Mayoral election

New Yorkers received visits from two ghosts of Christmas past and one ghost of Christmas present at its last 2025 mayoral debate on Wednesday night. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and champion of himself Andrew Cuomo lobbed Grumpy Old Man insults across the stage at each other while Zohran Mamdani stood center stage, fresh and gleaming, deflecting blows and acting with all the confidence of a football team that has a three-touchdown lead at the two-minute warning. The historical turn, potentially tragic, that will lead to the Democratic Socialists taking over America’s largest city, is reaching its conclusion, and there won’t be a final twist.

Ahead of tomorrow night’s debate with Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, Democratic socialist and future mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani appeared on Fox News this afternoon for the first time.   Anyone expecting a clash of cultures, or 15 minutes of pure ideological arguing, would have been disappointed. Fox anchor Martha MacCallum asked tough, pointed questions, but it was a respectful exchange between two New Yorkers who clearly don’t summer in the same ZIP code.   That doesn’t mean the interview lacked news value. The most shocking part came before the commercial break, when Mamdani said it was “too early” to give President Trump credit for the Middle East peace deal.

On Monday night, New York City golden boy Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, tweeted, after the terrifying gun attack on Park Avenue, “I’m heartbroken to learn of the horrific shooting in midtown and I am holding the victims, their families, and the [New York Police Department] officer in critical condition in my thoughts. Grateful for all of our first responders on the ground.” He also sent special condolences to the families of Didarul Islam, the Bangladeshi immigrant and NYPD officer who died in the attack. But there’s a reason Mamdani was holding NYC in his thoughts and not giving a press conference on the ground: He’s at his family’s luxury compound in Uganda, where he’s summering after getting married there a couple of weeks ago.

Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has declared that in his New York City, buses will be free, childcare will be free, rent will be frozen and government-run grocery stores will light up the crime-riddled horizon. Cockburn thinks current Mayor Eric Adams, now running as an Independent, must have read Zohran's free-stuff-for-New-Yorkers list and spotted a hole: WiFi. In a press conference yesterday, Adams was joined by the city's office of Housing Preservation and Development to announce their new $3.25 million plan to provide free WiFi to low-income New Yorkers in 35 government-subsidized buildings. "Liberty Link will deliver free and low cost internet to 2,200 households across the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. . . . Today, we're bringing Section 8 online," the Mayor said.

Voters often pay a premium for socialism. It’s the modern-day equivalent of free-range eggs or an electric car. Zohran Mamdani, a self-described “democratic socialist,” embodies that premium. In New York’s Democratic mayoral primary election, he got blown out of the water with lower-income voters – but won overwhelmingly with young, white, college-educated idealists desperate for the revolution. He would be the furthest left mayor New York City has ever seen if elected in November. While his policy prescriptions – city-run grocery stores, higher taxes on the wealthy and a diminished police presence – are radical proposals, it is his deep devotion to socialism that truly defies convention. There is no question that Mamdani loathes the West.

Zohran Mamdani is defensive about his faith and has maintained that his culture is “not a costume.” Why then, New Yorkers might wonder, does he not extend this courtesy to others? In December, he shared an Indian dance video about Hanukkah by comedy group the Geeta Brothers who performed behind a menorah, spinning dreidels, while singing Hey Hanukkah. The Punjabi track features lyrics: tera dreidel bara ghummay (your dreidel spins a lot), taazi roti kosher howay (let’s have fresh kosher bread), with a repeated chorus of mombatiyan, which means candles. Mamdani also wished his followers a merry Christmas using a video for the Geeta Brothers’ Jingle Bells track where the group woos a woman.

Within weeks of launching his campaign to be mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani declared that he was also running to be the first South Asian mayor. He began aggressively courting this demographic, which accounts for around five percent of the city’s population, as well as the seizable total Asian population of almost 15 percent. Mamdani reached out to the desi community with the help of the Indian subcontinent’s great unifier, Bollywood. The Hindi film industry that even those who don’t speak the language in South Asia can relate to. He used a 1980 Bollywood song "Meri Umar Ke Naujawano", roughly translating to "my fellow youngsters", to explain the NYC’s ranked choice voting system using popular desi drink, the lassi, as prop.

As I write, the time is 10 p.m. in New York City and the temperature is hovering somewhere around unbearable. It’s a nice respite from the 100 degrees the city hit on Tuesday afternoon, as voters flocked to the polls to cast their ballots in an unusually heated mayoral primary. Polls closed at 9 p.m., and a town famed for its impatience was given the gift of a clear front-runner. Improbably, against all odds, all common wisdom, the vast majority of polls and even the betting markets, the night ended with Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assemblyman and proud “Muslim democratic socialist” as the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor. “I’m very proud of the campaign that we ran,” Cuomo told his supporters as Mamdani’s lead proved insurmountable.

If you tuned in to the first New York City Democratic mayoral primary debate hoping for vision, leadership, even a halfway compelling reason to stay in the city – you were sorely disappointed. What we got instead was two hours of political karaoke: forgettable performances, familiar refrains and not a single candidate who looked remotely prepared to lead America’s largest city out of the hole it’s in. The media crowned former governor Andrew Cuomo the winner, but that says more about the sad state of the field than it does about Cuomo’s abilities. He barely had to try. Like a career politician coasting on name recognition and reflexes, he sleepwalked through the evening while eight other candidates took turns lobbing stale criticisms his way. They all missed.

On Tuesday, Chicago voters head to the polls to vote for Rahm Emanuel’s successor as Da Mayor. ‘Why vote in late February?’ you might ask. ‘Didn’t Chicago just vote in November for House members and Governor?’ Oh, you naive soul. For decades, Chicago has held its elections in February precisely because it is cold, often snowy, and hard to get to the polls. When you suppress ordinary voters, who is left? For many years, it was reliable voters for the old Chicago Democratic Machine. Some of them drove city busses or garbage trucks; others shuffled papers in city offices. Some filled potholes. Many more watched their co-workers fill potholes while they grabbed a cigarette. What better way to ensure that insiders get reelected?