Mainly because he’s doing something markedly different than the politics that lost the 2024 election for Harris. He’s showed that politics isn’t the simplistic, one-dimensional left-right spectrum that Democrats seem to cling to. Specifically, he’s promised a government that works for people, and delivered. It’s not hard to see why people will actually come out and vote for that over the “we can’t do anything, but chip in some more” messaging.
To paraphrase: And yet he won. In a city that’s not particularly liberal.
That doesn’t really make sense under the left-right paradigm, under which he’s too far left and should lose the centrists. There’s something else going on that this paradigm does not capture, and DSA candidates are doing well all over.
It’s hard to compare, because the establishment Democrats decided to split the vote by running Cuomo as an independent. The election had the highest turnout since '93, including lots of new voters. That’s what was missing in Harris’s loss in the Presidential election—voter turnout.
It’s really not a hard formula: Promise to do things to address the pain points in people’s lives, speak out on moral issues that people care about, like genocide, and have the courage of your convictions. Give people an affirmative reason to vote for you, rather than shout at and blame those who didn’t.
Those are pretty typical numbers for cities. That doesn’t indicate that NYC is unusually liberal.
… And yet trump won the popular vote.
So why on Earth can anyone say with a straight face “Mamdani has given an exact pathway on how to win elections.”
Unless they only mean municipal elections, which is not at all what OP is implying.
Mainly because he’s doing something markedly different than the politics that lost the 2024 election for Harris. He’s showed that politics isn’t the simplistic, one-dimensional left-right spectrum that Democrats seem to cling to. Specifically, he’s promised a government that works for people, and delivered. It’s not hard to see why people will actually come out and vote for that over the “we can’t do anything, but chip in some more” messaging.
You liking what Mamdani is doing does not mean it is a path to electoral victory.
Mamdani’s margin was much smaller than Harris’s, what is the evidence that he’s suddenly significantly more popular than when he barely won?
Edit: rephrased from count to margin (pres election should have a higher turnout)
To paraphrase: And yet he won. In a city that’s not particularly liberal.
That doesn’t really make sense under the left-right paradigm, under which he’s too far left and should lose the centrists. There’s something else going on that this paradigm does not capture, and DSA candidates are doing well all over.
He won by a smaller margin than Harris, that’s not a recipe for a general election theory.
He did lose the centrists, it’s why his margin of victory was smaller than Harris’, who was much more centrist.
In Democratic primaries and strongholds. The same is true of trumpian candidates in Republican primaries and strongholds.
It’s hard to compare, because the establishment Democrats decided to split the vote by running Cuomo as an independent. The election had the highest turnout since '93, including lots of new voters. That’s what was missing in Harris’s loss in the Presidential election—voter turnout.
It’s really not a hard formula: Promise to do things to address the pain points in people’s lives, speak out on moral issues that people care about, like genocide, and have the courage of your convictions. Give people an affirmative reason to vote for you, rather than shout at and blame those who didn’t.