Thoughts on Mamdani & New York State Politics

I wrote the following as a comment on Lawyers, Guns, & Money the other day but it got flagged as spam because Disqus doesn’t like VPNs:

It’s actually more likely that Mamdani will be the next Laguardia. The smart money is assuming he will win.
 
And the local (as opposed to state) power brokers are also bending the knee.
 
Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn is a literal crook (she’s embezzled party funds) and has been fighting off the progressive block’s attempt to remove her for years. But she’s also a survivor and she ditched Adams for Mamdani shortly after he won the primary.
 
It’s the state level Dems in Congress who are freaking out and they are notoriously bad at winning (Pelosi called them out for losing the House in 2022). They are attempting to use Westchester & Long Island talking points in the five boroughs which is only going to consolidate local Dem voters to vote party line in an anti-Trump election.
 
Mamdani ended up beating Cuomo by 12 points, which is why you have David Patterson (a has been) trying to get two of Adams, Cuomo, & Walden to drop out. Given the egos involved, it just isn’t going to happen.
 
The combo of Mamdani & Lander (they are effectively running as a ticket as it’s an open secret that Mamdani is going to bring Lander on as a Deputy Mayor) is incredibly powerful within the city. Lander is a progressive Jew who will reassure all the liberal zionists to vote Mamdani as long as he sticks to sewer socialism¹. The combo of white liberals and voters of color is by far the majority of votes in NYC. There are just not enough votes in Staten Island, Southern Brooklyn, and Far Queens to outweigh Manhattan, Central & North Brooklyn, immigrant Queens, and most of the Bronx. Even if older black voters and Hasidim turn out for Adams it won’t be enough. He’s been governing to the right ever since Trump dropped the corruption charges and everyone hates him.
 
All the Northern Brooklyn progressives beat their challengers and will remain on the council. Adrienne Adams term limited out so there will be a solid progressive caucus within a Democratic supermajority electing a new Speaker (out of 52 council members, five are Republicans).
 
The State Senate Majority Leader endorsed Mamdani & even Hochul is making cooperative noises. (Which is amazing given that her instincts are to piss off every interest group within the Democratic Party and her own lieutenant governor has already announced that he will primary her).
 
Gillibrand had to apologize after her racist rant on WNYC because her staff isn’t dumb and AOC is polling ahead of Schumer. Pissing off the largest pool of Democratic voters in the state is not a good way to win a statewide race even if she’s got five more years.
 
Bloomberg was the last non-dem mayor and the city has only moved to the left since then. It’s no longer 2008 and the Democratic Primary is functionally the general election. Zohran is going to win the general going away, staff the administration with a ton of strong local progressives with ties to Brad, and have a friendly council.
 
De Blasio got a lot done in his first term despite Cuomo being governor and the cops hating him. Zohran & Brad will be facing a weak governor worried about winning her own primary and a friendly legislature. Brad & the progressives on the council have legislation ready to go.
 
There’s a very good chance that NYC becomes a beacon of left-liberalism in a dark time.
 
Which means the national Dems are going to do everything they can to ignore it/make themselves look like idiots. And, if we still have elections in eight years when Mamdani terms out, he’ll likely primary someone like Dan Goldman and have a good shot at winning if he leaves as a popular mayor.

After mulling it some more around the back of my mind, there’s some additional context I’d like to add for folks not from New York: Every Democrat in Albany hates Cuomo’s guts. He personally kept control of the State Senate in Republican hands for years and the rest of the party had to primary the IDC to create the state trifecta against Cuomo’s wishes (he preferred having a Republican controlled Senate because it increased his leverage over the legislature as a whole).

Tish James’s investigation forced him to resign in 2021 and, if he regained power, he would be a threat to Hochul because he would have almost certainly entered the primary in 2030 and, given that he is the one that made her lieutenant governor in the first place, would have a plausible “Return the Throne” argument upstate.

Cuomo got the union endorsements because they were scared he would win and everyone remember how vengeful he was. Now that Zohran blew him out that fear is gone. No sane state Democrat wants to touch a Trump-endorsed Adams with a ten foot pole and I don’t think anyone in power cares enough to throw their weight behind Walden on the off chance he someone managed to squeak through when the downside risk is pissing off the next AOC.

There will be a lot of hot air expended and a bunch of billionaires will light some money on fire like Bloomberg did in the 2020 Presidential Primary. Then what happens in New York City—the Democratic nominee easily winning the general election—will happen

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