Mamdani understood what the individuals who tried to demonize him didn’t: that voters aren’t shopping for the identical previous smears about Palestine anymore.
New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani travels by subway to the “No Kings” protest in Bryant Park, New York Metropolis, on June 14, 2025.
(Melissa Bender / NurPhoto by way of AP)
Zohran Mamdani has shocked the nation by winning New York Metropolis’s Democratic mayoral major with ease. His resounding victory over rival Andrew Cuomo—which each pundits and polls had completely didn’t predict—has not solely set him up as a doubtlessly essential determine on the American left within the years to come back. It’s additionally brought on individuals to have a look at the various methods Mamdani broke with typical knowledge on working a Democratic marketing campaign. Nowhere was that extra evident than on the problem of Israel and Palestine—the place the failed makes an attempt by Cuomo and the institution media to stir concern about Mamdani’s views ought to function a wake-up name about how a lot the Democratic Social gathering’s base has modified.
Mamdani’s marketing campaign was before everything centered round cost-of-living points like hire and bus fares. However Cuomo tried very laborious to show it right into a referendum on Mamdani’s views on Israel and Palestine—and the media institution took the bait.
At each flip, whether or not it was throughout an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s discuss present, a podcast with The Bulwark, and even the mayoral debates, Mamdani was pestered with query after query about Israel. Mamdani’s long-held views on the topic—he has precisely stated that Israel is responsible of apartheid and genocide and he supported the BDS motion, amongst different issues—have been no secret. It didn’t matter. Israel dominated the dialog about him, largely centered across the premise {that a} closely Jewish metropolis like New York would routinely recoil from Mamdani’s assist for Palestine.
As an illustration, on the first mayoral debate, Mamdani was the one candidate who stated that he wouldn’t go to any international nation if he received the mayoralty—not like most of his rivals, who promised to go to Israel. Instantly, the moderators seized upon the chance to press Mamdani on whether or not he acknowledges Israel’s “proper to exist as a Jewish state.”
Nobody else was requested that query. Maybe extra importantly, nobody else onstage was requested in the event that they believed that Palestine had a proper to exist, not to mention as an “Arab state.” And no one requested Cuomo why he’d chosen to join the authorized staff making an attempt to maintain Benjamin Netanyahu out of The Hague. The truth that the only real Muslim candidate for the workplace of mayor was singled out for his views on Israel-Palestine was indicative of simply how soiled the political surroundings stays for Arabs, South Asians, and anybody else who tries to face with Palestine.
However Mamdani had an ideal reply ready. In response to the moderator’s bad-faith query, he stated, “I consider Israel has the suitable to exist as a state with equal rights…. I consider each state needs to be a state of equal rights.” Quite than giving in to the premise of the query, that any state has the suitable to an ethnically particularist authorized and political character, he invoked the idea of common freedom and rights for all. This language resonates properly with People, particularly youthful and non-white People, who see what Israeli rule over Palestinians appears like and consider apartheid South Africa or the Jim Crow South.
Likewise, when pressed by The Bulwark’s Tim Miller on whether or not he was comfy with phrases like “globalize the intifada” or “free Palestine,” Mamdani didn’t equivocate or apologize for his assist of Palestinian liberation. As an alternative, he calmly defined what he thought concerning the Palestinian battle for freedom. This didn’t cease the likes of David Frum or Jonathan Chait from alleging that Mamdani is an antisemite, however it didn’t find yourself offering the media with the sound chew they have been hoping for both.
Mamdani’s communicative self-discipline was on full show from the primary to the ultimate bell, and it paid off for him. But it surely wasn’t good messaging alone that helped. Mamdani additionally understood what his attackers didn’t: that tarring somebody for holding pro-Palestinian views is simply not as efficient because it was once if you happen to’re working as a Democrat.
Present Challenge
The proof for this continues to mount. A Quinnipac ballot launched earlier this month discovered an “all-time low” in sympathy “for the Israelis and an all-time excessive for Palestinians” since December 2001. Regardless of what some within the pro-Israel bloc may need to consider, the explanation for that is easy: Individuals don’t like genocide.
A College of Maryland poll from March of this 12 months discovered that 56 p.c of Democratic voters felt Israel has dedicated conflict crimes in Gaza, and 44 p.c say that Israel’s actions represent genocide or one thing prefer it. Maybe most curiously, destructive views of Israel have risen amongst Democrats in each single age demographic. According to Pew, 71 p.c of Democrats of ages 18–49 have a destructive view of Israel in 2025, and 66 p.c of Democrats 50 or older do too.
It’s thus abundantly clear that being pro-Palestinian is not an albatross amongst US liberal voters. Mamdani’s refusal to compromise on this difficulty wasn’t simply principled and morally right. It was additionally good politics, tailor-made to a brand new media and political panorama that his rivals refused to see.
Nevertheless, it will be a mistake to over-extend the argument and to say that Mamdani received the nomination as a result of of his sturdy pro-Palestinian convictions. In spite of everything, Cuomo is a person with an exceptionally tarnished status: sexual misconduct, mismanagement of public well being, racism, indifference to the very metropolis he was working to guide. Identify recognition can solely carry you to this point in a race in case your title is related to this stuff. And Mamdani ran an distinctive marketing campaign that centered nearly completely on the price of dwelling, with an optimistic tone and elegance as well. Mamdani constructed up a coalition that united round rejecting Cuomo; the Jewish American progressive Brad Lander was nearly continually on the offense and took an admirable stand in opposition to Trump’s authoritarianism. These components doubtless mattered much more than Mamdani’s private views on the trivialities of Israel’s regime of apartheid over 7 million Palestinians.
And but, it may possibly’t be stated that the problem had no bearing on the end result in any respect. Regardless of Mamdani’s greatest (and total profitable) efforts to make this race about kitchen desk points, Cuomo, The New York Occasions, and others actually wished it to be about Mamdani’s supposedly “radical” views on Israel. It’s usually stated that left-wing activists are those who flip Palestine right into a litmus take a look at for workplace, however the previous couple of months have proven that there’s a pro-Israel consensus that calls for assist for an untenable establishment within the Center East. Makes an attempt to impose these calls for onto Zohran failed, they usually didn’t derail his candidacy ultimately as properly. It’s clear that being pro-Palestine is just not as a lot of a deal-breaker for Democratic voters because it has been hypothesized to be.
As Abe Silberstein put it in Haaretz the day earlier than the first, the institution doesn’t concern a mayor who will probably be antisemitic however one “who will symbolize the continued collapse of pro-Israel hegemony within the Democratic Social gathering, and maybe in U.S. politics extra typically.”
In equity, the institution is true to concern that. Whereas the mayor of New York Metropolis isn’t going to be a de facto secretary of state, or oversee the top of battle overseas, it issues that the most important metropolis within the nation—and the town with more Jews than some other metropolis on earth in addition to Tel Aviv—can have a pacesetter that believes Palestinians and Jews are equally deserving of freedom and self-determination. It issues that, as sentiment each inside and outdoors the bottom of the Democratic Social gathering continues to shift in the direction of a extra pro-Palestinian standpoint, a politician like Mamdani will probably be there to assist articulate it. Earlier makes an attempt to stifle this angle might have labored within the quick time period, however over the subsequent decade or two there’ll doubtless be extra Mamdanis than Scoop Jacksons getting into the political area.
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Ultimately, Democratic coverage on Palestine must start reflecting that.
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As soon as they recover from the shock, the idea-starved Democrats on the nationwide degree ought to be taught from Zohran Mamdani: truly give residents one thing to vote for.
Mamdani received by uplifting and uniting a few of New York Metropolis’s most forgotten voters. His coalition now has an opportunity to rework what’s doable for individuals all over the place.
Neither Invoice Clinton nor Jim Clyburn nor all of Michael Bloomberg’s billions may save Andrew Cuomo from the defeat he deserved.
Amazingly, he then translated that right into a real-life victory that can without end change the best way elections are fought.
