days ago. Astead Herndon on CNN. “Many Democratic politicians have become experts in that triangulation game of trying not to say anything.” In that the distance between Mamdani and the establishment is similar to the one that separates the establishment of Trump. Both are what on the other side of the Atlantic is called outspoken; frank, direct and daring.
This has given good results to the current president of the United States. Will you also give them to Zohran Mamdani?
Other important electoral battles
Beyond New York, this week Trump will have his eye on the states of New Jersey and Virginia. The reason: they must choose a governor and the result of both races will offer clues about how the population breathes before the midterm elections –midtermsin American political jargon – that will take place in November 2026. The ones that determine which party controls the Senate and the House of Representatives, wow.
And, according to a survey published by CNN this Monday, Trump’s popularity does not seem to be flying particularly high. Apparently, the people who today do not approve of his leadership are around 63%. That is to say: more than six in ten voters say that Trump has worsened the economy and has overstepped his bounds in the use of presidential power.
All in all, the Democratic Party is not in a particularly sweet moment either. The undecided continue to see the progressive party as a directionless project and its historical voters continue to be frustrated by the lack of effective opposition to Trump. Hence, the Democratic Party leads the voting intention for the aforementioned midterms only by five points. Too discreet a margin, given the circumstances.