If We Want to Fix Democratic Messaging, Cuomo Needs to Lose
6.23.2025 / Op-Ed / munciepostdemocrat.com
The NYC mayoral election ends tomorrow. Zohran Mamdani took a lead in recent polling with 35% to Andrew Cuomo’s 31%, followed by news this morning that another poll puts him at 52% to 48% in a final round of rank choice voting. Considering Mamdani’s campaign had exponential growth in polling since the beginning of the primary, it’s not even a question which campaign is the big story. Not only have 26,425 volunteers been recruited for his campaign, but over 4,000 of those decided to volunteer after having their doors knocked on. Mamdani’s received endorsements from Bernie Sanders and AOC, and made unity with other primary challengers to tell their supporters not to rank Cuomo anywhere on their ballots.
It’s not over by any means after the primary, with Eric Adams running third party and potentially even Cuomo doing the same, but like Jamaal Bowman’s congressional run last year in New York’s 16th district, it’s all about Progressives versus the Establishment. This could very well be a make or break moment. We know about the dirty tricks pulled against Bernie in 2016 and 2020, or the tens of millions in funding thrown to defeat Jamaal Bowman, and the other vast efforts to push the left away from party power.
For progressives in city-wide elections, it can be about fighting for the same affordability Mamdani brings up versus a dirty oil-run political machine from either party. Mamdani delivers on this, but his race is also being centered around how their city would handle attacks federally. Interviewed yesterday on CBS New York, Cuomo pointed fingers at Mamdani as “playing into Trumps hands” by going so hard after the former governor, and yet can’t provide any good reason on why he’d handle attacks from the White House better as the future mayor.
Andrew Cuomo in 1994.
The party establishment continues not to provide anything enticing either to draw in disaffected voters, or for what the base is calling for. There’s no coalition, no meeting the Left halfway, and little to no change in messaging. The worst part has to be the lack of conviction on policy, and that’s exactly what’s drawing people to the Right. Party leaders have largely capitulated to conservatism, by believing their opponents’ voters are something to always adapt to rather than show new ideas to. I’ll end this with a recent quote from Mamdani: “To everyone who pulls me aside to whisper, with the best of intentions: ‘you have already won.’ I am sorry, but the days of moral victories are over. And, as my father told me years ago: ‘when the Right wins power, the Left writes a great book.’ Those days are over too. Because this is a campaign that is going to win on June 24th!”