thank you, John, for this excellent analysis. I've avoided the conventional analyses bc they're clearly the usual stuff, and they're clearly inadequate for this event and moment. this points the way not to a template that can be duplicated around the country but an approach that has totally eluded the Democrats. if Democratic candidates can listen instead of lecture, turn the focus to the voters and not just barrage them with policies, this could be the shift so many of us knew had to happen but couldn't imagine what it would look like. excellent work. will share the post.
Thanks, John. I live in Los Angeles. From across the continent, your analysis rings true. All community organizing starts with listening, not ideology. That said, any mayor faces the inherent limits on what cities can do to cure inequality and the acid test on getting things done. Which is to double down on the last points you made. (Enough Red State cities in trouble financially that federal revenue sharing might come back in vogue.)
Great piece. To add some NYC color, he combined two things:
1. AOC's approach to winning her district, which had utterly changed demographically under her predecessor and he either didn't realize this or, if he did, he didn't care. He just expected to win again because he had won before (the "it's my seat" trap). She got out in the streets and listened and stumped and won.
2. The simple and direct message of former mayoral candidate Jimmy McMillan: The rent is too damn high! That it is, that everything is, that we've gone well beyond the normal expensive of living in a city, is painfully obvious to every NYer except those who don't think about rent, they're so rich, and these are the people backing Cuomo.
Also the rich can talk about going Galt all they want. They always threaten this, as if they make the city and, thus, are the city. Maybe that's true in some city like Minneapolis, but not NYC. And they never leave. Studies of NJ and, I think, Massachusetts revealed that higher taxes on the rich didn't cause them to emigrate to states with taxes more favorable to plutocrats for a simple reason: then the plutes would have to live in those crummy backwaters and not in the greatest city on the planet.
I don’t live in NYC so I’m at a complete remove from this race except to watch it with interest.
Cuomo is a pig. I’m sure some votes were against him rather than for Mamdani but the latter still pulled off the loaves and fishes miracle. Mazel tov to him!
I think he’s antisemitic. There is no world in which “globalize the intifada” isn’t antisemitic and comparing it to the Warsaw ghetto uprising is appalling. When the gentle, non-partisan, kind Holocaust museum rebukes you, you’ve said something awful.
You are 200% correct that this isn’t going to work anywhere else. I live in a huge, sapphire-blue city in a red state and even so only the university students would buy the free grocery stores and buses promise. We are much more invested in lowering the prices at all grocery stores, for everybody, and crime.
Mamdani won Brooklyn. Shocker. He lost blacks and the working class, the very people the DSA claims to care about. Why?
I wish the kid luck. If he succeeds wildly or falls on his face it won’t alter my life at all, but watching at a remove NYC’s historical love of terrible mayors, to quote Hamilton’s King George III, “Jesus Christ, this will be fun.”
Thanks, John! Insightful as always. But Dems response has been revealing. They desperately need this kind of disruptive momentum that energized new voters and built an amazing grassroots movement. But instead of embracing and rallying behind "their" winning candidate, many have either attacked or silently distanced themselves from him! This reactionary response underscores a party that had lost its soul and identity, driven by fear from lobbyists and donors, instead of voter concerns, and torn between embracing a bold new direction and clinging to a safer, yet faltering, status quo.
A very interesting and important analysis, but I believe Mamdani got his victory margin from three things: (1) AOC’s congressional 2024 victory margin 61% - 39%, (2) the blindness to his obvious antisemitism from sanders and Lander that gave “permission” to upper west side Jews who are happy to vote for anyone who hates Netanyahu, and (3) the inexcusably arrogant and incompetent Cuomo campaign.
I think these were the things that shaped the electorate and put Mamdani over the top.
thank you, John, for this excellent analysis. I've avoided the conventional analyses bc they're clearly the usual stuff, and they're clearly inadequate for this event and moment. this points the way not to a template that can be duplicated around the country but an approach that has totally eluded the Democrats. if Democratic candidates can listen instead of lecture, turn the focus to the voters and not just barrage them with policies, this could be the shift so many of us knew had to happen but couldn't imagine what it would look like. excellent work. will share the post.
Thanks, John. I live in Los Angeles. From across the continent, your analysis rings true. All community organizing starts with listening, not ideology. That said, any mayor faces the inherent limits on what cities can do to cure inequality and the acid test on getting things done. Which is to double down on the last points you made. (Enough Red State cities in trouble financially that federal revenue sharing might come back in vogue.)
Great piece. To add some NYC color, he combined two things:
1. AOC's approach to winning her district, which had utterly changed demographically under her predecessor and he either didn't realize this or, if he did, he didn't care. He just expected to win again because he had won before (the "it's my seat" trap). She got out in the streets and listened and stumped and won.
2. The simple and direct message of former mayoral candidate Jimmy McMillan: The rent is too damn high! That it is, that everything is, that we've gone well beyond the normal expensive of living in a city, is painfully obvious to every NYer except those who don't think about rent, they're so rich, and these are the people backing Cuomo.
Also the rich can talk about going Galt all they want. They always threaten this, as if they make the city and, thus, are the city. Maybe that's true in some city like Minneapolis, but not NYC. And they never leave. Studies of NJ and, I think, Massachusetts revealed that higher taxes on the rich didn't cause them to emigrate to states with taxes more favorable to plutocrats for a simple reason: then the plutes would have to live in those crummy backwaters and not in the greatest city on the planet.
Florida?
excellent precis! Thank you
I don’t live in NYC so I’m at a complete remove from this race except to watch it with interest.
Cuomo is a pig. I’m sure some votes were against him rather than for Mamdani but the latter still pulled off the loaves and fishes miracle. Mazel tov to him!
I think he’s antisemitic. There is no world in which “globalize the intifada” isn’t antisemitic and comparing it to the Warsaw ghetto uprising is appalling. When the gentle, non-partisan, kind Holocaust museum rebukes you, you’ve said something awful.
You are 200% correct that this isn’t going to work anywhere else. I live in a huge, sapphire-blue city in a red state and even so only the university students would buy the free grocery stores and buses promise. We are much more invested in lowering the prices at all grocery stores, for everybody, and crime.
Mamdani won Brooklyn. Shocker. He lost blacks and the working class, the very people the DSA claims to care about. Why?
I wish the kid luck. If he succeeds wildly or falls on his face it won’t alter my life at all, but watching at a remove NYC’s historical love of terrible mayors, to quote Hamilton’s King George III, “Jesus Christ, this will be fun.”
Thanks, John! Insightful as always. But Dems response has been revealing. They desperately need this kind of disruptive momentum that energized new voters and built an amazing grassroots movement. But instead of embracing and rallying behind "their" winning candidate, many have either attacked or silently distanced themselves from him! This reactionary response underscores a party that had lost its soul and identity, driven by fear from lobbyists and donors, instead of voter concerns, and torn between embracing a bold new direction and clinging to a safer, yet faltering, status quo.
A very interesting and important analysis, but I believe Mamdani got his victory margin from three things: (1) AOC’s congressional 2024 victory margin 61% - 39%, (2) the blindness to his obvious antisemitism from sanders and Lander that gave “permission” to upper west side Jews who are happy to vote for anyone who hates Netanyahu, and (3) the inexcusably arrogant and incompetent Cuomo campaign.
I think these were the things that shaped the electorate and put Mamdani over the top.