As Mamdani nears victory, Democrats worry about national fallout

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“We stand on the verge of ushering in a new day for our city,” he said. Their conviction would “be the light that our city and our nation so desperately need.”

Put differently: His importance won’t stop at the shores of the Hudson.

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For the progressive left, it will be a signal achievement — the highest executive office ever held by a self-identified democratic socialist in the United States. After a decade that began with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) insurgent presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton — continuing with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s improbable 2018 congressional win, the formation of the “Squad” of lefty lawmakers and the pulling of the entire party to the left — Mamdani’s victory would be the capstone of a 10-year ideological project, and give democratic socialists an enormously powerful bully pulpit for the next four years.

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Mamdani offered a glimpse of what could come next. "There are many who say that a democratic socialist vision of governance for New York is impossible," Mamdani said in a video posted to his campaign's Instagram account. “To them, I say: We need look only at our past for proof of how socialism can shape our future.”

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“A Mamdani victory is a serious political problem for those in the party who believe, as we do, that our primary focus must be on flipping red and purple seats blue, expanding the map for Democrats, and creating a path back to Congress and the White House,” Matt Bennett, executive vice president of center-left think tank Third Way, told MSNBC. “The [Democratic Socialists of America] platform — which Mamdani has not repudiated — hands a potent set of weapons to Republican ad makers eager to tie Mamdani-style politics to Democrats running in much tougher places than deep blue New York.”

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Already, Democratic officials in New York’s suburbs have sought to distance themselves from Mamdani.

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Republicans on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, are watching it all and rejoicing at the opportunity.

“We’re going to have a Marxist — a communist — running [America’s] largest city,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said on Monday, incorrectly describing Mamdani’s political identification, though that nuance is unlikely to matter to voters.

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