With a rent freeze, free buses and universal healthcare among his hugely popular campaign promises, Zohran Mamdani's meteoric rise to frontrunner in the New York mayoral election has been propelled by a package of radical policy proposals. We ask Lindsey Cormack, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Stevens Institute of Technology, whether US Democrats should model their campaigns on Mamdani's.
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00:00This is apropos. With a rent freeze, free buses and universal health care among his hugely popular campaign promises, Zoran Mamdani's meteoric rise to frontrunner in the New York mayoral election has been propelled by a package of radical policy proposals and fuelled by anger over the city's soaring cost of living.
00:24Median rents have, for the very first time, exceeded $4,000 a month, more than double the US average.
00:31Our correspondents in New York have been catching up with the frontrunner as he hit the pavements in the final days of the campaign.
00:40It's football for all. New York City's Democratic nominee for mayor, Zoran Mamdani, is hosting a five-a-side tournament in Coney Island, Brooklyn.
00:49In less than a year, he's gone from unknown Queen's Assemblyman to the brightest new star in American politics.
00:56Born in Uganda with Indian roots, the 34-year-old is poised to become New York's first Muslim mayor.
01:03He's been dubbed the smiling socialist.
01:08Why are you hosting a soccer event? What does soccer have to do with socialism?
01:11Well, soccer is a big part of what so many New Yorkers love about being in this city, the games that we play, the matches that we go to.
01:21What message are you sending about affordability?
01:23The name. It's a cost of living classic.
01:25And it speaks to the fact that whether we're talking about eggs or milk or bread, for many New Yorkers, these are things that have become increasingly out of reach.
01:32And it's time to both focus on that and use it as an opportunity to meet more New Yorkers who love the same city.
01:37Mamdani is a democratic socialist. He's part of a new generation of politicians challenging the status quo.
01:45He advocates for affordable housing, city-run grocery stores, free buses and childcare, racial justice and Palestinian rights.
01:54He's shown that you can win a political campaign without capitulating to pressure from Israel and the Israel lobby.
02:01Mamdani represents hope and something pretty exciting. A new shot at changing things in the city. And as you can see, everybody who's here today is really excited.
02:11It's mostly the economical part because living in New York City is really expensive. And he's 34, which, you know, I'm 22. So it's the closest to me than other candidates.
02:23But his left-wing policy ideas don't sit well with everyone. U.S. President Donald Trump's called him a communist and threatened financial retaliation on New York City if Mamdani wins.
02:35Over in Manhattan, Mamdani's main rival, former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, is meeting with the city's business leaders and power brokers.
02:43Cuomo's warning them of the perils of left-wing policies in the finance capital of America.
02:48I'm a capitalist. This election is the choice between capitalism and socialism.
02:57One area in the city where Cuomo appears to have more support than Mamdani is the Upper East Side.
03:03This is a wealthy part of Manhattan with a large Jewish population.
03:07Early voting figures show older New Yorkers are coming out in force.
03:11He's terribly anti-Semitic and he would not be representing the Jewish community.
03:19And second of all, his ideas are so ridiculous that it would bankrupt the city, force people to leave.
03:27Here, critics deride Mamdani's socialist policy ideas and view his vocal support for Palestinian rights as dangerous.
03:34Here's the anti-Semitic!
03:37Mamdani's at pains to explain that he's not anti-Semitic, but rather pro-human rights.
03:43I'm also a Jew and a Zionist, and I want to make very clear this man is not an anti-Semite.
03:49He's going to make sure this is a city government that is protecting everyone.
03:54If elected, Mamdani's promised to represent all New Yorkers.
03:58For more, we're joined now by Lindsay Cormack, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
04:07Lindsay, thanks so much for being with us on the programme.
04:11The frontrunner, he's got currently more than a 10-point lead in the polls.
04:16Is it done deal at this point for Mamdani?
04:19I think it's probably going to be a race for him to win.
04:24If you look at the overall registration rates in New York City, 65% of everyone who's registered to vote is registered as a Democrat.
04:32So he's got a really big lead just by registration alone.
04:36And he says that his policies are going to cost about $10 billion a year.
04:40We heard one woman in that report there saying that what he'll actually do is end up bankrupting New York.
04:47Independent estimates put the cost at over $100 billion for his policies in the longer term.
04:54Are his campaign pledges actually realistic, do you think?
04:59Well, I think they're aspirational.
05:02And like any mayor, he's not going to be a dictator that gets everything he wants.
05:06He'll have to run through the city council.
05:08And his estimates of if it's just $10 billion, that would be very doable.
05:13In New York City, the allocation that we have for our budget next year is $116 billion.
05:19So I imagine he'll get parts of it.
05:20It won't all come immediately.
05:22And I don't think we'll be bankrupt because of this.
05:25And what can the party learn more widely about addressing these kind of issues in the US?
05:31It's an expensive country.
05:33It's not just New York.
05:34How big of an issue is this for American voters?
05:38Well, I think he did two things that other people who want to emulate his style could learn from.
05:45One is he met people where they're at.
05:47And that was mostly online in Instagram, YouTube, TikTok.
05:51And in doing that, he got the attention where people are putting it.
05:54And the second thing that he did is he's sort of talking about demaking the word socialism a slur.
05:59Because in New York City, we have one of the widest disparities of wealth between our richest and our poorest.
06:05And so if he can sort of reanimate the term socialism, that might be something that we see other candidates around the United States take notice of.
06:13And is he managing to make a connection with older voters?
06:16You say there he's very popular online.
06:18He's very popular with younger people in New York.
06:21But is his message getting through across the board?
06:25Well, it's interesting.
06:27I think some older New Yorkers find themselves in sort of a hard decision-making world.
06:31A lot of them have experienced different versions of Andrew Cuomo.
06:35Curtis Lewa has been on the scene for a very long time.
06:38And so there's certainly an interest about who this new young person is who might have a different thing to say.
06:43Cuomo does lead with the older voters.
06:45But there are some who are sceptical because they've seen how he's governed in the past and they want change.
06:51And does his popularity offer hints as to what perhaps the Democratic Party can do more widely to win back power?
06:59Or are his policies and is his appeal unique to New York?
07:06I think there's certainly something unique about his story.
07:09But there are universal things that other Democrats could learn from.
07:12His use of social or anti-social media, whatever you like to call it, has been something where many people who otherwise might not care about politics are interacting with it because they're seeing it in their feed as not something that's a bore or something that's going to be really inflammatory, but really something that there can be joy in.
07:30And that joyful outreach might be something that other Democrats would do well to look to.
07:35And how else can the Democrats, how else can they try to reconnect with their traditional base?
07:41How do we think that they're going to actually perform in midterm elections?
07:45Popularity very low for the party overall across the U.S.
07:51Well, it's hard to say anything terribly positive about either party right now as we're sitting in day 30 of our government shutdown.
07:58But traditionally, the out party does well in the midterms after a president's elected.
08:03So I do think Democrats are going to do well, especially in the House.
08:06And the way that they can connect with the voters that maybe drifted away for a little bit is to talk about these kitchen issues.
08:12The affordability crisis is something that Mamdani as a candidate has really highlighted.
08:16And I imagine we're going to see echoes of that throughout the United States as we get into our midterm election seasons.
08:22And how do others in the Democratic Party view his meteoric rise?
08:26There are some moderates who haven't yet endorsed him.
08:31Yeah, it's an interesting question.
08:33And it's been interesting as an observer in New York City, seeing that within the party apparatus here.
08:38If you look at some of the web pages that you'll find the candidate Mamdani on, he's critical of Governor Hochul.
08:44She did come out and endorse him, though, much earlier than many other moderate Democrats.
08:48So I know it's an open discussion within leaders in the party.
08:52And is he alienating, do you think, some within the party with his more radical views, perhaps particularly when it comes to the war in Gaza?
09:03That's always going to be a touchy issue.
09:05And so I sort of think whatever stance a candidate takes, there's some risk that there's going to be people who are alienated by that.
09:11And that's true whether they have sort of a view that we need to be doing more or doing less, especially in the Middle East.
09:17And he can't actually run as president.
09:20But do you think, you know, his personality, the kind of policies he's talking about implementing are threatening Donald Trump in some way?
09:28We've seen him come out and compare him to, you know, describe him as a little communist, for example.
09:35Yes, we've seen that sort of disparagement.
09:38But we all know that this is something that our president does.
09:41And so I don't know that it's particularly a problem for Zohar Mondani, whichever candidate was going to be the candidate in New York City.
09:48I imagine the president would have an issue with because that person was going to be a Democrat of some form.
09:53And what do you think of those threats that Donald Trump is making, saying that there will be some kind of financial retribution that he's going to dole out to New York if people there do actually elect Mondani?
10:05Well, I think that actually makes us think about what we're trying to do here as a country, because I don't know anyone who likes to be threatened by their leader for making a free choice in their local elections.
10:17So I actually think that that might be something that blows back on Donald Trump in an unfair or a negative way, because people don't like to be told that if you don't vote the way as the person at the top says you should, then there's going to be consequences.
10:30Local elections are different than federal elections, and New Yorkers deserve the ability to pick the candidate who they prefer.
10:35And do you think we'll be able to read into then, you know, given that fact, we'll be able to read much into this, no matter which way the election actually does.
10:44Will it offer some kind of guide as to how both parties are likely to do in the next elections in the midterms?
10:53I actually think there's a lot more for Democrats to learn than Republicans.
10:57New York City is a very interesting part of the world in the sense that we really don't have a competitive Democrat versus Republican election for most of our races because we have such an overwhelming share of voters who are registered with the Democratic Party.
11:11So Democrats could probably do well to look at some of the lessons in this race.
11:15But I don't know that there's going to be many things for House Republicans or the Senate Republicans are up to take from this one.
11:20But it will be watched closely, do you think, by voters right across the United States?
11:25There's something specific about New York that does attract that kind of attention, not just in the U.S., but right around the world, in fact.
11:33Yeah, there absolutely is.
11:34And some of the research that I do is looking at how members of Congress communicate to their constituents.
11:40And maybe somewhat surprisingly, there are more members of Congress that do not reside in New York that have talked about Mamdani than the members of Congress in New York itself.
11:49And so I do know that there's national attention.
11:51We see it in the data.
11:53And I imagine there's always going to be attention on New York because it's the largest city that we have in the United States.
11:58It's the engine of our economy.
12:00And so it's right for people to have sort of a curiosity about what we're doing here.
12:04Lindsay, thanks so much for being with us.
12:06That is Lindsay Cormack, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
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