A Thrilling Victory & The Road Ahead

They said it couldn’t be done. 

And then the election results started to roll in Tuesday night. 

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More than 400,000 New Yorkers voted early and Zhoran Mamdani led by 9 points. The Election Day surge of support for Andrew Cuomo never materialized. By night’s end, Mamdani was leading 43-36 with almost a million votes cast. When ranked choice votes are reallocated on Tuesday, his margin of victory will climb into the double digits. 

We featured Mamdani on our cover long before most people knew who he was (just as we did with AOC) and mapped out his path to victory in May when he was still trailing Cuomo by 20 points. And now here we are. 

Mamdani’s victory is a shattering defeat for the Democratic Party establishment here in New York City and across the country. New horizons are opening up for the left – and for The Indypendent – that previously were closed. First, let’s count the ways this victory is a big deal. 

BEYOND AUSTERITY: For New Yorkers, it’s a chance to break with decades of austerity dating back to the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s. Instead of catering primarily to Wall Street and Big Real Estate, we will have a city government whose guiding principle will be to take actions to make the lives of working class New Yorkers easier –– permanent rent freeze, universal child care, fast and free buses and government-run grocery stores –– that were previously seen as taboo.

POWERBROKES BROKEN: Pity the political class. The billionaire campaign donors, the think tanks, editorial boards, large non-profits, unions, politically wired Black clergy leaders and others who gatekeep not only who can hold positions of power but what is considered a viable political platform. These powerbrokers woke up on Wednesday with a lot less power than they thought they had the day before. 

THIS WILL SPREAD EVERYWHERE: The Democratic Party establishment is decrepit and despised by voters and is ripe for the taking. In 2026, expect to see a wave of insurgent challengers here in New York city and beyond. With MAGA in power, only a mobilized left can save liberals from themselves.

UNIONS TOO: This same insurgent energy will likely grow in the labor movement where younger union workers have watched cautious, old guard leaders suffer from the same lethargic leadership and lack of political imagination that plagues the Democratic Party. 

MELT ICE: At a time when establishment Democrats are paralyzed about how to respond to Trump’s mass deportation terror campaign, Mamdani will provide a robust example of standing up to ICE, not backing down. 

BEATING THE BILLIONAIRES: Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, billionaire money has flooded political campaigns and frequently takes down bold progressives. See Nina Turner, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and countless others. They don’t look quite as all-powerful today. 

CLASS POLITICS ARE BACK: By centering an economic populist message focusing on issues like Medicare-for-All and a higher minimum wage that had supermajority support, Bernie Sanders revived the American left in 2016. Mamdani has succeeded with a similar approach at the municipal level with his emphasis on a rent freeze, free and fast buses and universal child care and reducing the cost of groceries. Neither Sanders nor Mamdani abandoned their support for full civil rights for all. But they kept their focus on economic issues where the left is strongest. 

A DEFEAT FOR THE ISRAEL LOBBY: The Jewish political establishment threw everything they had at Zohran Mamdani – millions of dollars in donations to Cuomo’s Fix the City Super PAC, ugly Islamophobic smears, weaponized claims of anti-semitism, demands that he support Israel as a Jewish ethno-state. And for once these haters failed to destroy a progressive leader who wouldn’t bend the knee. This could be a sign of things to come as support for Israel among Democratic Party voters has collapsed since the Gaza genocide began. 

A RARE OPPORTUNITY: It’s a rare moment in U.S. history when the left has wielded executive power in government. The “sewer socialists” governed Milwaukee from 1920-1960. Reading, Pennsylvania had a socialist government for parts of the 1920s and 30s. Ever the outlier, Bernie Sanders was America’s only socialist mayor during the Reagan era when he presided over Burlington, Vermont which saw a rebirth during his eight years in power before he entered Congress. 

SOCIALISM RISING: The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has been Zohran Mamdani’s political home since 2017 and has been indispensable in his rise to power. With more than 9,000 members and an unparalleled electoral program, NYC-DSA is doing more than any organization in the city (and perhaps the whole country) to rejuvenate democracy and to bring about transformational change. Like the old socialist parties of yore, it also hosts a slew of cultural and recreational events that build community for the long haul. After this victory, it will likely see a boom in new membership. Other DSA chapters across the country should see a membership boost as well.

LOOKING AHEAD

The oligarchs who poured $25 million into Andrew Cuomo’s failed campaign will try to reverse yesterday’s victory in the November general election, but it won’t be easy. Mamdani has all the momentum. Cuomo is cooked. Eric Adams is running on an independent ballot line, but he has a sub-20% approval rating and carries the stigma of being a Trump toady. Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, is a fringe character who has used his Guardian Angels schtick to linger in the public eye for decades without ever doing anything. 

A Mamdami administration will face fierce opposition from the Trump administration, local business tycoons, a thoroughly Trumpified NYPD, and a hostile corporate media led by the New York Post. It will also have to navigate the contradictions inherent in trying to implement reforms in a capitalist system that is built to funnel wealth and power upward. Nonetheless, having a democratic socialist mayor as a partner should ignite an organizing boom by social movements across the city.

For housing activists, organizing tenant unions becomes a lot more promising when City Hall is ready to crackdown on abusive landlords. For climate activists, it’s a chance to introduce Green New Deal principles into all kinds of city initiatives. Immigrant rights activists will have a fierce critic of ICE they can push to restore sanctuary city policies that the Adams administration has largely abandoned. And on down the line it goes. 

THE INDY’S ROLE

This will also be a gamechanger for us. For the past 25 years we’ve covered a wide array of movements fighting to win a more just and humane city from a system that has often ignored them. We’re soooo ready to cover this thrilling new moment – bringing you information and incisive analysis you won’t see anywhere else while amplifying the voices of movements that have long been locked out of power. 

Working on a shoestring budget, we reach tens of thousands of New Yorkers every month with our newspaper and website,, host a weekly Tuesday 5 pm radio show on WBAI-99.5 FM and report breaking news on our social media platforms. We’ll be celebrating our 25th anniversary this fall. With your help, we can do more great work in the months and years ahead. If you’re as excited about the new direction our city is headed in, please make a contribution today or subscribe to our print edition.

We still have a handful of copies of our historic AOC and Zohran cover issues. As a gesture of our appreciation, we will send a complementary copy of either issue if you give $50 or more, and with a gift of $100 or more, we’ll send you both historic editions of The Indy. 

In Solidarity,

Editor-in-Chief

The Indypendent