The Winston Group’s David Winston in today’s Roll Call about Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy in the New York City mayoral race:
I worked my first New York City mayoral race as an 11-year-old handing out campaign literature for John Lindsay. Back then, the idea that the Democratic Party could nominate a 33-year-old socialist promising city-run grocery stores, free buses, universal child care and a $30 an hour minimum wage would have been unthinkable.
It would have been equally inconceivable that New Yorkers could nominate a candidate who refused to disavow the anti-Semitic slogan “globalize the intifada” during the primary, has joined in anti-Israel protests and once called the NYPD “wicked and corrupt.” A candidate who has proposed shifting the tax burden “from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.”
But the unthinkable has happened. The Zohran Mamdani victory in the Democratic mayoral primary last month was a big surprise for the New York political class, but it also sent shock waves rattling Democratic leaders coast to coast. With the national Democratic Party leaderless and adrift, desperately looking for a more effective message to take on Donald Trump, the Mamdani win signals that progressives may have moved from pushing a compliant president to the left, to embracing one of the most radical and controversial candidates to hit the national stage.
Read the full piece here.
