We know who Donald Trump wants to win the New York City mayoral election this fall. He is not backing Curtis Sliwa, the beret-wearing, cat-obsessed Republican nominee. Nor is he backing his hometown’s sitting mayor, Eric Adams, despite the corrupt bargain they struck earlier this year. Instead, Trump and his allies are doing everything they can to push Sliwa and Adams out—so that Andrew Cuomo, the state’s former governor (and Trump’s Covid-era sparring partner), will have the best shot against Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist who nadily defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary in June.
We know this because Trump isn’t hiding his desires. Asked about the state of the race on Thursday, he indicated that Mamdani would win—unless something changes. “I don’t think you can win unless you have one on one, because somehow he’s gotten a little bit of a lead,” Trump said. “I would like to see two people drop out and have it be one on one. I think that’s a race that could be won.” His administration, we know from contemporaneous reporting, is working to get Sliwa and Adams out.
That effort appears to be failing. Sliwa has long insisted that he has no intention of leaving the race and seems content with finishing third; he maintains the backing of leading NYC Republicans and also just seems to like the attention he gets running for mayor. On Friday, Adams held an indignant press conference outside Gracie Mansion in which he unequivocally stated he would not be dropping out—and he blamed Cuomo, whom he called a “snake and a liar” for stirring up rumors that he was mulling a possible role in the Trump administration.
Why does Trump want Cuomo to win so badly? It’s not entirely clear. The two have spoken since Cuomo lost the primary, and it seems plausible that a quid pro quo—in which Trump pushes Adams and Sliwa out in exchange for future cooperation on issues like crime and immigration—is on the table. He may simply be motivated by rank bigotry—Mamdani is Muslim—or hatred of a young man he insists is a “communist.” Or maybe Trump is scared of what he sees—a young, genuinely exciting star in a decrepit party that has been a shambles for years—and thus wants to arrest Mamdani’s political rise before he becomes a national force to be reckoned with.
The question is whether prominent Democrats are scared of Mamdani for that reason, too. Because many of them—including some from New York, like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—have thus far refused to endorse him. It’s a worrying sign that these Democrats will not have Mamdani’s back, nor defend other progressive politicians in power across the country, when Trump sends his gestapo into town.
Many politicians have endorsed Mamdani. “The people have spoken,” Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who has represented a Bronx district since 2017, said in endorsing Mamdani in July. Mamdani has subsequently been endorsed by a number of key labor unions and, as of late August, one-third of the city council. And other Democrats are lining up behind Mamdani for the simple reason that he won the most votes in the Democratic primary and will likely be the city’s next mayor.
But why aren’t New York’s most powerful Democrats backing him? Jeffries has offered tempered praise of Mamdani’s campaign, particularly the candidate’s message of making the city more affordable. But, like Schumer, Jeffries has abstained from a full endorsement, citing Mamdani’s criticism of Israel. Kathy Hochul, the state’s governor, has similarly offered praise for Mamdani’s campaign but stopped short of fully endorsing. Senator Kristen Gillibrand, the state’s other U.S. senator, found herself in hot water earlier this summer when she suggested that Mamdani had “made references to global jihad” in a radio interview. She quickly apologized—Mamdani had said no such thing, and her comments were clearly racist—but nonetheless has not endorsed him. Only a handful of sitting members of Congress have done so—though this is less surprising, given that it’s a local election, albeit in the nation’s most populous city.
Why the hesitation? Perhaps it’s because of the media-concocted controversy over the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which Mamdani has never said (contra some news reports) but also refused to condemn. He has provided a nuanced explanation of his stance, and eventually said he would discourage use of the term, but apparently that’s not sufficient. Mamdani has been critical of Israel, and thus has been wrongly branded as antisemitic—just the excuse centrists like Schumer and Jeffries need to stay on the sidelines in the mayoral race.
While it’s clear that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel is driving much of the tepid response from national Democrats, not the only thing going on. Republicans have blabbed to any reporter in earshot that they’re salivating—“giddy” is the word Politico highlighted in a typically credulous piece—to paint the Democrats as the party of the young, Muslim, democratic socialist Mamdani. It would seem that Jeffries, Schumer, and others have accepted that narrative fully and are attempting to keep their distance in the hope that, when the time comes, they can say that they obviously never supported him.
On the one hand, this is foolhardy. Republicans will accuse Democrats of being communists, globalists, and closet jihadists whether or not they endorse Mamdani. We know this because they have been doing it for years. They just did it to Kamala Harris, and ran two elections against Barack Obama which heavily featured the narrative that the young, charismatic Democrat was—you guessed it—a closet communist and Muslim. Whether they like it or not, that narrative is coming.
But it is also dangerous. Trump has made it clear that he hopes to target New York City just as he’s done to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.—with deployed National Guard troops and ICE agents running rampant. By failing to back Mamdani now, Democrats are also suggesting that they will throw him—and the city he represents—to the wolves come 2026. And progressives running other cities around America would be right to worry, too.
But worst of all, Democrats like Schumer and Jeffries are shooting their party in the foot. Mamdani is a dynamic, charismatic candidate unlike any the party has seen for years. In June, he beat Cuomo, a former governor, by more than 10 points by activating middle-class voters—what the writer Michael Lenge has termed the “coalition of the in-between.” Predominantly renters, Mamdani’s voters were also disproportionately young, Asian, and Hispanic—all groups that moved toward Trump in last year’s election, and which Democrats will need if they want to take back Congress and the White House. Democrats say they are determined to be a big-tent party. But somehow there’s no room in it for the politicians who can actually help fill it?
The post The Democrats Who Refuse to Back Mamdani Are Sending a Scary Message appeared first on New Republic.
