Good morning. A few hours ago, Zohran Mamdani was declared the winner of the New York City mayoral election with more than 50% of the vote on the biggest turnout since the 1960s. A rank outsider when the race started, he will become the city’s first Muslim mayor and its youngest in more than 100 years. And as an avowed socialist who has emerged as a national symbol of opposition to Donald Trump, he has given progressive Democrats something they believe is worth fighting for.
It was a good night all over for Democrats, who won governorships in Virginia and New Jersey and saw voters in California support a redistricting plan designed to counter Republican efforts to redraw the map to their advantage in red states. But Republicans believe Mamdani is a gift for them, too: in frequently racist attacks on his candidacy, they have tarred him as a “Jihadist”, a communist and claimed he represents a new extremity on the left.
