Despite what Sinatra would have us believe, if you can make it in New York it doesn’t mean you’ll make it in the mid west or any of the purple states. (Democrats haven’t had a vote share lower than 65% since the 00s I think)
Yes, a record number came out to support him but almost as many came out to support anyone but him :(
My hope is that for all the naysaying, Mamdani turns out to be a technocrat in the Sewer Socialist model and shows the country socialism ain’t so scary. The whole “laboratories of democracy” in action.
Getting a majority in a three way race is nothing to scoff at.
I mean, the Blue vote was split.
Exactly, 8% of the vote total did NOT go to either the Democratic nominee for mayor (50.4%) or the former Democratic governor (41.6%). By this logic, democrats are UP 27 points to 92% in NYC.
OTOH that’s mostly a paper democrat
But I’ll take the win
I mean isn’t that still kind of it though, I’m trying to figure out how new york city is being called a “democratic stronghold”. as if it’s been solid blue for the last 50 years or something… the place that made Rudy Giuliani, followed it up with bloomberg. Then followed up with 2 corrupt centrist democrats.
The progressive candidate that we’ve been craving barely cracked 50% in one of the more progressive places in the country.
This doesn’t bode well for say, a very progressive Presidential candidate.
Lumping in former democrats as current ones seems more than a little silly.
The argument has historically been that the Democrats don’t nominate progressive candidates and if they did, progressives would come out and vote for them overwhelmingly (despite not doing so in the primaries.)
In one of the most progressive cities, we had one of the most progressive candidates ever and barely cracked 50%.
So, it doesn’t bode well for the Dems chances if they nominate a very progressive Presidential candidate. (You would probably have the Blue vote similarly, wherein sure, some progressive would win the Democrat label, and some independent would run to the centre and split the Dem vote.
Considering he was polling in the 30s and 40s before the election, breaking 50% is a miracle, especially with 3 candidates.
Yes, a record number came out to support him but almost as many came out to support anyone but him :(
Counterpoint
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Local NYC elections aren’t nearly as universally blue as it’s national elections, lots of conservative constituencies. This city’s self-harm history includes Michael Bloomberg, Eric Adams, and Rudy fucking Giuliani.
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It’s the finance capital of the world.
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The majority of national news media had their machine trained against him for months.
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He was up against the Cuomo political aristocracy.
By New York standards, this was a landslide.
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50.4% against a candidate supported by the Republicans, most of the Democrat establishment and deep-pocketed billionaires, and backed by social-media algorithms.
And what in that equation would change were we to try a similarly progressive candidate nationally? Except for the fact that most of the country is less progressive than New York…
