The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: the NYC Mayoral Race
Updated: Jan 10
The phrase that originates from the classic Italian Western has been brought up throughout the New York presidential race to describe how tense the campaign was. As the dust begins to settle, it’s worth taking the time to reflect on what the election has revealed about the current state of American politics.
The good: Democracy has won
America has witnessed a surge in political polarisation, reflected in Black Lives Matter protests, January 6th or the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Both sides of the political spectrum are increasingly often relying on agitation rather than reason. When, in those circumstances, the biggest city in the USA is faced with an extremely attention-grabbing and heated election, nothing can be ruled out.
Democracy has won this battle. The three candidates debated twice, passionately but peacefully, and even exchanged jokes and anecdotes. At a time of political bitterness in America, it was truly refreshing to see Curtis Sliwa jokingly tell Mamdani to ‘not glaze him’ at the debate, or the three sharing their favourite breakfast choices.
Voter turnout exceed 2 million (and a two-decade record of 40%) for the first time. Zohran Mamdani was elected with the majority of votes. Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa acknowledged the result and their first reactions all mentioned unity and acceptance. Mamdani may be the next New York mayor, but the one solid winner in the race was democracy itself.
The bad: Backstage Politics, Racism and Bribery
The election campaign has, unfortunately, also cast a fair few dark shadows. We saw senior elected officials utilise very harsh language against Mamdani, in particular his ethnicity and religious beliefs.
However, it wasn’t only the mayor-elect who has had unethical obstacles placed in front of him. Andrew Cuomo was repeatedly accused of being a ‘sex-pest’ or ‘rapist’. Whilst there are many worrying accusations that should be considered, charges against him were dismissed and cases dropped. Whether that is fair or not is a different question, but nevertheless, it seemed that these very serious terms were used without care or consideration by Cuomo’s opponents.
Lastly, Curtis Sliwa, a major party nominee faced pressure to drop out of the race because he would allegedly ‘split the vote’ and help Mamdani win. What is even more concerning, however, are the rumours of corruption from influential Cuomo supporters and offers of hundreds of thousands in return for Sliwa dropping out. If the allegations are true, then we better hope they do not set a precedent of bribery in broad daylight for future elections.
The Ugly: Political Realities
Zohran Mamdani is considered to lean towards the left side of the political spectrum. While campaining, he identified his main goals as introduction of universal childcare programme, making city buses free and freezing the rent for 1 million rent-stabilized tenants in the city.
Mainstream US political forces are far from finding common ground. Trump has repeadately labelled Mamdani as 'a communist' and Mamdani didn't hesitate to attack Trump in his victory speech by telling him to 'turn the volume up'. There is work to be done in terms of reaching agreement between both sides of American politics.
A harsh political reality for Zohran will be the administrative difficulties of government. His ideas are brave, and new, but the mayor of New York isn’t omnipotent, he will have to compromise with the State Governor and State Legislature, who do not endorse many of his policies. It will be interesting to see if Mamdani decides to fight the system or become a part of it.
The NYC mayoral election has shown us American politics from every perspective. We have seen both the unethical political games play out, and democracy hugely succeeding at the very same time. The complex political realities will guide us into the future of Mamdani’s mayoralty. There is a multitude of takeaways, but one is for sure – we have just witnessed a historical moment play out in front of our eyes.