By running the campaign in La Guardia tradition, the rebel mayoral candidate has bridged the gap with Andrew Cuomo and gained support from the AOC.
Zohran Mamdani arrives at NBC Studios and will be taking part in a major debate for the Democratic mayor in New York on Wednesday, June 4th, 2025.
(Pool via Yuki Iwamura/Pool)
Wednesday night’s busy, often confusing headlines New York City’s Democratic mayoral debate Eight other candidates focused on the fire that led to the contest frontrunner, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. But the prominent material of the debate was the time and energy that Cuomo placed. attack The candidate who appeared as his closest rival in the race, the state legislator Zoran Mamdani.
Cuomo seemed scared, as he tried to suggest over and over again that his democratic socialist challenger was “no more than a social media genius.”It’s very good on Twitter. “But Mamdani is more than that, and he proves to be an agile debate.
Cuomo must be scared. Mamdani is a serious candidate who has been surged in polls and appears to be peaking just right at the right time. Approval A campaign that continues to win the mark while New York’s most influential progressives, to US representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others often miss it.
Even before AOC’s support, it made a lot Headline News That quickly reversed the debate – Mamdani had gotten some sort of poll number suggesting it. Newsweek analysis Of the recent survey data, he “may be catching up with his opponent.” Odds still stands for Cuomo, with his name recognition, money and connections. But Emerson University votes in May/PIX11/hill Opinion survey When New York’s ranked voting system was reassigned to second, third and lower rankings from voters were reassigned to the main candidates, it decided that Cuomo was caught with a relatively narrow advantage of 54-46 over Mamdani. Emerson College Voting Executive Director Spencer Kinball talk Regarding “Surge in Mamdani – Get 23 points and get 2-1 second choice votes,” this is a huge deal in ranked elections.
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However, larger transactions are evidence suggesting that mum ticks can continue to surge. The AOC’s approval certainly gave speculation. She became stronger for the mum tick and identified him as her The best choice In an area that includes many candidates she has worked for over the years.
“She is… the person who not only took on career politician, billionaire, Donald Trump, but also showed he could win.” I said On Thursday morning, he was clearly happy to be a tickle. “Getting her support in just a few weeks is the perfect time to actually receive it.”
truth. However, it wasn’t just the fact that the ATO approved the important mum ticks. It was the way she gave her support to candidates who had to make the most of the voting system ranked to promote Cuomo.
“Assembly member Mamdani has demonstrated his true ability on-site to bring together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that are the strongest to lead the pack,” says Ocasio-Cortez I explained it In New York Times. “In the final stretch of the race, you need to be very realistic about that.” With approvals announced a few days before the early voting for the June 24th primary, the AOC was first ranked as a mamdani, but suggestion That voter is ranked second in city council speaker Adrian Adams, third in city director Brad Lander, fourth in former director Scott Stringer and fifth in Brooklyn Senator Zellner Miley.
While other candidates were mentioned, the media and momentum boost went to Mamdani, who campaigned “as progressive Muslim immigrants who actually fight for what I believe.” What he believes is a bold, affordable agenda that proposes free rent, free city buses and taxing the rich with $10 billion adjustments. “Zoran doesn’t just tell the truth to power. He organizes it to build it from scratch,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “His campaign is not just about policy, but about the vision of a city where all New Yorkers can thrive, regardless of their postal code.”
It’s wise to focus on the characters and styles of the Mamdani Campaign.
Mamdani is trapped in Cuomo in a campaign that proudly tells his own story as a multilingual immigrant to an immigrant city. He is under attack for this, and even Vicki Paradino, a member of the Republican city council. phone He is deported for Mamdani, a Uganda-born US citizen. Critics He also highlights the fact that he is recording online ads. Hindi– and distributes literature to some of the myriad languages spoken by the rich tapestry of the city’s rich ethnic communities.
Mam ticks say The right-wing attack on his candidacy is part of what “created by Trump and his sycophants” in recent politics, and that is certainly true. What Mamdani critics don’t recognize, however, is the fact that New York City has a great history of candidates with immigrant backgrounds winning a multilingual campaign.
The city’s largest mayor, Fiorello La GuardiaHe was born in New York two years after his parents were born in Fodgia, Italy. Trieste was then the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and had moved to the United States. However, La Guardia spent a significant portion of the youth in Italy and other parts of Europe. When he finally returned to New York City and entered politics, La Guardia exercised in multiple languages, including Italian, German, Cervo-Croatian and Yiddish. New York Times recall“La Guardia was re-elected to Congress from East Harlem after rebutting anti-Semitism accusations by challenging rivals in Yiddish. La Guardia, the son of Jewish and Italian parents, was fluent in Yiddish. His Jewish rivals were not.”
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La Guardia was also a radical reformer who defended unions and working-class New Yorkers and boldly challenged politics as economic and political elites, party machinery and business. Left Republicans from the era when Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette and others preached progressivism within the “Party of Lincoln,” and La Guardia was once re-election to Congress. Socialist Party tickets And it frequently coincided with leftist political projects such as the old American Labour Party.
La Guardia took enough heat for these choices at the time, as Mamdani does today. Some of the La Guardia races have climbed. However, he was elected mayor of New York City in 1933, defeating incumbent Democrats at the height of Great Democrats. With his 1937 re-election bid, he once again defeated the machinery of democracy. And he did that again in 1941.
This is a different time. And while the surge in Mamdani is real, it does not guarantee that his candidacy will win on June 24th. There are still many chapters in the 2025 New York City Mayor’s Race story. Cuomo doesn’t get off easily, and other candidates can gain traction. But don’t let anyone tell you that it’s impossible for a progressive rebel with talent for communication and a multilingual campaign to win. It happened before, as the story of Fiorello La Guardia reminds us.
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