Heaven help New York.
A Democratic primary election for mayor that offered no good options managed to deliver the worst of all possible outcomes.
A nepo baby who is a socialist antisemite came storming from behind to grab the inside track to City Hall.
When the final tally comes in, Zohran Mamdani’s all-but-certain win will mark a comeback for the ages.
A poll had him at 1% in February and no poll had him in first place.
He rose by capturing the imagination and expressing the grievances of young people who feel they are being priced out of New York.
He was up against a large, lackluster field and delivered a strong social media presence where he often seemed to be having fun.
He said from the beginning his campaign was about affordability, and he’s right — but not in the way he intended.
It’s that the city cannot afford his ideas.
Similarly, his refusal to acknowledge that Israel is the rightful homeland of Jews is a key plank in what can fairly be deemed a hostile view of the lone Jewish state.
He supports the BDS movement and refuses to condemn the “Globalize the intifada” movement, which is about targeting Jews around the world.
On the way to his stunning victory, Mamdani has put a dagger in the political career of Andrew Cuomo, whose results so far have dramatically underperformed expectations and poll predictions.
The former governor offered himself as a pragmatic progressive, but it was his history and personality that sank him more than his policies.
Cuomo ducked most candidate forums and his public appearances were often described as perfunctory: Give a speech, shake a few hands, get back in the car.
His failure to connect was self-inflicted. The fact that he never expressed any sense of regret for the nursing home deaths during COVID and the sexual harassment allegations from a dozen women added to the sense that he was not fully committed to winning back those whom he had disappointed.
The outcome, although not yet final because of the ranked-choice process, is already sending shock waves through the national Democratic Party.
It proves beyond doubt that the far left remains not only alive, but dominant. So much for any moderation in the Age of Trump.
AOC and Bernie Sanders, who backed Mamdani as part of their anti-oligarch tour, emerge as big winners and agenda setters for the party.
Mamdani is a kindred soul, and his promise of free stuff — buses, child care, etc. — is consistent with the socialist playbook of eating the rich.
Tax them until they … what, leave?
Breaking news: The rich are already leaving the city because of policies not nearly as radical as his, along with the downward spiral of the quality of life.
Although the ranked-choice process still has to play out in the coming week, there’s little chance that Cuomo turns the tables. He’s trailing by 7 points in the straight-up voting, and Mamdani has secured most of the second and third choices of the other top candidates in the complicated counting process.
He’s almost certain to come away with a solid majority when the process concludes next week, making the two-term, 33-year-old Queens assemblyman the party’s official nominee.
There’s still a general election in November, of course, where the incumbent, Eric Adams, will be on the ballot as an independent, as will Republican Curtis Sliwa and other candidates.
One question is whether Cuomo will mount an outsider run on a ballot line he created just for this situation.
As it stands now, that seems unlikely. Four years after he left Albany in disgrace, the former governor looks to be out of gas and out of favor.
Even before the polls opened Tuesday, insiders were whispering about a campaign that lacked energy and conviction.
Cuomo never got in the groove, seemingly viewing the mayoralty as a consolation prize. He was the loudest voice in pledging to fight President Trump, which didn’t catch fire as a theme.
He even promised in one interview to “spend eight years in Washington” fighting the president.
It looks now as if he’ll have all the free time in the world to do that.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
