Why establishment Democrats still can’t stomach progressive candidates like Zohran Mamdani | Arwa Mahdawi

Who’s afraid of Zohran Mamdani? The answer, it would seem, is the entire establishment. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and New York City mayoral candidate has surged in the polls in recent weeks, netting endorsements not just from progressive voices like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders but also his fellow candidates for the mayoralty, with Brad Lander and Michael Blake taking advantage of the ranked-choice voting system in the primary and cross-endorsing Mamdani’s campaign.

With the primary just around the corner, polls have Mamdani closing the gap on Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York. This has spooked the establishment, which is now doing everything it can to stop Mamdani’s rise.

Take Michael Bloomberg, who endorsed Cuomo earlier this month and followed this up with a $5m donation to a pro-Cuomo Pac. The largesse appears motivated not by admiration for Cuomo – during his mayoralty, sources told the New York Times that Bloomberg saw Cuomo as “the epitome of the self-interested, horse-trading political culture he has long stood against” – but animosity towards Mamdani and his policies.

Mamdani wants to increase taxes on residents earning more than $1m a year, increase corporate taxes and freeze rents: policies that aren’t exactly popular with the billionaire set.

Bronx congressman Ritchie Torres (who was once progressive but moved steadily away from that and now receives fundraising assistance from far-right donors) is another establishment Democrat trying to prevent a Mamdani win at all costs. Torres, who makes his pro-Israel positions explicit, has criticized Mamdani for pro-Palestine comments. Torres has even said he won’t run for governor in 2026 if a socialist like Mamdani becomes the mayor because it will “revolutionize the political landscape”.

The New York Times’ editorial board is also aghast at Mamdani’s sudden popularity. On Monday, it published a piece urging New Yorkers to completely leave the candidate off their ranked-choice ballot, arguing that the assemblyman is woefully underqualified for office and has a bunch of wacky progressive ideas that will never work including free buses and frozen rent. The Times, which announced almost a year ago that it will not make endorsements in local elections, did not officially endorse a candidate but it certainly didn’t tell people not to put Cuomo on the ballot. It seems being accused of sexually harassing multiple women and then going after those women in an aggressive and intrusive way (including demanding gynecological records) isn’t as disqualifying as progressive policies. And, of course, the sexual harassment is just one of many scandals that Cuomo has weathered, including allegations he covered up nursing home deaths during the pandemic.

The Atlantic also came out with an anti-Mamdani piece, albeit one that was more subtle and which focused on the process rather than the personality. Staff writer Annie Lowrey argued that ranked-choice voting in a mayor primary, used by New York City since 2021, is not truly democratic: “Without ranked-choice voting, Cuomo would probably steamroll his competition. With ranked-choice voting, Mamdani could defeat him.” While there are problems with ranked choice (as there are with first-past-the-post systems), I think the bigger democratic threat might be a system in which a billionaire can swoop in with millions to prop up their preferred candidate at the last minute.

All of this is anti-Mamdani mobilization is depressingly predictable: the Democratic establishment is allergic to fresh blood and new thinking. Shortly after Trump won the election last year, and the Democrats also lost the House and the Senate, Ocasio-Cortez launched a bid to become the lead Democrat on the House oversight committee, which is an important minority leadership position. Ocasio-Cortez has become a lot more establishment-friendly since getting into power in 2018 (New York Magazine even decreed in 2023 that she is just a “Regular Old Democrat Now”), but she’s still not centrist enough for the Democrats, it seems. Nancy Pelosi reportedly sabotaged the 35-year-old congresswoman’s ambitions and ensured that 74-year-old Gerry Connolly, who had esophagus cancer at the time, got the job instead. Connolly died age 75 earlier this year, becoming the sixth House Democrat to have died in office in 12 months.

Then there’s the Democratic backlash to David Hogg, the young Parkland shooting survivor turned politico. The 25-year-old was briefly vice-chair of the Democratic national committee but stepped on powerful toes by criticizing the party for its “seniority politics”. Hogg, who has said that he’s worried about his generation losing faith in democracy, pitched competitive primaries which challenged Democratic incumbents who’d become too complacent, injecting new blood into the party. This did not go down well and various members of the DNC had voted to hold new vice-chair elections that could have led to his ouster. Instead of waiting to be kicked out, Hogg recently said he’d step away from the role.

I am not a Mamdani evangelist, but while some of his ideas are a little pie in the sky, he’s authentic and ready to fight for normal people rather than corporate interests. Sure, he doesn’t have a lot of experience. But he has a huge amount of potential. He’s managed to get at least 26,000 New Yorkers to volunteer for him. And I don’t mean they’ve sent a couple of text messages: one week they knocked on almost 100,000 doors. Michael Spear, a professor of history and political science at a Brooklyn college, told Jacobin the degree to which Mamdani’s campaign has galvanized New York City voters is unprecedented: “I don’t think there is anything like it” in New York history.

Nobody in the Democratic establishment is quite so delusional that they think the party is doing great. Everyone knows there is a need for change and yet they seem keen to sabotage anyone who might bring that change. Instead of rallying around fresh talent like Mamdani that can clearly mobilize young voters, the Democrats are mulling a $20m plan to try to manufacture a “Joe Rogan of the left” who can connect with young men, rather than support an authentic grassroots candidate who is already connecting with them.

Will centrist interests prevail in New York? We won’t know until, at the very earliest, late on primary night, 24 June. Whatever happens, though, you can bet that Democrats will continue to do their very best to kneecap anyone who wants to drag them way from their obsession with doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.