LET'S GO!
posted by ftrtts at 1:31 AM on June 25 [13 favorites]

Better things ARE possible.
posted by Gadarene at 1:39 AM on June 25 [21 favorites]

https://bsky.app/profile/bfishbfish.bsky.social/post/3lsflp4csn22z

https://bsky.app/profile/nberlat.bsky.social/post/3lsfmybgm4s26
posted by subdee at 1:53 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Found myself learning more about the Republican frontrunner, Curtis Sliwa. Dude has one heck of a background. “In 1992, Sliwa admitted that he and the Guardian Angels faked heroic subway rescues for publicity. He also admitted to having claimed falsely that three off-duty transit police officers had kidnapped him.” “Sliwa competed in multiple eating contests.” Apparently he lives in a studio apartment with sixteen cats. He just might have what it takes to be mayor of New York, if we’re going by the usual standard of “it is impossible for a mayor of New York to be a normal person, because the people of the city of New York are inexorably drawn to the weirdest, most entertaining gremlins.”

Say what you will about Curtis Sliwa...

No, seriously, say whatever you want. Whatever you come up with is probably true.

(seriously though, congrats to the Mamdani team, and here's hoping he wins in the general)
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:55 AM on June 25 [26 favorites]

YES!

*Fist pump, primal scream, jump for joy

Mamdani is just so good at this, and hopefully has the ability to make some changes.

Democratic Party, are you paying attention!? Socialism can win. People actually really like it. But you have to foster and back up young politicians like Mamdani and stop with party of gerontocracy.
posted by zardoz at 2:09 AM on June 25 [68 favorites]

I’m sitting in a bar in Melbourne Australia after work and just leapt from my seat shouting “You beauty!!!” on reading the headline in the Guardian. I’ve been following Mamdani’s campaign since I first heard him interviewed on Chapo Trap House but didn’t dare think the primary would be so conclusive.

I’m not a New Yorker, just looking for gems in the mire and this is certainly one of them. I’m also glad for another data point against the argument that centrist, shit–lite policies are the only way to win broad appeal. Fingers crossed his momentum continues to the final vote
posted by Lesser Spotted Potoroo at 2:22 AM on June 25 [24 favorites]

"Cuomo said he was still examining whether he would run in the general election in November on the independent line" [and insinuated that ranked-choice should be reconsidered for future elections]

It's entirely possible establishment Democrats could prefer that Cuomo become a spoiler vs Zohran, giving NYC a Republican mayor. It's also possible doing this could backfire for them, revealing seperate left, centrist, and right parties could currently be viable in NYC, although that situation cannot last under US first-past-the-post systems of course.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:34 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

I (heart) NYC
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:58 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

Ranked choice voting! Yay!
posted by nat at 3:10 AM on June 25 [22 favorites]

A) LFG!
B) Hope he gets lessons in "sangfroid "and building a power base and support network, from aoc and other people relentlessly attacked by the right., because they're gonna come for him.
posted by lalochezia at 3:12 AM on June 25 [10 favorites]

> ...the Republican frontrunner, Curtis Sliwa...

I've paid no attention at all to the NYC elections so this is the first time I've happened across this knowledge and for a moment I thought I had a stroke or something, since I don't think I've seen his name since the whole Guardian Angels thing was current news. And yes that means I'm old.
posted by at by at 3:14 AM on June 25 [24 favorites]

A millennial woman-of-color won the Democratic Albany NY mayoral primary, which pretty much means she's our new mayor after the general election in November.
posted by mikelieman at 3:19 AM on June 25 [32 favorites]

If you live in NYC, Cuomo might still place himself on the ticket for the general as an independent (with Eric Adams), so take the night get excited, and then get back to work!

Great night for NYC and hopefully this sends a message to the rest of the democratic party nationwide (it will not be heard by most of them, but some of them might hear the sound of the wave).

If you want to get excited like this in your state/town, find your local democratic socialist candidate and support them, or even be them!
posted by stilgar at 3:58 AM on June 25 [10 favorites]

I remember Bill de Blasio - taking a strong “well, we’ll see” approach to this.
posted by reedbird_hill at 4:02 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Mamdani's campaign probably had as much to do with his victory as did his record. There were people canvassing for him three months ago here - and they did not let up until sometime last week.

I'm not sure which I'm happier about - the fact that he did win, or the fact that people are finally going to let up with the damn flyers already.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:05 AM on June 25 [15 favorites]

Saw this libel flying over the hudson repeatedly the other day

Whatever Zohran's merits and flaws as potential mayor (and I lean towards the former), I'm disgusted to the point of rage by the actions of many pundits and supporters (including jews!), taking anything left of, I don't know, fucking Pinochet, as antisemitism and getting traction running with it.

So from that perspective alone, fuck them, and good for Zohran.
posted by lalochezia at 4:07 AM on June 25 [30 favorites]

I was glued to the results all night. Even though I'm a Canadian and I have never been to NYC.

The world needed this. We needed to see that good things are still possible in America.

Amazing, inspiring campaign. Kudos to everyone involved!
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:10 AM on June 25 [8 favorites]

A definite win for actual Democracy, much to the terror of the Centrist ghouls. Saw somewhere that these aging garbage Democrats talk and talk about getting young people energized but are terrified of it actually happening, and that's just straight facts.

Here's Mamdani's victory speech. May we have many more from him in the years to come
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:10 AM on June 25 [17 favorites]

It says something about the current state of things (and echoes a recent national election) that a race featuring a corrupt sexual predator would be so close.
posted by tommasz at 4:16 AM on June 25 [19 favorites]

As a New Yorker, though not an NYCer, GOOD.
posted by mrgoat at 4:16 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

I would like to see some sort of chart or diagram of people who say "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and people who will vote for Cuomo over Mamdani in the general if he runs as an independent. Maybe all these people have been acting in good faith the whole time and will support the candidate chosen by the voters in the Democratic primary but I'd genuinely like to see to what extent they actually mean "no matter who".
posted by an octopus IRL at 4:23 AM on June 25 [36 favorites]

When a socialist won the Democratic primary in Buffalo, the establishment Dem ran as an independent and every other candidate dropped out of the race in order to not split the vote. This strategy worked and they kept the socialist out. Although considering the egos of Cuomo and Eric Adams I have a hard time seeing either of them stepping down. I would be delighted to see them split the dipshit vote, though.

It’s also not impossible that Eric Adams will ask the president to help him do a January 6 to prevent socialists from taking over
posted by Jon_Evil at 5:19 AM on June 25 [16 favorites]

A lot of people who register as democrats and vote in the primaries in NYC are republicans or Trump voters. It's well understood that the actual republican candidates are more or less joke candidates and the party in NYC is a shambles, so this is their best bet for getting any sort representation. That's how we got the Adams administration, and why don't date robotsdon't rank Cuomo was so important.
posted by phooky at 5:21 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

New York magazine:

Unless he attempts a desperate run in the general election on an independent line, Cuomo’s political obituary is written and will have no revisions.

This is a realignment election in the city and perhaps one of the most significant victories by an unabashedly left-wing candidate in the history of the U.S. No one like Mamdani has ever won an election where as many as a million people voted. This is akin to a socialist winning a medium-size state. There is no real precedent for what happened tonight. …

With this kind of victory, Mamdani is emboldened. The Democratic Establishment, which Cuomo so cowed, will now drift toward him. Labor endorsements will be forthcoming. Mamdani will have a great deal of money. He’ll be his own juggernaut. A new city has risen, and we’re about to find out what it will look like.

posted by Lemkin at 5:23 AM on June 25 [29 favorites]

When I worked for the NY State Dept. of Social Services I had a boss who was friends with Cuomo. He was at HUD at the time. When he called our office to speak with my then boss he was very condescending and rude to the secretaries who answered the phones.
posted by DJZouke at 5:26 AM on June 25 [20 favorites]

lol fucking loser creep bill Clinton’s support didn’t help cuomo. Piece of shit comes out of retirement to support another sex pest but can’t even raise a finger to criticize Trump.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:35 AM on June 25 [49 favorites]

I remember Bill de Blasio - taking a strong “well, we’ll see” approach to this.

I remember de Blasio as well, but you know fingers crossed.

Who Won The New York City Mayoral Debate? Boston Mayor Michelle Wu! [slWonkette]

In a brief lightning-round question at Wednesday’s New York City mayoral debate, the nine candidates were asked to name “the most effective Democrat in the country” right now. Their answers were pretty darn interesting; three, including former Gov. AndrEW Cuomo, went with the predictable choice, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and former state Assemblymember Michael Blake went with the refreshing, no-false-modesty answer “myself, as I actually defeated Donald Trump when I was vice chair of the DNC,” which was fun. There were nods to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and New Jersey Sen. Cory booker, and for serious insidering, State Sen. Zellnor Myrie went with state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, which was nice and collegial.

But two of the candidates, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, named Boston’s progressive Mayor Michelle Wu, who 1) is an actual mayor who’s doing cool mayor things in her city, and 2) was elected four years ago like departing NYC Mayor Eric Adams, but didn’t turn around and become a big disappointment once in office.

posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:49 AM on June 25 [35 favorites]

Also gratifying to see that Anthony Weiner got his ass handed to him in his race by Harvey Epstein.
posted by briank at 5:51 AM on June 25 [16 favorites]

Also remember that every ounce of media coverage, every poll number, every general view of a leftist politician is filtered through the media that hates them, the democratic establishment that hates them, and the public that is half paying attention.

Look at how The NY Times covered mamdani. FFS they said both he and cuomo were nepo babies because his mom directed an indie movie 30 years ago.

Cuomo could not have been worse, could not have more scandals attached to him, and he came close all because raising tax rates will be REALLY BAD for the rich.

Also this is what people want. A charismatic leader who actually cared and had plans for making things better.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:58 AM on June 25 [23 favorites]

With this kind of victory, Mamdani is emboldened. The Democratic Establishment, which Cuomo so cowed, will now drift toward him.

Hahahhaahahaha yeah I wish
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 5:58 AM on June 25 [18 favorites]

God, it was a such a good night in New York City. I am absolutely, joyfully floored by this.

Freeze the rent, baby. Make the busses free. Hire competent, forward-looking bureaucrats who are excellent at their jobs. And tax the fucking millionaires and billionaires.
posted by minervous at 5:59 AM on June 25 [21 favorites]

I don't really know anything substantial about the race or why Mamdani won, though of course I was so glad to Cuomo get his ass handed to him.

But one Bluesky wag characterized Mamdani's campaign vibe as "I really love this city and the people I want to make it better," and Cuomo's was "I'm kind of bored and think it's time I had an important office again." Man didn't even live in the city until late last year.
posted by mark k at 6:15 AM on June 25 [6 favorites]

My immediate thoughts were prayers up for his security team, may they be truly elite, and that the general is still going to be so fucking stupid. Cuomo probably not going away and even if he does we’ll get watch the billionaire political class decide which of the other very very icky options they’ll try to promote to save their tax bills and ensure a large supply of precarious low wage labor.

The campaign was epic, they said they knocked 1.5 million doors. I was pretty worried the lesson of last night was going to be that what looks popular online doesn’t always translate in real life.
Saw somewhere online describe the Mamdani returns in Astoria bed stuy and bushwick as “dictator numbers” - sucked up just an enormous proportion of round 1 votes in areas where the drummed up heavy turnout.

Somehow threaded the ranked choice needle in partnership with Brad Lander who deserves a lot of props for refusing to punch left when he was given constant opportunities to do it.

Don’t Rank Cuomo was a clear, strong message and he was a truly shit candidate.

Last night was the most I’ve missed living in New York since moving away a few years ago.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 6:19 AM on June 25 [15 favorites]

Also, ranked choice voting has come up a couple times, but it's had zero impact as of yet, right? The numbers we're seeing are all top line votes IIUC. So Mamdani would have won in a "traditional" primary too?
posted by mark k at 6:20 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

I hope there is a rally around Mamdani. Curtis Sliwa got nearly 28% of the vote in the last mayoral election which is why this being a possible 4-way race is nerve wracking.

If I’m reading the results correctly, Mamdani has some gaps to fill with black voters and (somewhat surprisingly) lower income voters.
posted by girlmightlive at 6:25 AM on June 25 [7 favorites]

At least for me I said ranked choice was a winner last night not because it affected the count but because of the way it affected the campaign. Working Families “rank the slate” messaging, the Bran/Zohran tag team down the stretch and the resounding Don’t Rank Cuomo campaigning being obvious examples that don’t happen if each voter is only allowed one choice.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 6:35 AM on June 25 [18 favorites]

> I hope there is a rally around Mamdani.

Even if there isn't, the NY dem leadership put all their weight and money against Mamdani and lost. That's gotta make them nervous about all future primaries. This is still a win.
posted by postcommunism at 6:37 AM on June 25 [14 favorites]

If Mamdani is elected there'll be a taco truck halal food cart on every corner!

...wait
posted by jedicus at 6:37 AM on June 25 [14 favorites]

mark k: "So Mamdani would have won in a "traditional" primary too?"

yep.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:42 AM on June 25

the NY dem leadership put all their weight and money against Mamdani and lost.

Yeah, this is very much it. Whatever happens next, the Mamdani campaign has provided a template for progressive movements to win elections, even when the Dem gerontocracy is against them. He showed that you can be unapologetically supportive of trans rights and Palestine without getting clobbered, contrary to the political wonksdom of the consultant class. He showed that the Democratic Party establishment can either get on board with the new hotness, or continue to fade into obsolescence. This shit rocks.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:45 AM on June 25 [45 favorites]

The fact that Cuomo isn’t fighting this tooth and nail to the bitter end and, as noted in the FPP, unexpectedly conceded seems to be a good sign that he’s not going to run in the general.

He might have actually accepted that it’s over for him because he can’t salvage this. Even if he did run in the general and won, it doesn’t erase this extremely humiliating defeat.
posted by star gentle uterus at 6:46 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

"So Mamdani would have won in a "traditional" primary too?"

Probably not, actually. A "traditional primary" would likely have devolved into the usual Dem circular firing squad, and Cuomo would have won on name recognition as the candidates sniped at one another. As noted above, RCV permitted a much friendlier campaign, and specifically permitted alliances and cross-endorsements, like the one between Mamdani and Brad Lander that dominated the narrative at the end of the campaign and pushed back (at least somewhat) on the worst of the Islamophobic garbage being hurled at Mamdani by Cuomo and the PACs.
posted by The Bellman at 6:51 AM on June 25 [36 favorites]

Amazing!

I feel like it was just a few days ago when I was seeing "Look! Mamdani is within 20 points of Cuomo!" and feeling faint stirrings of Charlie Brown and the football hope.

re: the question of if he would have won a traditional primary is interesting. Yes, if we call this election and these ballots just top line voting, he wins. But would people have voted the same way if they thought that their wildest, "but of course he can't really win" vote would be better served elsewhere, because they only get the one shot? It's a maddening thought exercise to apply to basically every election ever and I am pleased to see a high-profile real world case to think about.

Of course, the fact that the guy I would have voted for won means that ranked choice is going to be another one of those things that is associated/tainted as some sort of pinko cheat, rather than as a way to actually serve the will of the voters, and will not be widely accepted here anytime soon, but here we are.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:51 AM on June 25 [10 favorites]

I really hope the Zorhan - Brad Lander relationship continues into one where the one’s talent for communication and bold visions for a more affordable New Yorkers want are buoyed by the other’s long experience with the nuts and bolts of city government.

It’s the bromance the city needs.
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:57 AM on June 25 [25 favorites]

Just a note, one poll did predict Mamdani's win, and it was Public Policy Polling PPP saw Zohran Mamdani’s first place finish coming before anyone else did for one simple reason: we polled the 2025 electorate instead of the 2021 electorate.

Usually when polling a primary election pollsters start out with a list of voters who have participated in similar elections in the past.

It was clear in this election though that Mamdani was building a movement that was going to bring a lot of people into the process that had never voted in a city election before. So we made a conscious decision not to require people we polled to have voted in 2021. If they said they were going to vote on our screening question that was good enough.-
posted by toastyk at 6:58 AM on June 25 [22 favorites]

Republican frontrunner, Curtis Sliwa

yeah, that's not real.
It's funny, but it's not real.
Don't you dare fucking wake me up.

Also, go Mamdani GO!
posted by From Bklyn at 7:00 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

An actually good op-ed column in the New York Times! Gift link:
Democratic Leaders Tried to Crush Zohran Mamdani. They Should Have Been Taking Notes.

Excerpt:

Since their losses last fall, Democrats have obsessed over how to reverse their declining fortunes. By and large, the consensus has been that we need candidates with a sharp economic argument that can connect with young people, men, voters of color and the working class. In the New York City mayoral race we got a candidate who checked many of those boxes: Mr. Mamdani. ...

Ask an Andrew Cuomo voter for some of his top policy ideas, and he or she will probably struggle to name one. Ask a Mamdani voter, and I bet he or she could name a few: “Freeze the rent,” “free buses,” “a city you can afford.”

posted by martin q blank at 7:04 AM on June 25 [30 favorites]

Really hoping that Cuomo is definitely not going to do an independent run.

We really need a law forbidding people who've run in a primary and lost from making independent runs or being eligable for write in.
posted by sotonohito at 7:06 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

mark k: "So Mamdani would have won in a "traditional" primary too?"

yep.

We don't know this. RCV wasn't something that was instituted last minute---it shaped the entire campaign. Lander would have felt pressure to punch left if RCV wasn't a thing.

Or what bellman said better.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:11 AM on June 25 [7 favorites]

Good GOD - I really thought that the primaries would lead to a temporary reprieve on the flood of political solicitations but I just got a text this morning from another Independent Candidate, and it looks like it was EXPRESSLY timed to come after the primaries.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:12 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

We really need a law forbidding people who've run in a primary and lost from making independent runs or being eligable for write in.

Eh...no, that's not a good idea and pretty undemocratic. A primary is just, ostensibly, an internal process of a political party to determine that party's candidate, it shouldn't affect general electoral eligibility. If a primary loser chooses to run in the general and wins then that's the choice of the electorate.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:15 AM on June 25 [26 favorites]

Yeah I am pretty sure the campaigning would have coalesced around someone more “realistic” under FPTP.

Good to see better things are possible, and possible without throwing any immigrants, trans people or anybody else under the bus. hope the Democratic Party at large sees that too.
posted by Artw at 7:16 AM on June 25 [8 favorites]

Yeah with FPTP you get stuff like they have in Ontario (and Canada in general), where the Libs and NDP have like an 80% ideological overlap but spend all their time shitting on each other, which allows the Conservatives to waltz into power over and over. RCV incentivizes collegiality instead of tribalism, and I think that's part of the big story of this victory. It's a big win for the concepts of strategy and solidarity.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 7:21 AM on June 25 [27 favorites]

Right now, I'm reading Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics by Terry Golway. It has been a revelatory read. It traces Tammany Hall and the counteracting, always-present reform movement from the 1820s to the 1930s.

What I found fascinating is that for all of Tammany Hall's faults and how it moved from medium-level corruption to maximum corruption (Boss Tweed), it represented a pro-democracy people's movement. In contrast, the reform movement was often baldly racist. They openly promoted limiting votes to such groups as property owners and openly demonized the Irish, the Jewish, and the blacks. (It was a bit complicated, Tammany sometimes demonized immigrant groups other than the Irish.)

All of this was set in the context of the Irish famine, which the governing British made worse through hatred of the Irish Catholics and moralizing about Protestant values. The same moralizing and anti-Rome, anti-immigrant screeds formed the backbone of the New York reform movements including such famous folks as Tilden, Parkhurst, and Teddy Roosevelt.

Reading this, I recognized (as I think Golway intended), the current moralizing anti-immigrant and anti-government crusades.

What the moralizers don't get is that in spite of the corruption of Tammany Hall, but in part because Tammany embraced immigration, New York became the greatest city on earth, economically, and for a time population-wise.

A people's agenda promotes growth and success.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:34 AM on June 25 [12 favorites]

I think the real value of ranked choice is that it defeats the dem voter suicide/self-justification logic of "well I want to vote for the nice guy, but the reactionary masses beneath me would certainly rebel, so instead I'll pick whoever seems most electable (the rapist)." Republicans don't have this curse of cleverness of course.
posted by jy4m at 7:40 AM on June 25 [13 favorites]

Yep. Glad about this! It's hopeful.
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:45 AM on June 25

let's avoid comments like the halal food cart above

But...but...we must talk about halalflation!
posted by mittens at 8:01 AM on June 25 [15 favorites]

Add me to the list of people worried about Cuomo running as an independent and trying to win a war of attrition. Put three "democrats" on the ballot, the actual Democrat candidate and two with name recognition running as independents, and Cuomo tries to win with 25-30% of the vote.
posted by thecjm at 8:01 AM on June 25

But...but...we must talk about halalflation!

Ay don't be a micro aggressor.
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:03 AM on June 25

let's avoid comments like the halal food cart above.

It was intended as a satire of Trump's scaremongering about taco trucks during the 2016 election, but if the community found it otherwise then I'd rather have it deleted.
posted by jedicus at 8:05 AM on June 25 [6 favorites]

The general is FPTP, so vote splitting is an issue, but I’d expect it to be more of a problem with the guys-who-suck cohort with at least Cuomo, Adams and the Guardian Angel cat hoarder guy running.
posted by Artw at 8:05 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Eh...no, that's not a good idea and pretty undemocratic.

Please explain how a "sore loser" law is undemocratic and a bad idea. Because from where I'm sitting, the lack of one is what enabled the late, unlamented Joe Lieberman to get to fuck us all over.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:05 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

Also of note in this election: antisemitism scaremongering did fuck all.
posted by Artw at 8:06 AM on June 25 [15 favorites]

Please explain how a "sore loser" law is undemocratic and a bad idea. Because from where I'm sitting, the lack of one is what enabled the late, unlamented Joe Lieberman to get to fuck us all over.

There's no Constitutional basis for primaries or even political parties. The idea that general elections should be one Democrat vs one Republican is in and of itself undemocratic. Locking someone out of a general election because they tried and failed to will a primary is even more undemocratic.
posted by thecjm at 8:10 AM on June 25 [22 favorites]

For anyone who, like me, wasn't familiar with "halalflation," and didn't click through on the link: "'New York is suffering from a crisis and it’s called halalflation,' Mamdani says, adding 'Chicken over rice now costs $10 or more. It’s time to make halal eight bucks again.'" His full video on the subject is here.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:10 AM on June 25 [22 favorites]

Please explain how a "sore loser" law is undemocratic and a bad idea.

I invite you to read past the first sentence of the comment you are quoting here for your answer.

Because from where I'm sitting, the lack of one is what enabled the late, unlamented Joe Lieberman to get to fuck us all over.

I didn't like that either, but too bad, that's democracy. If the voters didn't want that they could have voted otherwise. Also, somehow I imagine if Sanders had decided to launch an independent bid I'd be hearing a different tune on this.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:10 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]

I do think (and hope) that Eric Adams and Cuomo would just be spoilers for one another, and neither would take votes from Mamdani. The question is what happens if all the Republicans, DINOs, and Zionists line up behind Cuomo. I have no idea whether that's enough to take him over the top.
posted by prefpara at 8:11 AM on June 25 [4 favorites]

“This Is The Beginning of The End of The 9/11 Era,” Spencer Ackerman, FOREVER WARS, 25 June 2025
posted by ob1quixote at 8:11 AM on June 25 [12 favorites]

That's okay, Laura Loomer assures us that there will be another 9/11 thanks to Mamdani.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:17 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Democratic Party, are you paying attention!? Socialism can win. People actually really like it. But you have to foster and back up young politicians like Mamdani and stop with party of gerontocracy.

This times a thousand. It won't be easy and it won't happen right away but it's possible so we can't give up. You get good candidates when you organize and support them. The end of the Party's gerontocracy depends on the voters showing up.

And my respect for Sen Gillenbrand; when she supports Cuomo after torpedoing Al Franken for misconduct… is pretty low.
posted by jabo at 8:17 AM on June 25 [12 favorites]

sotonohito: "We really need a law forbidding people who've run in a primary and lost from making independent runs or being eligable for write in."

Just ban Primaries then.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:24 AM on June 25

Just ban Primaries then.

The Democratic consultant’s dream.
posted by Artw at 8:26 AM on June 25 [7 favorites]

You know what would have had a good if not guaranteed chance of preventing Joe Lieberman?

RCV.
posted by Artw at 8:27 AM on June 25 [15 favorites]

from bsky:

"An Indian-Muslim socialist who is openly pro Palestine is going to be mayor of a city that is bigger than 38 states"
posted by exlotuseater at 8:34 AM on June 25 [13 favorites]

That's okay, Laura Loomer assures us that there will be another 9/11 thanks to Mamdani.

If she thinks the mayor of New York City is responsible for "allowing" terrorist attacks, then have I got news for her! As in, who was mayor the last time that happened in NYC?
posted by grubi at 8:35 AM on June 25 [13 favorites]

grubi: "That's okay, Laura Loomer assures us that there will be another 9/11 thanks to Mamdani.

If she thinks the mayor of New York City is responsible for "allowing" terrorist attacks, then have I got news for her! As in, who was mayor the last time that happened in NYC?"

Thanks Obama!
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:41 AM on June 25 [11 favorites]

I was a Mamdani voter yesterday (Brad Lander #2/no rank for Cuomo) and I do think that it goes to show that democrats can win no matter what they call themselves by focusing on economic issues for working people. I don't even think his main 3 proposals (rent freeze on rent stabilized apartments/free buses/city-run grocery stores in every borough) will help me at all (I'm not in a rent-stabilized apartment; either use the bus not at all or so much that I just pay the unlimited fare for the week; and don't have a car so a cheaper grocery store that's a 90-min transit ride away is not helpful for my daily life) but I do have some faith that his main priority will be to bring down the cost of living in a city that has become totally unaffordable for all but the super-rich. The combination of rents skyrocketing and with landlords requiring a tenant to make 40x the rent leaves people trapped in whatever apartment they are in, even after life circumstances change, because they have no hope of being able to qualify for any other place because they are making less than 40x what a new place would cost (even though they are paying their current rent just fine).
posted by matcha action at 8:44 AM on June 25 [18 favorites]

Yes, something that was uniquely magical here and only possible under RCV was the progressive-liberal+democratic socialist alliance which was personified through the inspiring and adorable Lander-Cuomo cross endorsement. Now Zohran wins, NYC is inches away from a fucking DSA Mayor, the WFP restores their image big time and Lander, a guy who is gonna get ~12% of the vote, comes out looking like such a star and a mensch that people are egging him on to run for congress! Coalitions with socialists - it's the hot new thing people! Get on board fast!
posted by windbox at 8:45 AM on June 25 [26 favorites]

I invite you to read past the first sentence of the comment you are quoting here for your answer.

I did, and found the "primaries are internal party affairs" argument not really compelling, especially when they are being run by the state. Again, we set all sorts of standards for candidates to run for office - I'm not exactly seeing "a person who seeks to run for office under the imprimatur of a political party and fails to secure it is disqualified from the general election" to be the horrible blow to democracy that it's being claimed to be.

Just ban Primaries then.

Three states - Louisiana, California, and Washington - have done exactly that. Given that one of the results was that an actual fucking Klansman almost got elected governor of the first, and we've seen the clear will of the public be rejected because of ballot splitting, I'm going to say this isn't quite the solution you think it is.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:46 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

NYC is inches away from a fucking DSA Mayor

This would be NYC’s second DSA Mayor, the first being David Dinkins.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 8:48 AM on June 25 [12 favorites]

In re what the "vote Blue no matter who" people will do in the general, let me point you to the 2017 Atlanta Democratic mayoral election.

Because the city is dark blue, the primary is effectively always the mayoral election; because the city is majority black (though likely not for very long, and possibly already not), the winner will effectively always be black. In every one of these, we get four candidates:

• the black establishment candidate (Keisha Lance-Bottoms, in this case, who won and did a decent job as mayor)
• the black For The Peepul candidate (Vincent Fort, RIP, a lunatic but a well-meaning one)
• the white nerd (Cathy Woolard) who would probably govern best but will inevitably get creamed
• the white Republican (Mary Norwood) masquerading as a Democrat and representing the corporate/business sector

The neighborhood I used to live in (Candler Park) had been super pro-Hillary like me in the 2016 presidential primary. Think prosperous, socially liberal but economically not so much, total NIMBYs who would get real mad if you pointed out that the neighborhood has a heavy passenger rail station and common sense would dictate ripping up single-family housing within half a mile of it and replacing that with high-density housing. Both precincts in the neighborhood went 10:1 for Hillary v Trump in 2016.

But in 2017, even in the face of OMG Trump Suuucks, both precincts went 60-65% for Mary Norwood, the quasi-Republican, in the runoff for the primary, against Lance-Bottoms. When talking to them, they would absolutely tiptoe around race and economic justice issues and give you some bullshit about constituent service.

So, that might be your yardstick for the NYC general election: if *more* than 1/3 of those upper-middle-class people actually do vote blue no matter who, then you're probably doing okay.

BTW, out of the 6.5M people in the Atlanta metro area, just a little less than 10% of them actually live within the city limits: go north or west, and it's white flight balkanization; south or east, huge communities of black folks, mostly middle class of one sort or another, some quite impoverished.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 9:00 AM on June 25 [8 favorites]

The Clinton endorsement, man, that made me so pissed again. Dude could have just done nothing and he comes out for fucking Cuomo? Way to keep torpedoing your legacy Bill. Please shut up forever.

I think it was hilarious that Hochul refused to endorse Cuomo, she's not great but at least she wouldn't cross that line.

I am thrilled for my former city.
posted by emjaybee at 9:03 AM on June 25 [25 favorites]

NoxAeternum: "I invite you to read past the first sentence of the comment you are quoting here for your answer.

I did, and found the "primaries are internal party affairs" argument not really compelling, especially when they are being run by the state. Again, we set all sorts of standards for candidates to run for office - I'm not exactly seeing "a person who seeks to run for office under the imprimatur of a political party and fails to secure it is disqualified from the general election" to be the horrible blow to democracy that it's being claimed to be.

Just ban Primaries then.

Three states - Louisiana, California, and Washington - have done exactly that. Given that one of the results was that an actual fucking Klansman almost got elected governor of the first, and we've seen the clear will of the public be rejected because of ballot splitting, I'm going to say this isn't quite the solution you think it is."

I guess. Voters vote how they vote.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 9:03 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]

I agree that the idea that primaries have become so ingrained that what should be internal party business have become something under the purview of state election boards is problematic. But that's not the same as arguing that the loser of the primary being "allowed" to show up on a ballot as an independent is somehow undemocratic. If anything, it's the more democratic that the entire party/primary apparatus.
posted by thecjm at 9:04 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

I guess. Voters vote how they vote.

This, like "calories in calories out," is both true and meaningless.
posted by The Bellman at 9:06 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

I switched from independent to Democrat to, first, vote against Adams, then Cuomo. I had Lander first, Mamdani third, because while as a Jew I don't care that Mamdani is pro-Palestinian, I do care that a lot of his high-profile proposals seem a bit (or more than a bit) pie-in-the-sky. But I'd like to see how much he can get done and am heartened that the old guard was shunned.
posted by AJaffe at 9:09 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

Dude could have just done nothing and he comes out for fucking Cuomo?

The Clyburn one is one that stood out for me, as people tout that guy as the positive face of Democratic machine politics.
posted by Artw at 9:09 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

Unscientific take: Ranked choice voting mattered here, even if the top line took it. I celebrate everyone who educated the public to make this happen, and while getting to a second tier is exciting, the success is still there.

RCV forces people to think more about options and learn more than a one-and-done vote does. You can hold a real favorable tendency toward a number of people without fear of being wrong, and tendencies mean more in conversation than holding a positive opinion.

No fear of throwing votes away during polling swings, that conversation may shift but stays alive. The possibility of throwing a bone to someone you like even if you like someone better. And having the courage to say ‘I want the best guy so I’ll go for it’.

These things kept Mamdani viable the whole time - it is a lot harder for the media to declare you dead, as we saw. Then the candidate and team made hay.
posted by drowsy at 9:15 AM on June 25 [16 favorites]

This, like "calories in calories out," is both true and meaningless.

How so? This feels like a tendency I see in other spaces to completely remove any accountability or responsibility from the voters themselves.
posted by girlmightlive at 9:17 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]

SF has had RCV since 2002 . . . I'm definitely for it, but it's not the total panacea some of its proponents want it to be.
posted by flamk at 9:18 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

I am already bracing for the tsunami of irrational and unrelenting attacks on his character and policies. I hope he can weather the storm.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:19 AM on June 25 [10 favorites]

Logging back in for the first time in maybe a decade to say

MAMDANI MABRUK, BAYBEEEEEEE
posted by LMGM at 9:36 AM on June 25 [23 favorites]

I am already bracing for the tsunami of irrational and unrelenting attacks on his character and policies. I hope he can weather the storm.

Oh there’s gonna be some outright sabotage and then blaming him for the results of the sabotage.

Looking at the NYPD in particular.
posted by Artw at 9:43 AM on June 25 [10 favorites]

Just learned that Zohran Mamdani's dad is MAHMOUD MAMDANI!!!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:47 AM on June 25 [5 favorites]

Funny how the op-eds and pundits always ask "Why doesn't the DNC support economic progressives?" And never answer their own question. It's an easy answer. The DNC relies on the same billionaire donors that the GOP does. If they back candidates who want to raise taxes on corporations or billionaires, the money dries up.

The only solution seems to be these grassroots, people-first campaigns.

NOTE I am not saying the tired "both parties are the same." Just that in one way--catering to rich assholes--they are.
posted by skullhead at 9:48 AM on June 25 [10 favorites]

~That's okay, Laura Loomer assures us that there will be another 9/11 thanks to Mamdani.

~If she thinks the mayor of New York City is responsible for "allowing" terrorist attacks, then have I got news for her! As in, who was mayor the last time that happened in NYC?

I think it's more of an attempt at "muslim=terrorist" math.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:49 AM on June 25 [4 favorites]

Just learned that Zohran Mamdani's dad is MAHMOUD MAMDANI!!!
Yeah it's been a trip to know that I have his dad's book (Good Muslim, Bad Muslim) all these years.

Also it's worth emphasizing his Ugandan heritage too, per the music video linked above. It's ironically not so easy to find Indian Ugandans mixing around when I was there due to their history (ie Idi Amin), so the fact that he doesn't fit the profile that I knew is also a big sign that he's a good egg.
posted by cendawanita at 9:51 AM on June 25 [7 favorites]

Just learned that Zohran Mamdani's dad is MAHMOUD MAMDANI!!!

And his mom is MIRA NAIR!
posted by droomoord at 9:53 AM on June 25 [17 favorites]

Both parties aren't the same, but they're willing to put aside their differences when it comes to war and fucking up socialism. Cuomo's concession speech was gracious. Unusually so, even by the standards of a primary. It makes me think that the coming election is going to bring the most spectacular ratfucking the city's seen since the 19th century.
posted by jy4m at 9:58 AM on June 25 [6 favorites]

This, like "calories in calories out," is both true and meaningless.
The Bellman

No, actually, it's the core of the issue.

Democracy doesn't guarantee good outcomes, it's just a mechanism to try and ensure that the rulers are expressions of the will of the ruled. Reading NoxAeternum's comments, their problem comes down to the system allowing what they perceive as bad outcomes: primary losers running as general elections "spoilers" or "an actual fucking Klansman almost got elected governor."

Which comes back to: voters vote how they vote. If an election leads to an outcome you don't like, that's too bad, and it's undemocratic to try to artificially limit voter choices to achieve the results you want. If voters allow a primary loser to "spoil" a general election, too bad. If voters vote for someone despite them being an actual Klansman, that's on the voters. At some point the voters have to actually be responsible for what they do, and you have to accept that the point of the system isn't to generate only what you want.

I mean, I don't think people should have voted for Trump. Trump was very open about who he is and what he'll do. But people voted for him anyway. Absent actual voter fraud, them's the breaks in a democracy.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:08 AM on June 25 [10 favorites]

It's entirely possible establishment Democrats could prefer that Cuomo become a spoiler vs Zohran, giving NYC a Republican mayor.

Yeah, or that Cuomo runs independently and pro-money voters spoil it against Mamdani. But as of right now, it's worth noting that Mamdani won Hakeem Jeffries' district, and also that both Jeffries and Schumer have publicly stated their intent to have meetings with him. So there's a chance establishment Democrats are falling in line behind the winner like they should.
posted by atbash at 10:13 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]

I doubt Cuomo will run in the general - it's worth recalling that his team had said that they'd only be nervous about the final result if they were up 5 points or less in round one. He wasn't expecting to lose round one. And like someone else pointed out, him running would likely help Mamdani in the general since he's more likely to take votes from Adams.
posted by coffeecat at 10:14 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Wow, two Independent mayors of New York in a row! :o
posted by groda at 10:14 AM on June 25

I doubt Cuomo will run in the general

I hope for that as well, but he did leave the idea open in his concession speech.
posted by atbash at 10:18 AM on June 25

"Since conceding the primary, I have been taken aback by the extraordinary number of normal New Yorkers alarmed at the far left rhetoric of the official Democratic nominee. They are not only afraid that such rhetoric leaves space for a Republican to steal the centre ground, where most New Yorkers reside; they are genuinely alarmed that Mamdani's proposed policies, if enacted, will leave New York poorer, less safe and less united. New Yorkers deserve better than this, as they have been telling me in their thousands. After much soul-searching and discussions with my family..."
posted by deeker at 10:26 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]

Democracy doesn't guarantee good outcomes, it's just a mechanism to try and ensure that the rulers are expressions of the will of the ruled.

Yes, but that does not oblige us to just throw up our hands and accept bad systems, which is at the heart of your argument.

it's undemocratic to try to artificially limit voter choices to achieve the results you want.

Except that we do this all the time. Age, citizenship, residency requirements - these are all mechanisms that "artificially" (because any rule limiting candidacy eligibility is by its very nature "artificial") limit voter choices to "achieve the results you want", because it turns out that things like "candidates who represent an area should be from said area" are results we want for good reasons.

Your argument of "achieve the results you want" is from the same strain of thought as "speech you don't like", and fails for the same reason - it's an attempt to elide over the rationale for the position by appealing to the idea that it is somehow morally wrong for us to want to have such limitations, while casually avoiding the point that we're doing it anyway.

(I will point out that you do have a path out here - you could argue that all candidacy restrictions are wrong. Of course, I doubt you will find many takers for that position either.)

So if you believe that "sore loser" restrictions are wrong, then you're welcome to make the case - but at least for me, "it Subverts The Will Of The Voters" comes across as rather thin gruel.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:31 AM on June 25 [8 favorites]

Another New York magazine piece:

That any current or former Democratic leader would support Cuomo after state and federal investigations detailed evidence of his alleged sexual misconduct — after he spent nearly $20 million in taxpayer money to drag his accusers into a lengthy legal battle, after he requested those accusers’ gynecological records and other private information, and after he threatened to expose the identity of one of them who is protected by a confidentiality order — was a shameful display of political opportunism. It was also a betrayal of a constituency the party claims to champion. Democrats have purported to support victims of sexual misconduct and violence, casting themselves as having the moral high ground over a Republican Party that has gladly elevated alleged abusers. But the Democratic officials who supported Cuomo’s bid have shown they’re willing to sell out survivors in order to prevent a new generation of leaders from emerging.

Thankfully, voters saw through the charade on Tuesday, choosing the vision of a brighter future that Mamdani offered them over returning an accused serial sexual harasser to the cusp of power over America’s largest city. Good riddance.

posted by Lemkin at 10:50 AM on June 25 [14 favorites]

Which comes back to: voters vote how they vote. If an election leads to an outcome you don't like, that's too bad, and it's undemocratic to try to artificially limit voter choices to achieve the results you want.

Don't you mean artificially limit voter choices any more than they're already artificially limited? Because that's what your argument seems to be resting on.

At some point the voters have to actually be responsible for what they do, and you have to accept that the point of the system isn't to generate only what you want.

Except that's the whole reason RCV was adopted: to prevent certain undesirable outcomes where a candidate wins by a plurality and the majority of voters aren't responsible for electing them because their vote was split. Are you arguing that switching to RCV was inherently undemocratic because it was done to achieve results we want like candidates who represent the will of the electorate?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:53 AM on June 25 [1 favorite]

>> this, like "calories in calories out," is both true and meaningless.

> no, actually, it's the core of the issue. [...] democracy doesn't guarantee good outcomes, it's just a mechanism to try and ensure that the rulers are expressions of the will of the ruled. reading noxaeternum's comments, their problem comes down to the system allowing what they perceive as bad outcomes: primary losers running as general elections "spoilers" or "an actual fucking klansman almost got elected governor." [...] absent actual voter fraud, them's the breaks in a democracy.

n.b. this isn't going exactly where you think it's going.

elections are antidemocratic, until the enlightenment period people acknowledged that elections are antidemocratic, places that have used electoral methods to select officeholders have always become some flavor of oligarchy, and it's a real pity that democratic methods¹ haven't been tried lately because they've historically worked spectacularly well.

given that elections are antidemocratic — the process of campaigning yields candidates that are in some way notable, and achieving notability without the backing of merchant princes is very, very, very hard — one can't just appeal to some abstract idea of democratic purity when determining the implementation details of any specific electoral system. because one can't appeal to abstract ideas of democratic purity, one must be conscious to outcomes when devising those details.

in this case i think the argument for sore loser laws against post-primary-loss independent general-election campaigns is straightforward. political partisanship is a core feature of electoral methods in general, because organized parties beat independent campaigns and because tightly-organized parties beat loosely-organized parties. methods that pretend that parties aren't a core feature tend to yield results that are less democratic. when primary losers perpetrate post-primary splits, they undermine the cohesion of their former party so badly that they ensure that that party loses. this allows whichever minority faction within the party that's the most ruthless and/or least cares about the party's success to override the will of the majority faction by holding the whole party hostage.

if a faction wants to split, make them run someone other than the previous candidate. this still allows factions to undermine the party they're splitting from, but making sore-loser splitter factions run a different person makes it at least a little bit harder for them to pretend they still hold legitimate control over the party they're sabotaging.

1: chief among them sortition, of course, but there are other participatory/deliberative democracy techniques that are both democratic and good.
posted by bombastic lowercase boatshoes at 10:56 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

So if you believe that "sore loser" restrictions are wrong, then you're welcome to make the case

Less that they'd be wrong, but more that they'd be useless for achieving the stated ends. Lieberman didn't run as an independent after losing his Democratic Party primary. He ran under the Connecticut for Lieberman Party. You'd have to ban anyone from being able to start new political parties or switching parties if you wanted to remove that loophole. Good luck justifying that as remotely democratic.
posted by figurant at 11:04 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

I think it's fucking stupid that the politics of New York City is tied to the Middle East. Good on him if he has progressive bonafides I'm too tired of I/P to make it past that bullshit in articles about him. I don't have a solution for not flipping off kings - ya gotta do it! - but the tenor of American and international politics are gonna suck with more enthusiasm if he's elected. Which he should be.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 11:59 AM on June 25 [3 favorites]

I think these results kind of show that the opposite is true, and the politics of NYC *aren't* as tied to the I/P conflict as folks like Cuomo might have hoped (Or at the very least, they aren't as tied to an unwavering loyalty to Israel). They couldn't touch him on any issues, and their only strategy was basically "he's a Muslim!" which, as it turns out, was insufficiently frightening to NYC dem primary voters. They were out there slinging mud and casting racist aspersions, while Zohran was walking the entire length of Manhattan, talking to people about affordability. He rose above, and won. A rare case of "when they go low, we go high" actually working.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 12:06 PM on June 25 [10 favorites]

You'd have to ban anyone from being able to start new political parties or switching parties if you wanted to remove that loophole. Good luck justifying that as remotely democratic.

Nope, you just set up a "one bite at the apple" rule - you are welcome to pick your electoral path - but you are locked in once you do. And nothing by that is stopping you from forming a new party or switching parties - you're just not eligible as a candidate for either for that race, just as if you failed any other qualification.

So, it's actually pretty easy to justify it as democratic by the standard we set (and the fact that you tried to argue by insinuation shows how weak the argument is in the first place.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:15 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

He ran under the Connecticut for Lieberman Party. You'd have to ban anyone from being able to start new political parties or switching parties if you wanted to remove that loophole.

He didn't appear on the ballot because he formed a new political party. He appeared on the ballot because he collected 7,500 signatures--a requirement Connecticut places on any party whose primaries aren't recognized by the state.

I personally feel uncomfortable about adopting sore losers laws. I can't articulate why, but I do feel that all of the reasons given thus far about how they're "anti-democratic" ignore the reality where states already a) legally acknowledge that the two-party system is a thing and b) have a different set of rules about who can appear on a ballot if they aren't a member of one of those parties.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:16 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

A couple of interesting takes from BlueSky:

Mamdani was an extremely disciplined communicator. For the most part, Zohran did not talk about Israel-Palestine. When he did, it was almost always in response to people demanding an answer from him, and he never equivocated or apologized. It made Cuomo look crazy.

The biggest dividing line based on this map is that Cuomo did best in neighborhoods with the most people who have cars while Mamdani won among people who take the subway.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:19 PM on June 25 [11 favorites]

I think these results kind of show that the opposite is true, and the politics of NYC *aren't* as tied to the I/P conflict as folks like Cuomo might have hoped

My city council member, Shahana Hanif, also fended off a primary challenge that was entirely premised on her views on foreign policy.
posted by Ragged Richard at 12:19 PM on June 25 [8 favorites]

He didn't appear on the ballot because he formed a new political party. He appeared on the ballot because he collected 7,500 signatures--a requirement Connecticut places on any party whose primaries aren't recognized by the state.

True, but he also wasn't trying to get around poorly conceived hypothetical laws that try to make party affiliation supreme in electoral participation. It just illustrates that a law specifying that "you can't run as an independent under conditions X, Y and Z" wouldn't work very well without much larger overreach.
posted by figurant at 12:30 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

Nope, you just set up a "one bite at the apple" rule - you are welcome to pick your electoral path - but you are locked in once you do. And nothing by that is stopping you from forming a new party or switching parties - you're just not eligible as a candidate for either for that race, just as if you failed any other qualification.

Would a law like this have caused Republicans to hold the Senate in 2001, because Jim Jeffords would have been forbidden from leaving his party? Who can say, but trying to fiddle with the rules to achieve particular partisan outcomes tends to have unpredictable consequences.
posted by figurant at 12:35 PM on June 25 [4 favorites]

I personally feel uncomfortable about adopting sore losers laws. I can't articulate why,

The US culturally has antipathy towards political parties as part of our general antipathy towards organization in general - again, the "lone sharpshooter" is a foundational cultural myth. So even though the formation of political factions has occurred since time immemorial because organization is the force multiplier, giving them authority rubs us the wrong way culturally.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:40 PM on June 25

Chiming in late to yarp over this fantastic win! Mamdani is a voice for people-centered, civil and social rights-focused leadership, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I live almost 3,000 miles away, but it feels like Mamdani's election was a huge victory not just for NYC, but for the country. We needed this. The future of our country's leadership shouldn't belong to typical politicians like Cuomo: fossilized and moneyed, favoring their rich cronies and their portfolios over raising up their fellow humans. Yes, Mamdani has a lot on his shoulders, but I think he's up to the job. May others follow his lead.
posted by but no cigar at 12:41 PM on June 25 [4 favorites]

every general view of a leftist politician is filtered through the media that hates them, the democratic establishment that hates them, and the public that is half paying attention.

Meaning, of course, that the public generally hates them (or thinks they hate them) as well.
posted by Rykey at 12:48 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

May the Cuomo name die the same political death as the Kennedy name has.
posted by Lemkin at 1:18 PM on June 25 [7 favorites]

This caught my attention:

The American electoral left thinks they're making an argument about winning elections to an out of touch aging leadership class that just doesn't understand.

This is false. They absolutely understand your way, the Sanders way, the AOC way, the Mamdani way would win them more elections. They just don't care. What matters MOST to them and their donors is protecting capital.

Not realizing this will be your fatal mistake, and why the Dems will run a center right platform in 2026 and prolly 2028.

By the time you get back into the process, every gatekeeper, rule, procedure, and marketing campaign will ALREADY be "against the left" inside the party. It's happening right now.

We'll see how long "vote blue no matter who" lasts when a socialist is the blue candidate.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:24 PM on June 25 [8 favorites]

May the Cuomo name die the same political death as the Kennedy name has.

God I wish there were no Kennedys left in politics.
posted by Artw at 1:25 PM on June 25 [9 favorites]

Anyone read Jemisin's The City We Became? As prophetic as Butler in her "Parable" novels! Perhaps NYC is being (re)born!
posted by kneecapped at 1:28 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

What matters MOST to them and their donors is protecting capital.

I think I would've believed this wholeheartedly if not for the damage Trump has done to the economy. To put it another way, I don't think the donors are smart enough to know what protects capital and what exposes it to existential harm.
posted by mittens at 1:28 PM on June 25 [5 favorites]

Mamdani won, mashallah, with votes from transit riders and cyclists. Cuomo (boo) won the car-owner vote (hiss). Jalopnik: "The less time you spend in a car, the more likely it is you backed Zohran Mamdani."

Excited to see Lander and Mamdani work together to get things done. Breaking the food cart middlemen and getting housing built would be huge.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:29 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

an octopus IRL: "I would like to see some sort of chart or diagram of people who say "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and people who will vote for Cuomo over Mamdani in the general if he runs as an independent. Maybe all these people have been acting in good faith the whole time and will support the candidate chosen by the voters in the Democratic primary but I'd genuinely like to see to what extent they actually mean "no matter who"."

Hah, came in to say this myself (i said it on bsky and fedi last night). I predict that there's gonna be a whooooooooooole lot of "vote blue no matter who" people who suddenly have excellent reasons why this time they have to vote for an independent!
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:37 PM on June 25 [4 favorites]

My Favorite Take So Far

As for myself, I left NYC for Portland about three years ago, but my social media feeds have still be pretty much wall-to-wall this race. Amazing to see it come out like this. RCV really allowed the non-Cuomo candidates (most impactfully Mamdani and Lander) to rally around each other, and Cuomo's noxious ass being in the mix allowed the campaign to be an object lesson in things like "You don't have to rank everyone! In fact, maybe don't rank openly corrupt sexual predators at all!"

So this is great. There's the schadenfreude of seeing Cuomo lose, and that's just a wonderful, wonderful thing of course, but Mamdani winning is enough positivity in its own right! Hooray for NYC!
posted by Navelgazer at 1:37 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

AlSweigart: "This caught my attention:"

Oh, Nina's a friend of mine and she's very sharp and incisive! Great pull.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:52 PM on June 25

The " no sore losers" thing is a bit of a derail but an interesting one, so here's an argument against it.

Accepting that liberal democracy is deeply flawed in many, many ways, one way to improve it is to radicalise participation. One could very well argue that the franchise has restrictions (citizenship, residency, age, etc) but those extant restrictions are hardly a good argument for further restrictions. We could easily posit "some other good" to be advanced by a more restricted franchise - and, historically, that was the case. The argument against those restrictions was always, "the most choice for the most people" - the appeal to democracy as such. (As it happens, I would happily support reducing the voting age to 12 and could easily be persuaded to go as low as five.)

I am against residency requirements for candidates - if the electorate can be made aware that a candidate lives miles away, they can take that into account when casting their votes. I am against age requirements beyond the franchise (and, yes, would allow 12 and possibly five year olds to stand for election). Again, voters will be aware if a candidate is, say, thirteen, and if their collective decision is, "that's too young," then fair enough. Conversely, if an informed electorate doesn't think that disabling, their votes will tell us that.

From this perspective, all restrictions on the franchise and on candidacy should be absolutely de minimis, always. All attempts to restrict the franchise and candidacy are extra-democtatic and, in principle at least, allow for some very perverse outcomes. An appeal in a relatively "pure" way to maximising participation (franchise and candidacy) has the benefit of being straightforward: we don't need to take into account extra-democtatic preferences, which are contestable and partisan.

For everyone who says, "but we already restrict candidacy on essentially arbitrary grounds/to support extra-democtatic principles" the same general argument must apply also to the franchise. The argument against further restricting the franchise beyond a de minimis level is always, "maximise participation." So too with candidacy.

Yes, de minimis is itself essentially arbitrary but the argument that we should always expand and not contract participation and the choices available to participants has at least the elegance of a certain simplicity.
posted by deeker at 1:56 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

> > ...the Republican frontrunner, Curtis Sliwa...

I've paid no attention at all to the NYC elections so this is the first time I've happened across this knowledge and for a moment I thought I had a stroke or something, since I don't think I've seen his name since the whole Guardian Angels thing was current news. And yes that means I'm old.

Hard same. Except I thought that I was paying reasonably close attention, for not living in NYC, and had NO idea he was running until I saw the results this morning.

As a San Franciscan who has been voting RCV for years now, I have a question about the announcing of results already. My experience with RCV is that you don't know the final outcome until all the votes have been counted. It's procedurally very easy to run the RCV, and SF starts running it and posting results shortly after the polls close, but it changes as more votes come in. Is everyone just assuming that the votes will break towards Mamdami? Or does NYC not have many outstanding votes to count?
posted by gingerbeer at 1:57 PM on June 25

The final results of the election won’t be announced until July 1 at the earliest. What the Board of Elections did announce was the preliminary first-round results of all the votes they currently have. And those results were bad enough for Cuomo that there is basically zero chance for him to make up the deficit in later rounds, which is why he conceded.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 2:02 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

Curtis Sliwa isn't real - it's just an "Alan Smithee" style placeholder name that the GOP uses in NYC elections.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:03 PM on June 25 [8 favorites]

deeker: "(As it happens, I would happily support reducing the voting age to 12 and could easily be persuaded to go as low as five.)"

I agree wholeheartedly, and at a minimum i think the age of enfranchisement in any US state should be no higher than the age of the youngest person ever tried as an adult in that state. (Which gets you at least down to 14 in basically every state in the US, because the US is barbaric.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:08 PM on June 25 [7 favorites]

gingerbeer: "As a San Franciscan who has been voting RCV for years now, I have a question about the announcing of results already. My experience with RCV is that you don't know the final outcome until all the votes have been counted. It's procedurally very easy to run the RCV, and SF starts running it and posting results shortly after the polls close, but it changes as more votes come in. Is everyone just assuming that the votes will break towards Mamdami? Or does NYC not have many outstanding votes to count?"

gingerbeer: they have yet to run the IRV/transfer processing (tallies will be released next week), but Mamdani has a 7% lead at the end of the first-round counting, and the #3 candidate, Brad Lander (who cross-endorsed Mamdani), has 11.5%. The rest of the candidates got like 10% of the vote between all of them.

It's definitely not mathematically impossible for Cuomo to pull out a win from vote transfers, but it'd be extremely difficult and the transferred votes would have to break his way by like 70%+ (which seems particularly unlikely given that 11.5% -- more than half! -- of those votes are transferring from a candidate who explicitly cross-endorsed with Mamdani). Which is clearly also the conclusion that his team came to, hence his concession.
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:14 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

Ryan Broderick:

So expect to hear a million reasons why Mamdani won today and what it means for Democrats across the country going forward, but, from where I’m sitting, it’s pretty simple. Social media does not turn a bad candidate into a viable one. It’s just amplification. And the same platforms that can amplify the ugliness and hatred and resentment of someone like Trump can amplify the joy and earnestness and seemingly genuine conviction of a candidate like Mamdani. It cannot, however, make voters forget that a candidate like Cuomo killed their grandparents during COVID or that current New York Mayor Eric Adams is a genuine maniac. There’s no magic trick. Mamdani ran a regular ass campaign where he spoke clearly about what he cared about and was normal about it and it worked. Revolutionary!

posted by gwint at 2:20 PM on June 25 [12 favorites]

My vote wasn’t for Mamdani it was Fuck Cuomo bc fuck that dude.

I’m pleased that Cuomo lost, but feel far less optimistic about Mamdani. Two different Mamdani volunteers came to my door and answered the question “Where will money for the free buses come from?” with vague nothingness. At least he lives in NYC, unlike some mayors I can think of Eric Adams.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:28 PM on June 25

so i avoid looking at non-actionable news for the most part, but every so often i check in on the wire services and a couple of other outlets. this piece from apnews:

democrats fret about national fallout after mamdani stuns in new york city

is so grotesquely slanted that i am compelled to remove them from my rotation. which is, i suppose, not the worst thing: the less news i look at, the better a person i am.
posted by bombastic lowercase boatshoes at 2:42 PM on June 25 [4 favorites]

I remember Bill de Blasio - taking a strong “well, we’ll see” approach to this.

To his credit, deBlasio did come out strongly against Cuomo. Understandable, because nobody did more to sabotage BDB's mayoralty than Cuomo.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:44 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

You should not be expecting volunteer canvassers get any info about granular details in their candidates’ budget proposals.

You may be surprised to learn there is granular details about this on the candidate’s website, which is uncommon. His plan to pay for it is:

Raising the Corporate Tax Rate from 9% to 11.5%, which his platform estimates will generate $5 billion annually.

Creating a 2% New York City Income Tax for anyone making more than $1 million annually, which his platform estimates will generate $4 billion annually.
posted by Jon_Evil at 2:45 PM on June 25 [15 favorites]

The Clinton endorsement, man, that made me so pissed again. Dude could have just done nothing and he comes out for fucking Cuomo? Way to keep torpedoing your legacy Bill. Please shut up forever.

Sex pest hippie-kickers gotta stick together, y'know. Professional courtesy.

I have my doubts that Cuomo will continue; it is far from impossible, of course, but last night had to sting BADLY. I am curious, however, what the deadline is to get an independent candidacy onto the ballot because I could definitely see some other rich white knight try to parachute in and Save New York From Itself. I'm not sure who it would be yet; Bloomberg's currency bonfire was large enough that I think he's gotten that out of his system.
posted by delfin at 2:49 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

Saw this libel flying over the hudson repeatedly the other day

The thing is, it's not a libel. Mamdani did literally say that "the intifada should be global". He has to own that.

I know he's explained what he meant by it -- a "nonviolent intifada" (whatever that means). But adopting trendy radical-left rhetoric is, unsurprisingly, going to make some people suspect that you are a radical leftist.

This kind of thing is what concerns me most about Mamdani -- not that I seriously think he's some kind of terrorist, but that statements like that are going to come back to haunt him. They may have played well in DSA circles, but he's swimming in a much larger pond now.

His being a Muslim and a socialist are plenty big political liabilities on their own, and make me wonder whether he can win. If he's also said a bunch of stuff that can be used to paint him as an extremist, that makes him all the more of a long shot.

I wish him luck. He'll need it.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:53 PM on June 25

It's well understood that the actual republican candidates are more or less joke candidates and the party in NYC is a shambles, so this is their best bet for getting any sort representation. That's how we got the Adams administration

Not really. We got the Adams administration because voters of color -- especially black voters -- came out strongly for him.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:55 PM on June 25

You'd have to ban anyone from being able to start new political parties or switching parties if you wanted to remove that loophole. Good luck justifying that as remotely democratic.

Only two states (New York and Connecticut) allow a candidate to switch parties or run as an independent in the general election after losing in the primary. Somehow the other forty-eight states still manage to get by.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:58 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

If I’m reading the results correctly, Mamdani has some gaps to fill with black voters and (somewhat surprisingly) lower income voters.

Not that surprising. The DSA's main constituency is educated, mostly white middle-class folks, not working-class people and people of color.

If Mamdani bucks that trend, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:03 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

What matters MOST to them and their donors is protecting capital.

A lot of their constituency is the liberal upper middle class, and it's a real challenge for the party.

Not the people who were born on third base and think they scored a home run, as the saying goes, but the people who were born on first base and don't understand how easy it is to strike out.

If you're born with a certain amount of comfort, go to college, and end up with more, it's easy to think the system is mostly working the way it did in the 20th century. Go to the commuter suburbs of a Democratic city, and the main streets probably look a lot more similar to how they looked 40 years ago than the main streets in a small town in the South or the Rust Belt.
posted by smelendez at 3:04 PM on June 25 [4 favorites]

democrats fret about national fallout after mamdani stuns in new york city

Wow, that is indeed some shady garbage. The two actual sources it has for this fretting are Larry Summers, Matt Bennett of Third Way and “Republicans Against Trump“.
posted by Artw at 3:05 PM on June 25 [5 favorites]

Other bombshells:

He called the New York Police Department “racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety”

And

On Israel’s war in Gaza, he used the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in the conflict.

Deeply worrying straightforwardness and lack of bullshit on both completely true statements.
posted by Artw at 3:08 PM on June 25 [19 favorites]

Only two states (New York and Connecticut) allow a candidate to switch parties or run as an independent in the general election after losing in the primary. Somehow the other forty-eight states still manage to get by.

This makes sense if you think of the primary as the first phase of the same election, and the general election as something closer to a runoff. It would be like allowing sports teams to recruit a new roster for each round of the playoffs.
posted by smelendez at 3:10 PM on June 25

The Guardian Angels are still a thing (April 2025 Harper's article, archived link), and it should be better known that the diverse group of friends who initially "volunteered" for Sliwa's organization were actually employees he brainwashed when he managed the night crew at a Bronx McDonald's (his own description, from 2018's Vigilante documentary).
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:15 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

Not that surprising. The DSA's main constituency is educated, mostly white middle-class folks, not working-class people and people of color.

Indeed and I believe these are the numbers/demos the Cuomo people are looking at to determine if he will stay in the race.
posted by girlmightlive at 3:17 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

“I know people for whom those things mean very different things. To me, ultimately what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights, in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what’s difficult also, is that the very word is has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means struggle.”

That's what Mamdani said. Think the context is a little more important than what Fox News and its slightly less unhinged clones in the mass media saying that Mamdani is a raging anti-semite unless he agrees that all Palestinians must die....
posted by WatTylerJr at 3:23 PM on June 25 [8 favorites]

Trump is the legacy of both Clintons, emjaybee. Hillary obviously. Bill even more so, but recognizing it requires examining the data.

Amusing senario: Cuomo runs as an independent spoiler against Zohran, with the blessing of establishment Democrats, and even overtly tries to help the Republican, but then Zohran wins anyways, emboldening left-wing Democrats elsewhere.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:24 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

"Elections basically everywhere except New York are undemocratic because of ballot registration deadlines" is just the most amazing take.
posted by mbrubeck at 3:30 PM on June 25

I am happy for Mamdani's win, but I fear for his safety. I assume the Mayor of New York has a security detail, but if it's drawn from the NYPD...?
posted by SPrintF at 3:31 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

India Walton's advice for Zohran Mamdani: "Hire security." (Also some other good advice!) via HellGate NYC
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:34 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

> gingerbeer: they have yet to run the IRV/transfer processing (tallies will be released next week), but Mamdani has a 7% lead at the end of the first-round counting, and the #3 candidate, Brad Lander (who cross-endorsed Mamdani), has 11.5%. The rest of the candidates got like 10% of the vote between all of them.

It's definitely not mathematically impossible for Cuomo to pull out a win from vote transfers, but it'd be extremely difficult and the transferred votes would have to break his way by like 70%+ (which seems particularly unlikely given that 11.5% -- more than half! -- of those votes are transferring from a candidate who explicitly cross-endorsed with Mamdani). Which is clearly also the conclusion that his team came to, hence his concession.

Thanks. I am wondering why they are holding off on posting the vote transfer runs. Unsurprising that different election departments run things differently, but I enjoy geeking out over the results and watching them change as more votes come through. SF has had some nail-biters than go to the last votes counted. Also, glad this particular election is not that close.
posted by gingerbeer at 3:39 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

gingerbeer: "Thanks. I am wondering why they are holding off on posting the vote transfer runs. Unsurprising that different election departments run things differently, but I enjoy geeking out over the results and watching them change as more votes come through. SF has had some nail-biters than go to the last votes counted. Also, glad this particular election is not that close."

My understanding is that the NYC BOE's process involves waiting for all the votes to come in/be counted (as of right now there seems to be about 7-8% of the initial precincts still outstanding/uncounted, per NYT and DecisionDesk), and then running all the transfer runs at once. But i don't live there so i may be mistaken.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:09 PM on June 25

My reasonable centrist compromise position is that if you voluntary enter into a party primary and lose, then you shouldn't be able to appear on the ballot as an independent, but the voters can still write you in if that's truly their democratic will.
posted by Pyry at 4:27 PM on June 25

And that's exactly the case in the majority of the United States.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:41 PM on June 25

I'm not sure which I'm happier about - the fact that he did win, or the fact that people are finally going to let up with the damn flyers already.

For every flyer from Mamdani I've received in the last few weeks promising what he'll do if elected, I've received three more flyers from the Cuomo campaign, also telling me what Mamdani will do if elected (only trying to make it sound scary).
posted by Pryde at 4:44 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]

Eric Adams suddenly finds ‘overwhelming support’ from NYC’s desperate business elites (Semafor)

“There is going to be overwhelming support in the business community to rally around Adams,” said Richard Farley, a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP who said he’s organizing a fundraiser for the mayor and has been speaking with some of Cuomo’s biggest donors. “This will be a street fight all the way to November.”

Adams’ path is “narrow,” acknowledged one adviser.

The business community is “struggling to understand the implications of Mamdani’s victory,” Kathy Wylde, CEO of Partnership for New York City, said in an interview. His focus on affordability tapped into “the financial insecurity young people feel and their anger that the established political class has done nothing to fix it. It’s not an endorsement of socialism but rather a rejection of the status quo, which threatens to bring on the kind of political instability that business hates.”

Asked about efforts to rally around Adams, a top political aide to Bloomberg responded with a shrug emoji.

posted by adrienneleigh at 4:57 PM on June 25 [3 favorites]

It’s not an endorsement of socialism

I will bet you $20 the person who said this cannot explain what socialism is
posted by prefpara at 4:59 PM on June 25

... which threatens to bring on the kind of political instability that business hates.

They're apparently just fine with deep instability if it comes with the promise of massive tax breaks.

This is just a meaningless stock phrase of the MSM.
posted by reedbird_hill at 5:08 PM on June 25 [5 favorites]

You know, even if Mamdani's socialist anti-landlord policies do destroy the economy of New York City, I'm kind of okay with that.

MAKE NEW YORK 1970s AGAIN!

I wanna get propositioned in Times Square! I wanna get mugged on the D train! I wanna live in a squat in the Lower East Side! I wanna sniff some glue!

If Manhattan is going to be a theme park, it should at least be a cool theme park.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:13 PM on June 25 [4 favorites]

Well well well
posted by The Bizzaro Whelk at 5:16 PM on June 25 [1 favorite]

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