A New York Democrat with a history of anti-Israel controversies has won the party’s primary election for mayor.
Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state legislator, won the contest, allowing him to run as favourite in the November general election in the heavily Democratic city.
Andrew Cuomo, the controversial former New York governor who drew extensive support from the Orthodox Jewish community, conceded to Mamdani late last night, after results showed Mamdani with a commanding lead.
With nearly all votes counted in the election’s first round, Mamdani had 43.5 per cent of the vote to Cuomo’s 36.4 per cent.
“Tonight was not our night,” Cuomo told his supporters at an event at a carpenter’s union building in Manhattan on Tuesday night. “Tonight was Assemblyman Mamdani’s night, and he put together a great campaign.”
“He touched young people and inspired them and moved them and got them to come out and vote,” Cuomo said. “He really ran a highly impactful campaign.”
“I called him, and I congratulated him,” Cuomo said of Mamdani. “I applaud him sincerely for his effort.”
Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, stated earlier in the night that “Cuomo is doing best in Orthodox Jewish areas in Brooklyn and the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Winning black areas but not with huge margins.”
Duvi Honig, founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, told the Jewish News Syndicate that the “recent surge of support for Zohran Mamdani among voters under 40 raises profound concerns regarding the intellectual rigor and judgment of the younger generation.”
“By backing a candidate who endorses positions associated with terrorism and Holocaust denial, in pursuit of illusory economic benefits, these voters reveal a troubling lack of historical awareness and a disconnection from reality,” Honig said.
Honig added that older Democrats, who sought revenge against Cuomo, “may inadvertently bolster Mamdani’s platform, which threatens public safety and undermines the core mission of the NYPD.”
“This situation not only poses a risk to the city’s security but could ultimately backfire on the very constituents who support him,” Honig said.
Mamdani has accused Israel of “indiscriminate,” “limitless” and “criminal killing of civilians” and has said he would have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he comes to New York City, where the United Nations headquarters are located.
After Mamdani claimed, when defending the phrase “globalise the intifada,” that the Holocaust museum used the word “intifada” to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the politician received a rare reprimand from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The museum said, without naming Mamdani, that “exploiting the museum and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to sanitise ‘globalise the intifada’ is outrageous and especially offensive to survivors.”
John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, stated that “the city with the largest Jewish population in the world will likely have as its mayor a man whose worldview and convictions stand in opposition to the fundamentals of Judaism itself.”
“I’m not kidding when I say that people like Mamdani are why there has to be a Jewish state,” Podhoretz wrote.
The National Republican Congressional Committee stated that “Democrats just nominated antisemitic, socialist, radical Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City and the new face of New York Dems.”
“Mamdani pledged to defund the police, abolish prisons and institute socialist government grocery stores while massively raising taxes on working New Yorkers,” the NRCC said.
Florida senator Rick Scott suggested that many New Yorkers might flee to Florida, and Garry Kasparov, the half-Jewish world chess champion and activist, stated that “socialism is like polio. It comes back when people forget about the horrible damage it did last time.”
Esther Panitch, a Democrat who is the only Jewish state representative in Georgia, stated, “I cannot overstate how scary this New York City vote is for pro-Israel American Jews,” which she said means “most Jews.”
Also running for citywide positions were prominent Jewish candidates Anthony Weiner and Harvey Epstein, both of whom were expected to lose their bids for the Democratic nomination.
