In his speech after his electoral success as mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani said that his victory shows the way to “defeat” Donald Trump. “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that birthed him,” he said. “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up,” he added.
First bitter test for Donald Trump one year after his victory and the next midterm elections: the Dems make a historic hat-trick in the key elections on election day on November 4, imposing the young rising star of the party in New York and electing the first two women governors in New Jersey and Virginia, the latter swing state taken from the Republicans. The tycoon admits defeat over Truth but, citing unspecified pollsters, claims that “the fact that Trump was not on the ballot and the shutdown were the two reasons why the Republicans lost the elections tonight”.
Meanwhile, America still amazes the world by electing 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim and socialist mayor, to lead the Big Apple, the largest US metropolis and an icon of capitalism itself. As well as the youngest in over a century of its history and the most ‘different’ with his South Asian origins: Indian mother and father from Uganda, where he was born. He made inroads starting as a little-known state congressman, supported by the progressive wing of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, ultimately supported by Barack Obama (even if not formally) but not by the entire Dem establishment. He won with a program to make Ny more affordable (free buses, municipal supermarkets, controlled rents and more taxes for the rich) and with an energy not seen for years, especially among young people.
After the polls closed, where over two million voters voted (a record since 1969), Mamdani achieved just over 50%, maintaining a distance of around 10 points over the former Democratic governor of the Empire State Andrew Cuomo, while the Republican Curtis Sliwa did not exceed 10%. Defeated in the primaries, Cuomo had recycled himself as an independent with the endorsement of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Mamdani’s victory is therefore also a successful challenge against the tycoon, who branded him as an “anti-Semitic communist”, incited the powerful New York Jewish community against him and threatened to cut off his federal funds. Even if he now plans to use it as a national bogeyman of the Democrats’ communist drift.
But Donkey’s party has shown that it knows how to win even with moderate candidates, indicating a second way to regain the White House in 2028. Like the 46-year-old Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA operative who in Virginia wrested the leadership from the Republicans by becoming the first female governor of the state, with another woman as deputy: Ghazala Hashmi, state senator of Indian origin, the first Muslim and South Asian person to hold a state office in the Old Dominion State. In Virginia the Dems also won the position of attorney general: Jay Jones beat the outgoing Jason Miyares, supported by Trump. The party also made history by maintaining the leadership of New Jersey with the victory of the 53-year-old congresswoman “Mikie” Sherrill, who becomes the first female governor of the ‘Garden State’: married, mother of 4 children, elite studies, a former federal prosecutor and a former Navy officer, a ‘top gun’ who flew helicopters on missions in Europe and the Middle East. He beat Italian-American businessman Giacchino Michael “Jack” Ciattarelli, 64, who had received Trump’s endorsement, with whom he sided after he called him a “charlatan” in 2015.
YESTERDAY’S DAY:
Don’t vote for Zohran Mamdani: he is a “clear danger” and “hates you”. The appeal, with open polls, is to the Jews of New York, launched by Israel and Donald Trump.
The latest attempt to direct the voters’ choice, in the hope of a real ‘miracle’: stopping the socialist candidate in the race for mayor of the Big Apple. “Every Jew who votes for him is a fool” because he “hates you”, attacked the president after having supported Mamdani’s rival, Andrew Cuomo, and asked Republicans to vote en masse for the former governor. “Whether you like it or not, there is no other choice,” he cut short, once again threatening to cut federal funding to the city if the Democratic candidate wins.
The tycoon’s words echoed those of Israel’s consul general in New York, Ofir Akunis, who shortly before had defined the 34-year-old Mamdani as a “clear and immediate danger to the Jewish community”.
Heavy attacks that have heated up the last remnants of the electoral campaign, with the candidates still busy courting the undecided. While very long queues formed outside the polling stations to vote. “I will not be intimidated by this president,” said the Democratic candidate, rejecting criticism and downplaying threats, such as the threat to send federal troops to New York. “They are words, they are not laws”, observed Mamdani, knowing he was the favourite, also thanks to the support of Barack Obama who praised his impressive electoral campaign. Even the latest polls showed him as a winner, the first Muslim mayor in a city where Jews represent over 12% of the population, the largest concentration outside Israel. He is the first socialist to lead the capital of capitalism, the richest city in the world which is home to the largest number of billionaires: there are 123 of them and they are worth a total of 759 billion.
But, regardless of the polls, the game remained open until the very end. In fact, in recent days Cuomo has reduced the gap, fueling his hopes and knowing full well that with the support of Republicans and Jews – the two categories least inclined to vote early – his chances could increase.
“If you look at the polls they are moving in our direction. The record turnout is a good sign”, his words.
Cuomo also downplayed Trump’s support: “He doesn’t support me, he’s just against Mamdani,” he explained, appealing to moderate liberals to support him and take a stand in the “civil war within the party between the radical left and the moderates”: “I’m a moderate like my mother, like Bill Clinton, like Barack Obama and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” It is not clear whether and how much the support of Elon Musk and Trump may have really helped Cuomo: the president is unpopular in his former city (even if he gained 100,000 more votes in the presidential elections in New York), as is the owner of Tesla.
At the vote in the Big Apple, look carefully at the Democratic Party still hunting for revenge after the heavy defeat in 2024. The election of Mamdani as mayor – as well as those of the liberal candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia – could offer indications on the evolution of the party. Many already see the future of the party in Mamdani and his supporter Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the passionate heir of Bernie Sanders.
Others call for calm: New York is a democratic city within a democratic state and represents a case apart from the rest of the United States. A success for Mamdani would signal more than anything the desire for change, for new faces within a party that is ‘too old’ and no longer able to represent young people, but not a turn to the left.
Certainly his victory, like those of Mikie Sherill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, would restore confidence and optimism to the Democrats, because it would signal that Trump has lost his first test at the polls less than a year after his coronation.