New York Post’s anti-Mamdani front page is a hit – with his supporters

The New York Post’s “On your Marx, get set, Zo!” front page published just hours after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York mayor’s race is proving a viral hit, with one seller on eBay selling a print copy for $355 soon after it was listed for auction.

The Post’s 5 November front page, with “The Red Apple” headline featuring Mamdani holding up a Soviet-style hammer and sickle, is also being sold by the newspaper as a $75 metal print. Ironically – given the rightwing Rupert Murdoch-owned publication’s staunch opposition to the mayor-elect, it’s proving a hit with Mamdani supporters.

The paper reported that left-leaning voters have been scouring newsstands for copies, with the edition quickly selling out.

“The artwork is genius. It’s a shock factor,” Mamdani supporter Ben D told the outlet. He said he and a friend had been to about a dozen delis in Brooklyn to search for a copy but they had already sold out.

“We love Zohran,” he said. “I think it’s a very important moment in our lives. It would have been amazing to have the paper to capture this moment in time.”

The deli owner, Aaron Saleh, told the outlet that copies had sold out within an hour of opening at 6am and his phone had been “ringing off the hook” with callers asking for copies.

“There were like 100 people in here today asking for it. About 30 people called asking if we had it,” said Saleh, who also admired the issue, calling it “amazing”.

At least one store in the gentrifying Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn where Mamdani is hugely popular, put up a “No NY Post” sign indicating it had sold out, according to a photo posted to X.

“I’ve looked all over BedStuy for a copy, the last place I looked had put up this sign because so many people have been asking!” the X user posted.

The decidedly pro-capitalism Post appeared happy to profit from its Mamdani cover while still excoriating Mamdani’s plans for the city, including higher taxes on the super-wealthy to fund free city services like public buses and childcare.

In a critique of the mayor-elect’s sharp victory speech, the rightwing Post editorial writer Michael Goodwin said on Thursday that it “should serve as a belated alarm to business and political leaders who played footsie with him in the belief that under his radical rhetoric, there existed a reasonable man who could be charmed into cooperation”.

The column signed off: “Good luck, New York, You’ll need it.”