The Mamdani moment

Speaker 1 My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.

Speaker 2 Zoran Mamdani will be New York City's 111th mayor.

Speaker 4 He celebrated his win last night by thanking some of his constituents.

Speaker 1 I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas,

Speaker 1 Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses.

Speaker 1 Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.

Speaker 4 In other races last night in New Jersey and Virginia, the Democratic candidates weren't firebrands like Mom Donnie, but they won anyway.

Speaker 4 Reporters asked President Trump about the Little Blue Wave this morning.

Speaker 9 We had

Speaker 9 an interesting evening and we learned a lot.

Speaker 5 Coming up on Today Explained, have the Democrats learned how to stop losing?

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Speaker 4 Stand here.

Speaker 4 Vox's Estead Herndon, you were in New York City last night covering everything.

Speaker 4 Tell me what happened.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I was in New York City for the last step of what has been a come-from-nowhere political story, a historic moment.

Speaker 16 Zora Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman who, as of two, three years ago, had very little presence on the, certainly the national stage and even the state level,

Speaker 16 you know, ended the Andrew Cuobo political dynasty and, you know, is going to become one of the youngest mayors in New York City's history and the first Muslim mayor in the city's history.

Speaker 16 Momdani really benefited from a huge voter turnout.

Speaker 16 There was almost 2 million voters, similar levels to presidential levels that we saw last year and the highest turnout in the New York City mayoral race in decades.

Speaker 8 You were talking to Momdani voters last night.

Speaker 4 You were out in the streets. You were at a couple parties.

Speaker 5 Where did you go and what did you hear?

Speaker 16 We went to Astoria, the neighborhood in Queens that is part of Momdani's district, but also, I think, a place that represents the hue of the Momdani coalition.

Speaker 16 And we were talking to a lot of folks yesterday who talked about voting in the mayor's race for the first time, talking about being excited by his kind of long-standing advocacy, particularly on the pro-Palestinian cause.

Speaker 16 But the thing I most remember is how much the word authenticity came up over and over. More of the kind of right, left.

Speaker 17 I feel like the backroom wheeling and dealing, that stuff is over. I think honest messaging is important.

Speaker 18 I think it was genuine with his intentions and he could understand the general public.

Speaker 16 There was a sense that the guy we see is the guy we know and we've known for a long time.

Speaker 16 We talked to one person about how she remembers Mamdani years ago when he was working with cab drivers as a state assemblyman.

Speaker 20 He got like a whole coalition of cab drivers in our area.

Speaker 20 And like they were all like swagged out cabs, like basically like this, you know?

Speaker 20 The fact that all the cab drivers were mobilized, all the yellow cabs were just like lit up all over the avenue up and down. We were like, okay, you know? And that was you.

Speaker 17 So that's before this evening.

Speaker 20 Yeah, yeah, that's before. So from there, we've just kind of had an eye.

Speaker 16 I think that's beyond right and left, but really having a sense and trust of a person and that really driving your connection to them.

Speaker 4 All right, so the question is, how did he do it? This young guy comes out of nowhere. Nobody really knows who he is.

Speaker 4 He then goes on to dominate the Democratic primaries, to completely unsettle Andrew Cuomo, and at the end of the day, to win.

Speaker 15 How?

Speaker 16 Well, this is something he manifested.

Speaker 16 Don't want to ask Dora Mamdani to run. He really saw an opportunity to step in to a moment where he felt that his life had kind of built him to be able to bring together these different coalitions.

Speaker 1 And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now it is something that we do.

Speaker 16 When I asked Mamdani how did he put kind of particularly his primary rides together, he says he started started with three different groups.

Speaker 16 He thinks about his association with the Democratic Socialists of America.

Speaker 19 Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God's children in this country.

Speaker 16 He also talks about his association with the Muslim Democratic Club of America.

Speaker 16 That campaigns he's been a part of throughout that group had taught him about reaching out to Muslim and South Asian groups and that that kind of growing coalition, that growing community in the city, he felt was an untapped political resource and a place that could really rally around him.

Speaker 16 The third thing I think is important is what he calls the root of his political formation, which is his pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Speaker 16 This is Subwud who started a chapter for Students for Justice in Palestine and college.

Speaker 16 This is Subwud who has been part of those organizing efforts over the year and most recently was part of the Democratic movement to push back against Joe Biden in terms of voting uncommitted in New York.

Speaker 21 And I said time and time again that my concerns beyond those of just moral ones with the administration's support of the Netanyahu government was that it was turning many away from an election where we so desperately needed to build a coalition to defeat Donald Trump.

Speaker 16 Because he is an early advocate for a ceasefire, because he is an early critic of Democrats standing with Netanyahu, that drives people toward him in the early stages of that primary and the way that other folks really weren't able to do.

Speaker 16 The other way that Mamdani stuck out, of course, is through his use of social media. I'm freezing.
You're wrecked as the next mayor of New York City. Let's plunge into the details.

Speaker 16 My team says I move my hands too much in these videos. So for this one, they're staying in my pockets.
And I would say it's important to note that this was very intentional.

Speaker 16 When I talked to people who were connecting with Zoran during his kind of early stages of the race, he was saying, I know I'm going to be outraised in terms of money.

Speaker 16 I'm going to have to create a movement that also exists online. He studied AOC and her digital communication.

Speaker 16 This is someone who is the son of a filmmaker, was really interested in the ways of those early storytelling.

Speaker 16 Someone who had a previous rap career and has thought about music videos and things like that.

Speaker 16 And he was really coming into this race thinking, how do I make sure I'm not just creating a field organization, but a digital organization?

Speaker 4 Mamdani's views on Palestine benefited him, it seems, a lot with young voters, but they also raised questions about whether his views would be a liability in New York, a city with a lot of Jews, right?

Speaker 4 A lot of Jewish voters.

Speaker 5 How did he handle that?

Speaker 4 And what are the results last night telling us about whether New York's Jews trust Mom Dani?

Speaker 16 It is undeniable that Andrew Cuomo was able to drive up votes, particularly among the kind of Republican or more conservative strongholds in New York City, in the Orthodox community.

Speaker 16 It's true that among kind of younger Jewish voters, particularly in places like Brooklyn, there were a lot of voters who saw no problem with their own faith and identity and voting for Zora Mamdani.

Speaker 16 And so it's a little, I think, more nuanced than just saying, you know, are are there pockets of New York that have fouled Mom Dani not willing to stand up for their community? Certainly.

Speaker 16 And you have seen that kind of pushback. But he has made a point.

Speaker 16 And I think even in his speech last night, he made a point to say, you know, I look forward to standing with Jewish New Yorkers to stand up against anti-Semitism.

Speaker 14 And we will build a city hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of anti-Semitism.

Speaker 4 You profiled Mom Dani for your former employer, The New York Times, and in your big piece, you wrote that you were struck by the fact that he adapted his strategy to keep his momentum going after he did so well in the primaries.

Speaker 4 Talk about what that adaptation looked like and what it got him.

Speaker 16 A lot of kind of more establishment corporate Democrats are currently dealing with right now the balance between winning and values.

Speaker 16 But there's been a lot of kind of left progressive folks who have prioritized values over winning. And what Montani says is that that is a mistake.

Speaker 16 He would say, particularly for the role of mayor, it's not one that rewards rigidity. And so you have to sort a compromise.

Speaker 16 And so after the primary, Momdani and his campaign made a concerted effort to show that. And so this is mostly happening in private.
He is following up with a lot of business leaders.

Speaker 16 He is reaching out to members of the tech community. And he was holding kind of small get-to-know-you you sessions, even at his campaign, where folks could ask him direct questions.

Speaker 16 Now, I think the interesting part of this thing is in these private meetings, he was willing to kind of present a, I would say, more pragmatic part of himself, not necessarily as a Jekyll and Hyde from the primary, but I really think as an evolution that took place for him over time.

Speaker 16 By the time he was running for mayor, he was willing to make these compromises and he was telling folks in public and private.

Speaker 16 I think that includes things like being willing to step away from the millionaire's tax if he could find money and resources other places.

Speaker 16 He also importantly said, and I think I heard this repeatedly, that he would not have litmus tests for the people he surrounds himself with, that he wanted a sort of team of rivals, and that even issues like his pro-Palestinian advocacy would not be make or breaks for people in City Hall.

Speaker 16 And so those were the kind of pivots he was willing to do to tell people, I understand the role that I am stepping into, and I am willing to kind of make my values fit into that that role.

Speaker 4 Even as Mom Dani was adapting and evolving, President Trump became kind of a specter instead hovering over this race.

Speaker 5 He had a lot to say about Mom Dani.

Speaker 4 And in fact, last night, I was reading that midway through Mom Dani's acceptance speech, Trump went on Truth Social and wrote, and so it begins in all capital letters, dot, dot, dot.

Speaker 4 I mean, what is going on between these two men? And how do you see this playing out as Mom Dani takes office?

Speaker 16 Well, for the, the, you know, Trump feels a personal ownership of New York. Not just a personal investment in New York City.
This is someone who's a Florida resident in name and taxes only.

Speaker 16 But his heart is still in Manhattan. And I think he sees Bomdani as a worthy foe.
I think he sees him as someone who has represented the ways the city changes.

Speaker 9 It's going to be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York

Speaker 9 because if you have a communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there.

Speaker 16 And Donald Trump, I think, more than the Republican Party at large, especially invested in pushing back against them.

Speaker 16 And so when you see Mamdani yesterday in that speech, you know, turn and talk directly to Donald Trump and say, you know, you're going to have to go through all of us, when you see him kind of speak directly to Trump on Fox News, that is because he is inviting a fight that they are preparing for and a fight that they frankly frankly feel is inevitable.

Speaker 4 All right, so this was one of the first big races since the 2024 election when President Trump won. One of the first big races that we're told can sort of tell us how the Democratic Party is doing.

Speaker 4 What are the lessons from this race, do you think?

Speaker 16 I think there's several. You know, I was really up close to the Democratic Party's retreat from working class Americans.
I saw it. I felt it.

Speaker 16 I could feel them increasingly become obsessed with things that were not tangible to people.

Speaker 16 Things like representation being there deliverable for Black and Latino communities over kitchen table economic prices style things,

Speaker 16 stepping away from unions, things like that.

Speaker 16 And I think what Mamdani, one of the lessons of Mamdani is a return to a type of politics that people can feel.

Speaker 16 And I think beyond the kind of right, left, center of it all, that's a lesson that Democrats can take in.

Speaker 16 Part of that authenticity that we were hearing people liked about him from the Watch Party comes not only in the consistency of his beliefs, but the fact that his policies are targeted.

Speaker 16 at those same communities who powered his rise. And so more,

Speaker 16 I think, than even the values that Mamdani holds, I think there is a broader lesson that one way, the way you build trust, the way you build authenticity is by coming from from a place where you're shaping your policies around your actual beliefs.

Speaker 16 What Mamdani does is start from his premise. And so, you know, when I'm at that rally and he says, freeze the, and the crowd can reply

Speaker 16 or, you know, make buses fast and they can reply,

Speaker 16 that reminds me of the moment at the Trump rally where he says, build the wall.

Speaker 16 There's a tangible expectation that the value itself is what's driving the policy and voters can latch on to it.

Speaker 16 And I'm saying that's, I think, a lesson is to be able to have things that people can feel and people can be excited about.

Speaker 4 Boxes Estead Herndon. You want to stick around for the second half?

Speaker 16 Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 4 All right, we're going to talk about the results of some other big races last night.

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Speaker 6 Mr. Mamdani.

Speaker 9 There are many parades that I would not be attending because I'd be focusing on today explained.

Speaker 4 I'm Noel King back with Vox's Estead Herndon. Estead, there were a couple of other big races around the country last night, and the results have got people talking about a blue wave.
What happened?

Speaker 16 Last night was a great night if you had a D next to the end of your name and that's not something we could have said for a long time.

Speaker 16 Beyond Beyond New York City, Democrats won two headline governors races in New Jersey, where Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill was successful.

Speaker 26 Sherrill defeated President Trump back to Republican Jack Chitterelli by an estimated 13 percentage point.

Speaker 11 Here in New Jersey, we know that this nation has not ever been, nor will it ever be ruled by kings.

Speaker 16 And in Virginia, where Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger will become the first woman to be governor. That's a commonwealth, as they like to remind us, not a state.

Speaker 26 We sent a message to the whole world

Speaker 14 that in 2025,

Speaker 26 Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship.

Speaker 26 We chose our Commonwealth over chaos.

Speaker 16 Even beyond that, there were two Democrats who won statewide in Georgia. The first time that that has happened in a very long long time.

Speaker 16 And local races, flips from R to D, and even in California, importantly, Governor Gavin Newsom's gambit about redistricting, which gives Democrats there the opportunity to draw new congressional maps and combat Republican tactics in places like Texas, passed overwhelmingly as well.

Speaker 16 Tonight, after poking the bear, this bear roared. The results, I think, confirm the evidence of the polling data as well, which is that there is a broad discontent with Trump's second term.

Speaker 16 The sequel is not as popular as the original.

Speaker 16 And in the key areas, particularly his handling of the economy, of prices, of discontent around tariffs, Donald Trump has taken what has been his best issue as kind of a safe and prosperous manager of country and made it among his worst.

Speaker 16 And Democrats were able to seize on that all across the country.

Speaker 4 Let's talk about the two big races you mentioned, the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia. Mikey Sherrill wins in New Jersey.
Abigail Spanberger wins in Virginia.

Speaker 4 These two women have some stuff in common, not just that they won last night. Tell us about them and what they tell us about the Democrats.

Speaker 16 So Cheryl and Spanberger are both members of the same class in the Democratic House of Representatives. They came in in 2018 in that wave against kind of Trump's first election.

Speaker 16 They really embodied, I think, Democrats' first attempts and first efforts at resistance. They both have national security backgrounds in the Navy and in the CIA, and they've really led with that.

Speaker 16 I think these campaigns represent kind of the early seeds of showing how the more centrist wing, the more moderate wing of Democrats has even started to stretch some new muscles.

Speaker 16 Cheryl in New Jersey really focused on electricity and bringing down those prices. As a 20% utility rate hike crushes New Jersey families.

Speaker 28 Day one is governor. I'm declaring a state of emergency on utility costs.

Speaker 16 In Virginia, Spamberger really focused on the contraction of the federal government and the ways that, you know, the firing of government employees particularly affected folks in Virginia.

Speaker 27 These are attacks on Virginians and on our economy, and we need a governor who will stand up against them.

Speaker 16 That was successful there. And so put New Jersey and Virginia together.
I mean, it wasn't just a good night for progressives and the Momdanis of the world.

Speaker 16 It was a good night for, I would say, the moderate wing of the party as well, and just Democrats broadly.

Speaker 4 So what are the lessons here about what kind of candidate works for the Dems?

Speaker 16 Well, the answer is all the above. I don't think think that anyone can blanket say that a 2018 Democrat cannot work in 2025.

Speaker 16 But I think it's also important that who Cheryl and Spamberger were represented a different type of Democrat than I think they were in 2018.

Speaker 16 And that time, the focus was largely on Donald Trump, his actions, and not necessarily presenting an affirmative vision on their own.

Speaker 16 I think both of those candidates did so and made a point to not simply be running against Donald Trump's actions.

Speaker 27 What we will do this November is not just vote against something,

Speaker 27 but we will vote for the policies that we believe in.

Speaker 16 I also would say Democrats and I think the parties in general have multiple fights at once, and particularly in statewide races and in races where there is a competitive Republican on the other side.

Speaker 16 The issue of electability, of someone being so-called less of a lightning rod or less controversial,

Speaker 16 it becomes more becomes more important. Voters want to find someone who maybe can reach out to the other side.

Speaker 16 There simply aren't enough Democrats in places like Virginia for you to not be able to win over folks with some more conservative leanings.

Speaker 16 And so, you know, that is going to produce a different type of candidate in the Virginias and New Jerseys than it would in a New York City election.

Speaker 16 But I would also say that Donald Trump won the popular vote because of Democrats' erosion in blue areas, also.

Speaker 16 And so, it's not as if they can choose a candidate that does well in suburbs over candidate that does well in city.

Speaker 16 You know, the Democrats' national success has come from when they've found candidates who can do all of the above or at least minimize the worst of some of those things.

Speaker 4 What questions still remain unanswered for both Republicans and Democrats going forward after last night?

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think that Republicans have the same problem that we knew they had in the Biden era, that they have not solved since Donald Trump showed up on the scene, which is that in elections where he is not on the ballot, they have not been able to put it together.

Speaker 16 So they underperformed in the 2022 midterms. They lost seats in that 2018 midterms.
And without the kind of uniqueness of the Donald Trump-only voter, their coalition is very beatable for Democrats.

Speaker 16 On the Democratic side, I think there is both hope and peril.

Speaker 16 I think the hope here is that it shows how this big tit party, a version of the party that includes both Mamdani, Cheryl, and Spamberger, has an opportunity to really claw back some of the losses that they've seen over the last several years.

Speaker 16 The peril is that the path to success in the midterms is not the same as the path to success in the presidential race.

Speaker 16 And particularly, the presidential primary, the conversation that Democrats have to have amongst themselves to produce their nominee is much more on the terms of the Zora Mamdani race than it is on the Spam Burger Cheryl race.

Speaker 16 The New York City electorate and that diversity and that scope is, I think, a harbinger of the ways that the party is changing across the country. And I think shows

Speaker 16 If you are someone who doesn't want the Bernie Sanders wing of the world to take over the Democratic Party, I think you could take Bomdani's win as a warning sign that they have learned some lessons about how to win and that this version of Democrats wants to fight and wants values and is mad at their party's previous leaders so much that words like socialism are not inherently scary.

Speaker 16 Words like the charge of anti-Semitism was not inherently off-putting. And so those are a lot of methods that the centrist kind of moderate wing is used to having.

Speaker 16 And so they're going to have to find a different way to win other than just telling people we're more electable. Because I don't think that reasoning has the same validity among Democrats.

Speaker 4 Vox is Estead, Herndon.

Speaker 5 Thanks so much, Estead.

Speaker 16 Thank you. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 Ariana Esputu and Miles Bryan produced today's show. Amina El Sadi edited.

Speaker 7 Patrick Boyd and Adrian Lilly are our engineers. And Laura Bullard and Denise Guerre check the facts.

Speaker 4 I'm Noelle King.

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