Zohran Mamdani's NYC win signals a turn towards the Left in US politics

Progressive Zohran Mamdani's stunning NYC win and key Democratic victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and California signal headwinds for Trump ahead of next year's US mid-term polls

Key elections across the United States (US) were largely seen as a political test for Donald Trump’s second presidency ahead of critical mid-term elections next year. The results suggest that, at the very least, the Republicans will have a tough battle on their hands in November next year. Nowhere was this more evident than in the extraordinary election of 34-year-old Ugandan-born Democratic Socialist Zohran Kwame Mamdani as the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of New York City. With 50 per cent of the vote, Mr Mamdani polled almost nine percentage points more than Andrew Cuomo, a former Democrat governor of New York who ran as an independent financed by billionaires across the political spectrum, including former mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr Cuomo also received an unsolicited endorsement from the President, who threatened to cut federal funding to New York if  “Communist Candidate Mamdani” is elected (though the Constitution allocates this power to Congress). 

This extreme descriptor is rooted in Mr Mamdani’s progressive platform that mainstream Democrats eschew: Free bus rides and child care, and the imposition of a four-year freeze on rents in rent-controlled apartments to address the cost-of-living crisis. Funding for these freebies is to come from a sharp increase in corporate-tax rates from 7.25 to 11.5 per cent and a 2 per cent tax on incomes above $1 million, explaining why billionaires bankrolled his opponent. Though the less wealthy districts — the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Harlem — delivered the expected votes, Mr Mamdani scored surprise victories in some upscale neighbourhoods such as the Upper West Side and parts of the Village. Still, this charismatic former New York state representative will have his work cut out meeting these heightened expectations. First, his funding plans need to be approved by a state legislature dominated by mainstream Democrats. Second, in an era of increasingly mobile capital, his tax plans could precipitate a flight of businesses to lower-tax jurisdictions, which could restrict the city’s growth on which he is banking to deliver more revenue. 

Though Mr Mamdani’s progressive politics is being seen as an alternative to the Democratic Party’s agenda, middle-of-the-road platforms mobilised voters elsewhere. In Virginia, a former Democrat Congresswoman and Central Intelligence Agency officer Abigail Spanberger defeated Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears by a margin of 15 percentage points in the governor’s race. As a state that swings between the two parties, Ms Spanberger’s victory is being seen as a bellwether for the November mid-terms. In New Jersey, a former navy helicopter pilot and four-term Democrat member of Congress, Mikie Sherrill, defeated a Trump-endorsed candidate to become the first woman governor of a state that had seen a rightward shift in recent years. No less significant is the overwhelming vote (64 per cent) in California, America’s largest state by voter numbers, in favour of Democrat plans to redraw its electoral districts in its favour as a counter to Mr Trump’s efforts to gerrymander in Republican states. With the federal government heading for a record closure over political differences over welfare funding, these elections may have signalled ways to break the deadlock.