Zohran Mamdani Shows Democrats How to Have a Spine

“My friend, the former disgraced governor of New York” is a killer line, and Democrats would be wise to follow Mamdani in pursuing a message of anti-corruption. Both Trump and Obama exploited the growing rage in American society over the wealthy purchasing a different ruleset for themselves, and Trump is so comically corrupt that the potential upside to run against ever letting this kind of thing happen again feels limitless. This ad is also a tactically sound response from the Mamdani campaign, as this new attack forces Andrew Cuomo to go on the defense after spending the last couple weeks sweatily trying to make “Zohran’s law” a thing.

Cuomo is trying to invent a scandal around a rent-controlled apartment that Mamdani lives in, while Cuomo has nearly limitless documented actual scandals. The man resigned over one for Pete’s sake. Democrats still backing this sinking ship are authoring a shameful moment in their lives while misreading where the tides of history are flowing–away from an era where major Democratic politicians had uncomfortably close connections to Jeffrey Epstein and into one where people aren’t afraid to ask tough questions of the previous generation’s sacred cows.

Mamdani has a commanding lead in a new Siena poll out today of registered New York City voters. A clear plurality of 44 percent of New Yorkers support him, versus 25 percent for Cuomo, 12 percent for Republican Curtis Silwa and 7 percent for New York City’s preeminent Turkish airline enthusiast, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. A lot of Mamdani’s detractors want to point to one thing that’s created this special sauce that won him more primary votes than any New York Democrat in history, but it’s everything. He’s a very talented communicator, his team is extremely media savvy, but not in a way that’s patronizing, and his optimistic style combined with already building a growing coalition with Brad Lander helps him actually walk the walk on this inclusive campaign to talk the talk of creating a more affordable New York City for everyone.

If you had to point to one thing, it’s his relentless focus on the cost of living crisis, as Cuomo’s desperate attempt to pretend he understands it now demonstrates. You want to talk to young men? Talk to them like they’re men, and address their material concerns. All the childish and superficial talk of the podcast revolution and the manosphere misses the fundamental point at the heart of this: life in America is exceedingly expensive and people feel it. Men, women, trans people, nonbinary folks—everyone. Talk to people like they’re adults and they’ll respond. Talk to them like they’re children and use consultant-created buzzphrases no normal person says like “kitchen table issues,” and you’ll find yourself next to Chuck Schumer and his lowest favorability rating ever in a Siena poll (38 percent).

The simple math of New York City having millions more registered Democrats than Republicans means that whomever is the Democratic nominee is exceedingly likely to win the general election in any mayoral race. In the last election, that was Nate Silver’s future president Eric Adams, and in this one, it’s likely going to be Zohran Mamdani. The Cuomo campaign can try all it wants to pretend it’s not the reanimated corpse of a disgraced sex pest governor propped up by shadowy Trump-adjacent money, but their biggest problem is that they’re running against someone not afraid to point that very obvious fact out.