Mamdani understood what the individuals who tried to demonize him didn’t: that voters aren’t shopping for the identical outdated smears about Palestine anymore.
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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 through AP)
Zohran Mamdani has shocked the nation by profitable New York Metropolis’s Democratic mayoral main with ease. His resounding victory over rival Andrew Cuomo—which each pundits and polls had completely did not predict—has not solely set him up as a doubtlessly essential determine on the American left within the years to return. It’s additionally prompted 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 worry about Mamdani’s views ought to function a wake-up name about how a lot the Democratic Get together’s base has modified.
Mamdani’s marketing campaign was in the beginning centered round cost-of-living points like lease 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 look on Stephen Colbert’s speak 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—had been no secret. It didn’t matter. Israel dominated the dialog about him, principally centered across the premise {that a} closely Jewish metropolis like New York would robotically recoil from Mamdani’s assist for Palestine.
As an example, 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—in contrast to 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 person requested Cuomo why he’d chosen to be part of the authorized crew making an attempt to maintain Benjamin Netanyahu out of The Hague. The truth that the only Muslim candidate for the workplace of mayor was singled out for his views on Israel-Palestine was indicative of simply how soiled the political setting 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 effectively with People, particularly youthful and non-white People, who see what Israeli rule over Palestinians seems 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 a substitute, he calmly defined what he thought concerning the Palestinian wrestle 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 chunk they had been hoping for both.
Large respect to the artwork crew for sifting via hundreds of photographs of this invariably smiling and neighborly man to seek out the one the place he seems like Jafar from Aladdin pic.twitter.com/RDqEXmLon3
— Christopher Hooks (@cd_hooks) June 24, 2025
Mamdani’s communicative self-discipline was on full show from the primary to the ultimate bell, and it paid off for him. However it 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 for those who’re working as a Democrat.
Present Difficulty
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 ballot from March of this 12 months discovered that 56 % of Democratic voters felt Israel has dedicated battle crimes in Gaza, and 44 % say that Israel’s actions represent genocide or one thing prefer it. Maybe most curiously, damaging views of Israel have risen amongst Democrats in each single age demographic. In accordance with Pew, 71 % of Democrats of ages 18–49 have a damaging view of Israel in 2025, and 66 % 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 situation wasn’t simply principled and morally right. It was additionally sensible politics, tailor-made to a brand new media and political panorama that his rivals refused to see.
Nevertheless, it could be a mistake to over-extend the argument and to say that Mamdani received the nomination due to 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 steer. Title recognition can solely carry you to date 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 magnificence 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 towards Trump’s authoritarianism. These elements probably mattered much more than Mamdani’s private views on the trivialities of Israel’s regime of apartheid over 7 million Palestinians.
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And but, it might’t be stated that the problem had no bearing on the outcome in any respect. Regardless of Mamdani’s finest (and general profitable) efforts to make this race about kitchen desk points, Cuomo, The New York Instances, 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 check 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, and so they did not derail his candidacy ultimately as effectively. 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 worry a mayor who can be antisemitic however one “who will symbolize the continued collapse of pro-Israel hegemony within the Democratic Get together, and maybe in U.S. politics extra typically.”
In equity, the institution is correct to worry that. Whereas the mayor of New York Metropolis is rarely going to be a de facto secretary of state, or oversee the top of battle overseas, it issues that the biggest metropolis within the nation—and the town with extra Jews than every other metropolis on earth in addition to Tel Aviv—may have a frontrunner 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 Get together continues to shift in the direction of a extra pro-Palestinian perspective, a politician like Mamdani can be there to assist articulate it. Earlier makes an attempt to stifle this angle could have labored within the brief time period, however over the subsequent decade or two there’ll probably be extra Mamdanis than Scoop Jacksons coming into the political area.
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In the end, Democratic coverage on Palestine must start reflecting that.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Writer, The Nation
Y.L. Al-Sheikh
Y.L. Al-Sheikh is a Palestinian American author and organizer lively within the Democratic Socialists of America and in worldwide solidarity work between Israel/Palestine and the US.
Extra from The Nation
As soon as they recover from the shock, the idea-starved Democrats on the nationwide stage ought to study from Zohran Mamdani: really give residents one thing to vote for.
Chris Lehmann
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 attainable for individuals in every single place.
Waleed Shahid
Neither Invoice Clinton nor Jim Clyburn nor all of Michael Bloomberg’s billions may save Andrew Cuomo from the defeat he deserved.
Ross Barkan
Amazingly, he then translated that right into a real-life victory that can without end change the best way elections are fought.
Vanessa Ogle
Mamdani laid out the technique. Now the left ought to observe his instance and first Ritchie Torres, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, and so many others.
Jeet Heer
