Washington Post: ‘Mamdani’s victory is bad for New York and the Democratic Party’
“New York cannot take its greatness for granted. Mismanagement can ruin it.”
New York City’s embrace of a socialist candidate on Tuesday night reverberated nationwide and quickly dominated the national news cycle. Although the final ranked-choice results won’t be known until next week, by Wednesday morning—with 93% of votes counted in the Big Apple’s Democratic mayoral primary—the ultra-progressive 33-year-old state representative Zohran Mamdani was leading former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo by 7.1 points. And contrary to one Gen Z pundit’s claim, the upset wasn’t simply the result of Cuomo’s out-of-touch social media team posting horizontal videos instead of vertical ones on Instagram.
Republicans see the antisemitic, anti-ICE Mamdani’s very possible victory as a great gift. They know that his radical proposals, which include free city buses, free child care, rent freezes, and city-owned grocery stores, would run the city into the ground. The Democratic Socialist, who equates capitalism to “theft,” insists these initiatives would be funded by a 2% wealth tax on the top 1% of taxpayers in the state and an increase in the state’s corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5%.
Democrats also recognize that a Mamdani administration would be a disaster for the city, and this has sent party leaders into full-blown panic mode.
On Thursday, the Washington Post editorial board, in its capacity as the communications arm of the Democratic Party, published a sharply critical op-ed.
When the Washington Post declares that “Zohran Mamdani’s victory is bad for New York and the Democratic Party,” it’s effectively the Democratic National Committee speaking through its loudest megaphone. This op-ed wasn’t just an opinion piece — it was a clarion call to establishment Democrats everywhere to move heaven and earth to stop what they recognize as a political and economic disaster in the making.
Summing up the folly of Mamdani’s proposals, the editors wrote:
Such a massive minimum wage would depress low-skilled employment. His rent freeze would reduce the housing supply and decrease its quality. Cutting bus fares would leave a transit funding hole that, unless somehow filled, would erode service. Meanwhile, the grocery business operates on thin margins, and his plan for city-run stores would probably lead to fewer options, poor service and shortages, as privately run stores closed rather than try to compete with city-subsidized shops.
New Yorkers currently bear one of the heaviest tax burdens in the nation. This has already caused many wealthy individuals and corporations to flee the state. The editors note, “Mamdani’s tax plans would spur a corporate exodus and drive more rich people out of town, undermining the tax base and making existing services harder to maintain.”
The editors note that the city went through a similar crisis in the 1970s when “its government promised overgenerous public services even as its tax base fled.”
Although decades of better governance and fiscal reform have “revived New York,” the editors warned:
New York cannot take for granted its premier status among world cities. No mighty metropolis can. History is full of stories of great concentrations of people and wealth that decayed due to misfortune or misrule.
They pointed out that many “New Yorkers rationalized voting for Mamdani by noting the city council and the state government would constrain him.” [But can they?]
In desperation, they write, if Mamdani prevails in November, “Gov. Kathy Hochul can lead the way in containing him, not least so he does not define their party.”
Here’s a reality check for them. Reliance on Hochul to be a moderate who will help rein in Mamdani’s most progressive impulses won’t work. Hochul is not a moderate. She supports every liberal cause.
Last June, the “moderate” governor abruptly paused the start date of Manhattan’s deeply unpopular “congestion pricing tolls,” citing “facts on the ground” such as “economic concerns, including high inflation and post-pandemic vacancy rates in Manhattan office buildings.”
[Note: This program would force drivers entering the city south of 60th Street to fork over $9 for the privilege, or $2,300 per year for those driving into the city five days a week. The program would instead go into effect on Jan. 5.]
But in reality, her decision came after a talk with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Knowing how unpalatable congestion pricing was (and is) with voters, Jeffries was concerned this issue would hurt the party’s chances of winning back control of the House in November.
Mayors also make some decisions unilaterally. And supported by a super progressive city council, Mamdani will be able to force through all or most of his planned agenda.
This op-ed was a call to arms.
Whether this runaway freight train can still be stopped is anyone’s guess. But one thing is certain: party leaders will pull every lever of power, money, and influence to try. A Mamdani mayoralty wouldn’t just be a local experiment gone wrong — it would become a national cautionary tale, a stain on the progressive movement that could haunt it for decades to come.
Washington Post Editorial Board:
“New York cannot take its greatness for granted. Mismanagement can ruin it.”https://t.co/GH2tNQK3MC
— Eric Adams For Mayor (@AdamsWarRoom) June 26, 2025
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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Comments
“Whether this runaway freight train can still be stopped is anyone’s guess. But one thing is certain: party leaders will pull every lever of power, money, and influence to try.”
It may be that I am just not a trusting soul, but I have a funny feeling that the Party’s leaders will attempt to look to the rest of us like they are trying to stop him while they quietly support him as best they can.
Subotai Bahadur
I have been saying for years that the Democrats have a much thinner bench than the Republicans. Most of their leaders are either ancients, or unelected anonymous apparachiks. They have a star system that goes all the way back to Bill Clinton having hogged all the oxygen in the room.
This blatantly the case in New York. Look at it: Cuomo gets dug up from the grave. Schumer might as well be one of those animatronic things I saw at Disneyland almost 60 years ago. Biden was a walking corpse, and so is Pelosi. Where’s the farm team? Tim Walz? Yikes!
If the dramacrats really want to stop this rolling stone they need to purge their ranks of every progressive and/or socialist nutjob starting with the house’s progressive caucus and every member that is also a member of the democratic socialist’s party. They also need to purge similar like minded senators and in fact all of their likeminded elected and party officials. Good luck with that. It is a least 30-50% of their membership. They’ll still be too far to the left after doing so but they’ll be rid of the true dead weight, the squad, and most of the black caucus, oh the horror.
IOW, no chance. In fact, they’re not even going to really try.
Let’s go! Let ‘em run NYC into the ground. Leftists gonna left. After they starve and kill enough people, they’ll get tossed to the shitheap of history. Where they belong.
Here’s the thing: I despise this silver spoon in the mouth, idiotic, bigot, but he is the people’s choice. Just like the odious Bernie Sanders was in 2016. Democrats have to let people vote the way they want and stop trying to rig every election. If NYC votes in this moron then they get what they deserve and they will learn their lesson the hard way, which may be the only way stupid elitist white people will figure out that socialism is not so cool after all. If they keep rigging every election than their constituency will continue to vote for contrarian candidates like this dolt.
If Mamdani wins and a cornerstone of NY City’s economy, the financial institutions, leave, which can operate from anywhere, the city and state will be in a tough spot. Also, Elise Stefanik will be very well positioned to win as governor in 2026, as a credible control on this guy. (Zeldin did not lose to Hochul by much last time.)
You say this as if this will teach people what consequences are. But this is not the first time Democrats have chosen socialists to head up important cities. We don’t have to wait to see what dawns on the voters ten and 20 years down the road from this decision, because other places like Chicago, Portland, SF, LA, Detroit, and Minneapolis are already ten to 20 years or more down their own paths from when they first did… and their voters are learning NOTHING. They still aren’t even capable of making the connection between the way they vote, and the oppression and squalor they have to endure,
This is one of the syndromes to which we refer when we say, There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This.
No, he isn’t. He’s the choice of those who voted in the Dem primary. They are not the people. That’s why we have elections.
What are you talking about? Who’s rigging elections? The election will be in November, and if Dems are unhappy with their party’s choice they will support someone else.
Damned if they do. Damned if they don’t. My gut tells me he WILL NOT be the dem candidate on the ticket in November.
Generally once someone has won a primary there’s nothing the party can do to remove them from its ticket. That’s how the GOP has occasionally got stuck with actual nazis running on their ticket, for unwinnable seats where no one else signed up for the primary. All a party can do in such a case is publicly disavow its candidate and urge people to vote for someone else. “Vote for the crook, it’s important”.
Or are you suggesting they’ll manage to persuade him to withdraw voluntarily?
Mixed feelings. One is sheer glee at a suicidal gesture, but the other is stronger: It’s not a good thing for either party to go off the rails, even if it’s self destructive. Our system needs two strong, rational parties that can hold themselves together and give each other competition.
The Dems of NYC are at a truly low point for this to have happened. If the guy winds up being elected, it’s going to be a dagger pointed at the heart of the national party. Could be that the Democratic Party needs to go the way of the Whigs, and be constituted as something different. We shall see.
It is bad for them, and they chose it so they can bear the brunt of it.
Couldn’t agree more. Ya makes yer choices, and then ya live with them. Or, in the case of Mamdami, die with them.
The WaPo is just upset that he’s a loud and proud communist. They prefer the incognito brand that has been prevalent in the Rat party for 50 years.
In my 40 years as a moderate (really) Democrat (yes, they existed), my mantra was “I’m a Democrat, but I’m not stupid about it.” When they became stupid during Obama’s second term, I left. I didn’t do that on a whim, and it wasn’t easy.
In their heyday, the Democrats, to use Bill Clinton’s phrase, which he honored in the breach, the party was on the side of people who “work hard and play by the rules.” Yeah, yeah so they screwed up. So did the Republicans. They weren’t communists. These days, God only knows what they are. I’m really not even sure that they know what they are, except that they hate Trump’s guts.
I get it that they despise him, just as I will always despise George W. Bush. But guess what? That’s not enough. Not for the Democrats, and not for the Republicans. Sometimes I wonder if I am the last true “critical thinker” who is in favor of whatever works, regardless of where that comes from.
There are no moderate dramacrats anymore. That ship sailed long ago when they accepted race baiters Jackson and Sharpton. No, it sailed when McGovern was the candidate and they introduced quotas for delegates only to expand it to more identities than Carl Sagans billions and billions.
They exist, but they have be shoved out of any positions of influence. It took three consecutive election defeats in the 1980s to resurrect them in the form of Bill Clinton, but this time around the Democrats don’t have as much time, If they lose in ’28, the Democrats will be out of power for some decades, and might be replaced as the Whigs were by the Republicans.
Calling Snake Pliskin.
The Washington Post just realized they would NOT be the people eaten last by the alligator.
I don’t think WaPo can move the needle much in local NYC election.
There is no ” Democrat Party ” Anymore.
That is history.
As Prof. Jacobson pointed out recently, Mamdani is the red-green alliance. He’s a communist, also a Muslim. Communism was strong in NYC in the 1930’s, although I don’t know if it ever captured the mayoralty. That communist impulse has never gone away, it’s only gone into temporary hibernation. It’s back.
And it found its ally in the antisemitic Muslims.
Will the leftist Jewish vote (I get to say this since it’s in my own family background), vote for their own survival, or their old politics? We didn’t have to worry about Muslims here in the early 2oth century. When there was even a hint of Islam with Farrakhan and his followers, look what it brought us in Crown Heights. Now it’s much bigger, bolder, a worldwide alliance with a node in Obama’s DC residence and support in every respectable and many less-than-respectable campuses in the city. Are we willing to break our old habits?
Mamdani is not only supported by Obama, he reminds me of young Obama (or Macron), coming from obscurity to unmistable victories, almost without effort.
Yep. I see him on the ticket in 28 or 32.
The times are a changin’.
NYSE Chicago, previously known as the Chicago Stock Exchange, will soon become NYSE Texas. In January, TXSE Group announced that it had filed for registration of the Texas Stock Exchange with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Not only that, but Texas has also emerged as a competitor to Delaware as the legal home of major companies.
So keep pushing your communism New York. I remember when you were the ‘Rotten Apple’ and Mayor Koch had to spend over decade fixing your pience of crap city and turning it back into ‘The Big Apple.’
I can imagine Dallas gradually replacing NYC as the top financial center. If Mamdani become mayor, it might not be so gradual.
State owned grocery stores! The Soviet Union did a great job of that, Mamdani should ask them for the details on how to implement it.
They must have been good. People famously waited hours to get in, just hoping to get some of the items they wanted. The prices were low, for whatever they had left when you got to the front of the line.