The heat in New York City last night wasn’t just meteorological. On one of the hottest days in memory, socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani declared victory in the Democratic primary for the role of mayor of New York City. Andrew Cuomo, conceding the race, looked exactly like what he was: a relic from an exhausted political tradition that had finally run out of gas.

The numbers told the story clearly enough. “Together, we have shown the power of the politics of the future, one of partnership and of sincerity,” Mamdani said after pulling ahead by tens of thousands of votes in the first round of ranked-choice voting last night. But the real story wasn’t in the vote tallies — it was in who showed up to cast them. Under-employed 20- and 30-somethings, single mothers, immigrants: Marx’s much-maligned lumpenproletariat turned out in force for the 33-year-old assemblyman.

Mamdani’s pitch was simple: the cost of living is crushing working people but the municipal government can lower costs and make life easier. He vowed to bring down rent, boost the standard of public transit, and support families. These are hardly radical ideas. Really, they are basic social-democratic policies which wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in Berlin or Barcelona. But in American politics, particularly in the Democratic Party’s calcified centre-left wing, they represented something genuinely threatening: actual change.

The man Mamdani defeated embodies everything wrong with that dying tradition. Cuomo, 67, followed in his father Mario’s footsteps in serving 10 years as governor until he was forced to resign amid accusations of corruption, mishandling the Covid-19 pandemic in nursing homes, and alleged sexual harassment of a dozen women. While Mamdani’s own parents are prominent — his father a Left-wing academic, his mother an award-winning filmmaker — he provides a stark contrast with Cuomo: the scion of dynastic machine politics pitted against the charismatic outsider backed by actual ideas.

What made Mamdani different from the Squad and other progressive standard-bearers was his sheer efficiency, not his platform. His fundraising, driven by small donors, has topped $8 million, and he has dubbed his campaign the “largest volunteer operation in NYC history”. Unlike typical progressive campaigns, he managed to pull together a top-to-bottom cultural coalition — from kingmaker congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  to “dirtbag Left” podcasters such as Nick Mullen fame and Will Menaker.

The generational divide was impossible to ignore in the lead-up to the election. By late May, Mamdani led among voters under 50, white New Yorkers, and college-educated voters by double-digit margins, then increased those numbers on election day. Young people, facing impossible rents and diminishing prospects, finally found someone speaking their language rather than the consultant-tested pablum of establishment Democrats.

Mamdani’s energetic campaign videos pledged to make the city affordable for the working class, and received widespread pick-up across social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok. While Cuomo relied on a record-setting super PAC inundating voters with anti-Mamdani ads and promising to hold the line on Israel, the socialist candidate built something more powerful: enthusiasm backed by past successes such as his debt relief campaign for the city’s beleaguered medallion-holding taxi drivers.

Will many New Yorkers have faith in Mamdani’s policies? Perhaps not. Free buses and rent freezes sound lovely until you start asking about municipal budgets and state preemption. City-run grocery stores? Ask anyone who’s dealt with New York City bureaucracy about that one. But compared to the scandal-stained alternative of Cuomo, at least Mamdani represents something, as journalist Yasha Levine noted when arguing that this was far preferable to nihilistic quiescence.

Because of his history of activism and charisma, some have compared Mamdani’s meteoric rise to that of Barack Obama. That may be overstating things, but the establishment has certainly taken notice. And they should be terrified — not because Mamdani is a revolutionary, given that his policies are pretty milquetoast by global standards, but because he represents the end of their cosy arrangement with Democratic machine politics.

Last night’s result was about a generation who have watched their prospects shrink while being told to be grateful for scraps. They finally found someone who spoke to their reality rather than lecturing them about pragmatism. Whether Mamdani can actually govern is another question entirely. But for one sweltering June night, the kids finally showed up and the old guard discovered their time was over.

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Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work

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