A take on the Mamdani Election in NY City from a local friend there.

But Mamdani got over 50% and did well across all demographics – beating Cuomo not once but twice. Cuomo was lavishly funded by right wing and billionaire money. For the last 2 months we had an endless stream of pro-Cuomo adds on TV. Everywhere, all the time. I only saw a few Mamdani TV adds the whole time. The difference was so extreme that I was concerned.

But Mamdani had a superb ground game with over 90,000 volunteers going door to door. On the local cable TV channel, NY1, which has good coverage of NYC news and events – there is an anchor who covers the local political news at 7pm every night. A black guy who lives in a middle class neighborhood of black homeowners. He has kids in high school. He said the canvassing was so intense that for months “we stopped answering the doorbell on evenings & weekends!”

The NY1 political director is an older white guy who lives in a well to do area way out in Brooklyn near the ocean. It would take me over an hour to get there by train. He said he’s lived there his whole life and had never seen door to door canvassing out there. “But this time we had Mamdani’s people door to door for months. None of us could believe it.”

There was a lot of Zionist propaganda in the campaign attacking Mamdani for his support of Palestinian rights and his opposition to Israeli genocide. But the Times of Israel [Jerusalem] reports that Mamdani still got 33% of the Jewish vote. Many Jews are progressive and appalled by Israel’s policies.

around one-quarter (about 25%) of New York City voters considered themselves to be democratic socialists.” I have no problem with that but was surprised the number is that high. It reflects a significant generational shift to the left.

2.

Israel was a big issue even though most New Yorkers agreed the Mayoral choices hinged on local issues. There was widespread agreement w/ Mamdani supporting Palestinian rights. Cuomo is a well known Zionist and totally uncritical of what Israel has been doing. In the past this would have doomed Mamdani’s campaign but the Israeli genocide in Gaza has radically shifted opinion worldwide. We now have countries like Israel and Spain openly & officially calling for a boycott of Israel.

I don’t think this opposition to Israeli policies will make any difference, at least in the short term. Israel knows that as long as it has unlimited military, financial and diplomatic support from the US (unchanging under Trump) that it can basically do whatever it wants.

There is this interesting shift right now within the “America First” ranks re Israel. Why do we massively subsidize Israel who has free education and free health care while those things are lacking in much of the US? How this will play out remains to be seen but it is an interesting challenge within the current GOP and Trump world.

The election was very BIG here. More than 2 million people turned out to vote – the biggest turnout in at least 50 years. Mamdani is the first mayor to get at least 1 million votes since 1969.

So a big event – whatever ones preferences.

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