When I heard that New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Kwame Mamdani had all but clinched the Democratic nomination this week, the immortal words of 20th-century writer H.L. Mencken came to mind.“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
I’m sure I wasn’t alone.
What were the Democrats thinking? The charismatic, smooth-talking, 33-year-old state legislator who proudly calls himself a Democratic Socialist also happens to be an anti-ICE, anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian radical who, up until his election-year conversion, supported defunding the police and emptying our prisons.
His campaign website tells voters, “Zohran Mamdani is running for Mayor to lower the cost of living for working class New Yorkers.”
While Mamdani distanced himself during his campaign from some of his more radical positions, his platform still features a slate of progressive proposals, including free city buses, a rent freeze, affordable housing reforms, city-owned grocery stores, and free child care, all funded by higher taxes on the top 1% of taxpayers and corporations.
Queens rapper 50 Cent is just “not feeling this plan.” In a Wednesday Instagram post, the hip hop star wrote: “Where did he come from? Whose friend is this? I’m not feeling this plan. No. I will give him $258,750 and a first class one-way ticket away from NY.”
While Democratic leaders including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and former President Bill Clinton have offered congratulatory messages to Mamdani on social media, understanding the optics, they have all stopped short of endorsing the Big Apple mayoral hopeful.
Nearly every liberal media outlet has sounded the alarm: Republicans will pounce on Mamdani’s likely victory and paint him as the new face of the Democratic Party. Of course we’ll pounce. It’s not every day that a majority of voters anywhere would freely elect a socialist.
Citing a Tuesday night social media post from Vice President J.D. Vance that read, “Congratulations to the new leader of the Democratic Party @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social,” Politico warned, “Ahead of a battle in the 2026 midterm elections, the GOP has found its new poster child for the ‘radical left.’”
The GOP faces an uphill battle next year to retain its congressional majority. We will use every tool at our disposal to make that happen. And yes, one of those tools will be Mamdani.
There’s no question that the Democratic Party has drifted leftward over the past decade—a shift that has alienated large segments of its former base, particularly working-class voters. But as national Democrats work to win back those disaffected voters, their New York City counterparts are going all in on an extremist.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has already begun to introduce Mamdani as a radical leftist. In a recent NRCC graphic, Mamdani is pictured with several “friends” whom Politico notes are “three battleground House Democrats who represent districts neighboring New York City, none of whom endorsed him in the primary.”
According to Politico:
One of those Democratic members — Laura Gillen, who flipped a district on Long Island in 2024 — rushed to separate herself from Mamdani.In a Wednesday morning statement, Gillen called Mamdani “too extreme to lead New York City” and “the absolute wrong choice for New York,” distancing herself from the state lawmaker ahead of what is likely to be a competitive reelection race.
Responding to Jeffries’ congratulatory message to Mamdani on X, the NRCC wrote: “Democrat ‘Leader’ Hakeem Jeffries declared himself brothers in arms with antisemitic socialist Zohran Mamdani. Every single Democrat now owns Mamdani’s radical socialist agenda to defund police, abolish prisons & stop ICE from deporting criminals.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who is widely expected to enter the New York gubernatorial race, tried to tie Mamdani’s candidacy to Gov. Kathy Hochul in a post on X:
Tick tock, tick tock Kathy Hochul…We know you are in full blown panic mode as you frantically draft and send out the congratulatory tweet to the antisemitic, jihadist, Communist candidate you helped elect in your party’s Democrat primary because of your silence, weakness, and ineptitude. You own this dangerous insanity and are incapable of defeating it.So next year, New Yorkers will defeat you to save our state.
Mamdani isn’t mayor—yet. But if he wins, his policies threaten to bring New York City to its knees. Since Tuesday, real estate agents say they’ve been inundated with calls from New Yorkers desperate to get out. Some are already calling it the “Mamdani Migration” — a mass exodus triggered not by rising rents or economic hardship, but by fear of an aggressively left-wing agenda taking root at City Hall. If this is the future of New York, many are deciding they’d rather not stick around to watch it unfold.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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