by SANDEEP SEN
Amid a global rightward shift, Mamdani’s progressive campaign offers a rare blueprint for the left to win.
Sitting in northern Europe, I shouldn’t care about the New York mayoral race.
Yet, despite all that is happening in the world, the contentious Democratic primary for the 2025 New York City mayoral election has found its way into conversations around me – and onto my social media feed.
This attention isn’t just another example of the New York-centric worldview famously skewered in Saul Steinberg’s 1976 New Yorker cover, View of the World from 9th Avenue. A genuine political struggle is under way, one that has the potential to reverberate far beyond the Hudson River. At its centre is the increasingly polarised contest between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani.
The name Cuomo may ring a bell. He resigned as New York’s governor in 2021 following multiple allegations of sexual harassment. While he expressed remorse at the time, his political comeback has been marked by defiance – suing one of his accusers and the state attorney general who found the accusations credible. He claims the scandal was a “political hit job”.
Cuomo’s record in office was far from unblemished. He diverted millions of dollars from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), jeopardising the financial health of New York’s essential public transit system. He formed the Moreland Commission to root out corruption but disbanded it abruptly when it began probing entities linked to his own campaign. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his administration was accused of undercounting nursing home deaths, allegedly to deflect criticism of policies that returned COVID-positive patients to those facilities.
Given that legacy, one might imagine Cuomo’s chances of becoming mayor would be slim. Yet, he currently leads in the polls.
Close behind him is Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and state assemblyman from Queens. When he entered the race in March, Cuomo led by 40 points. A recent poll now puts Mamdani within 8 points.
Born in Kampala and raised in New York, Mamdani is the first Muslim candidate to run for mayor of the city. But his significance extends beyond his identity. What distinguishes Mamdani is his unapologetically progressive platform – and his refusal to dilute it in the name of “electability”. His appeal rests on substance, charisma, sharp messaging, and a mass volunteer-led canvassing operation.
At the heart of Mamdani’s campaign is a vision of a city that works for working-class New Yorkers. He proposes freezing rents for all rent-stabilised apartments, building 200,000 affordable homes, creating publicly-owned grocery stores “focused on keeping prices low, not making profit”, and making buses free. He supports free childcare for children under five, better wages for childcare workers, and “baby baskets” containing essentials for new parents.
To fund these initiatives, Mamdani proposes increasing the corporate tax rate from 7.25 percent to 11.5 percent, and imposing a 2 percent income tax on New York City residents earning more than $1m annually.
He also wants to raise the minimum wage, regulate gig economy giants like DoorDash, and protect delivery workers. His plan to establish a Department of Community Safety would shift resources away from traditional policing towards mental health and violence prevention.
Al Jazeera for more