Mamdani’s Rise Completely Obliterates Democrats’ Pitch to Anti-Trump Swing Voters That They’re the Adults in the Room

As Zohran Mamdani marches toward becoming a national figure as the mayor of New York City, the calculus for voting left as a protest against President Donald Trump is quickly changing. Just as Trump remade the GOP through populist rhetoric and anti-establishment fervor, pushing out critics and moderates in the process, Mamdani’s hard-left socialist populism threatens to pull the Democratic Party away from the values that have made it a viable alternative to Trumpism.

It’s certainly true that as mayor, Mamdani won’t have direct power to implement much of his agenda – he can’t raise taxes to pay for his spending proposals without Albany’s approval, for example. However, he represents an undeniable shift in the Democratic Party away from the establishment – being the adults in the room – which so many centrist and independent voters relied on during the Trump years as the last bastion of sanity and moderation in U.S. politics.

Mamdani’s total lack of managerial experience, coupled with his economic and foreign policy views, and

bombastic past rhetoric, leaves little doubt that he should not be running America’s largest city – or its financial capital. Mamdani, who is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is a former housing counselor and aspiring rapper who is in his third term in the New York State Assembly. His platform is primarily based on raising taxes to offer social programs like free buses, city-run grocery stores, and rent freezes.

Ahead of last year’s election cycle, it would have been impossible to imagine New York City would elect an anti-capitalist 34-year-old mayor who had called cops “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” ran on “shifting the tax burden” to “whiter” neighborhoods, and once called for seizing the means of production. Running such a candidate would largely have been seen, at a moment when the left was working to lower crime and turn the economy around, as electoral suicide for the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, Mamdani has made no qualms about posing in photographs and embracing controversial far-left figures, like Hasan Piker, who gleefully called the U.S. the world’s “top terrorist” and espouses an ideology that American power has been a net negative for the world. Mamdani has also stirred division with his vehement opposition to Israel and many statements on the topic.

Trump’s 2024 defeat of Kamala Harris, coupled with Andrew Cuomo’

s abysmal and embarrassing mayoral campaign against Mamdani, paved the way for Mamdani’s rise as many Democrats search for new energy to combat Trump. Mamdani certainly deserves credit for a masterful campaign and for being an incredible communicator, even if most of his rhetoric is aspirational and all but empty promises.

Mamdani’s popularity in many ways is fueled by the same populist rhetoric and media savvy that helped Trump to takeover the GOP. Mamdani, like Trump, can point to his critics as evidence that the other side fears him and therefore he must be doing something right. The right’s vicious and often race-baiting attacks on Mamdani and his Muslim faith have no doubt rallied supporters around him.

Like Trump, Mamdani latched on to all-important economic issues and gave his supporters a boogeyman to blame for their woes. While Trump blamed illegal immigrants, “stupid wars,” and the deep state for MAGA’s grievances, Mamdani is blaming the billionaire class and American capitalism while casting himself as a social justice warrior.

Trump turned away a lot of centrists and center-right Republicans over the years with his bomb throwing rhetoric, total disregard for the norms and traditions that kept American democracy running, and his erratic policies that often sow chaos and uncertainty – like his tariffs.

Trump’s total remake of the GOP, from a fiscally conservative party based on traditional values and the rule of law to a party grounded entirely

in serving Trump’s every whim and purging those who criticized him, is still a far cry from where the Democrats are nationally. While Mamdani’s hard-left populism is clearly on the rise, New Jersey and Virginia Democrats still nominated two common-sense centrists (a former Navy aviator and CIA officer, respectively) for governor. Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger should be the breakout stars of this mini-election cycle, but instead, the media has focused on Mamdani. He excites the many progressive members of the U.S. media, as well as affluent young voters looking for a different approach to take on Trump.

Republicans and right-leaning media are also shining a spotlight on Mamdani, hoping to boost their standing by making him a household name.

Mamdani, however, is not the only progressive gaining attention at the moment, and his win in NYC is certain to give a boost to his fellow travelers as the midterm primaries heat up. From a deeply flawed progressive U.S. Senate candidate in Maine to an anti-law enforcement mayoral candidate in Minneapolis, Democratic infighting is clearly heating up, and whether or not the establishment can beat back the extremes in the party is unclear. What is clear, however, is that Mamdani is gaining new energy to lead the fight to topple the center of the Democratic Party in just the same way Trump did the GOP, risking expelling the centrist and center-left voters from the party.

Party leaders are

also aware of the danger Mamdani poses to them in the midterms, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) unequivocally answered “no” when asked on CNN if Mamdani is the future of the party. He offered a vague explanation about the need to retake the House – meaning to run competitively in parts of the country vehemently opposed to the word “socialist.”

At a moment when so many Americans just want an off-ramp from hyper-polarization and economic uncertainty, Mamdani represents not a solution but an escalation. His campaign has already created deep divisions among Democrats in New York City, with a prominent left-leaning rabbi warning days before the election that he “has contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism.” He’s also turning away Democrats with his economic policies, which threaten to drive away business and high earners. For voters looking for candidates to end the race to the bottom in American politics and tap the brakes on the spiraling extremism in the country, the Democratic Party is no longer the safe harbor it once was for centrists.