Mamdani is personally wealthy enough to settle down on the UWS, the UES, in lower Manhattan, or in gentrified Brooklyn. That would put him up against Lander or Lasher for a congressional seat.

Should Mamdani choose to return to his rent stabilized apartment in Queens, that would put him up against AOC, who declined to endorse in any of the NYC primaries.

As Rachel Maddow would say, watch this space.

Labeling anyone a single "kingmaker" completely diminishes the incredible work of the candidates themselves, their staff, and the volunteers who knocked on doors. --- Did Mamdani's endorsement provide a helpful signal to progressive voters? Sure. But he didn't cast the ballots.

These weren't easy, standard races where an endorsement just rubber-stamps an obvious winner—they were tough, hard-fought campaigns. These candidates won because they ran aggressive, disciplined grassroots operations that tapped into real voter dissatisfaction.

Why would anyone want to reduce a complex, organized movement down to one guy playing kingmaker? The credit actually belongs to the people who ran and the voters who showed up.

We appear to be in the minority, I am afraid.

a moderate former mayor took 60% against a field of progressive (including one endorsed by Bernie) in Salt Lake City. A moderate combat vet was nominated in the NY 17th. A Chevalier would not beat a Republican in Nassau or Putnam.

Credit should go to the hard-working candidates, their home-hitting messages and the volunteers.

I believe our country is preparing for change….not just a new leader, but a very new way of being.

Let's give this a minute, shall we?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/nyregion/mamdani-politics-influence.html



Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his allies swept a series of congressional primaries in New York City on Tuesday in a remarkable show of strength for the insurgent left that sent shock waves through the Democratic Party.

Mr. Mamdani’s candidates toppled a pair of incumbents backed by the city’s political establishment, including major labor unions and the House Democratic leader. Another candidate backed by the mayor won an open House seat, and a handful of democratic socialist challengers he supported were winning down the ballot.

For months, Mr. Mamdani threw himself and his energized political organization into the three marquee congressional contests, campaigning late into the night in the race’s final days and calling the election a referendum on the direction of the party.

All the winning candidates share Mr. Mamdani’s progressive economic platform, and they each ran campaigns that focused intently on ending American support for Israel, a sign of how far public opinion has shifted on the issue, even in New York.

snip

... Argumentum ad Verecundiam. But, whatever.

another example (thus my use of 'FWIW' in my reply) of the term being employed in re Mamdani.

Also, as I type this, MS Now has also used the term twice (by two different people) a few seconds ago, again FWIW.

But you do you.

Chevalier is not . . . my favorite person ever. Which is understating it.

But anything that jolts the Establishment (and Schumer), but really the Establishment (Schumer) . . . it's Schumer. I just like that Schumer's getting elbowed by a new, more progressive generation. Finally.

I think AOC can create a moment on the back of this and ride it into the Senate. Not a cakewalk, but achievable.

It will be very interesting to see, in light of this, if Schumer runs again.

It should take more than 1 election cycle to be worthy of being labeled much of anything, but everyone likes to jump to the conclusion that they want. Shockingly a currently popular mayor has a correlation with people who share similar policies win an election in the same electorate. Doesn't really imply much about which way the causation runs. It could be that it's the policies rather than the endorsement. You'd need to see repetitive behavior over multiple elections with a shifting electorate to start drawing conclusions.

Said that they supported her because of Mamdani.

If that isn't kingmaker, then I don't know what that is.

Mamdani has rejuvenated the Democratic Party.

Give him his props, he deserves it.

Unless we get really clear exit polling results, it will be hard to draw any conclusions.

Remember that all politics are local.

Not sure what to read of primary elections in general as they tell you about the most passionate voters who are in a party. Usually, the unaffiliated independent voters swing the election.

Anatolia Mejia was elected in a special election in February.

You might claim that a House representative is more powerful than the Mayor of New York City, but I think most would disagree.

The more appropriate political cliche here is "he has strong coattails".

I can’t remember a better mayor there than Mamdani. As long as the candidates can win, and they will, this is great news.

A recently elected popular mayor endorses candidates in specific races in areas where he is popular. They win. Not a surprise.

He seems to have big coat tails in NY and a lot of people not in NY are sure taking notice and paying attention.

that was also partly responsible for his own win. (helped of course by the corruption of Adams and the sleaziness of Cuomo)

Someone like Mamdani can bring people to consider a candidate, but the candidate has to make the actual "sale".

It seems that urban centers are moving to democratic socialists. Living in Burlington, Vermont, I remember a rabbi mentioning that Bernie Sanders, a good friend of his, should mention FDR rather than Denmark, Sweden etc.

With affordability being an ever larger issue for all but the top 1 percent, we could, especially in the high cost cities, be in somewhat similar times to the times when FDR and his people worked to create a safety net for vulnerable people.

It may be that people like Mamdani are a revision back to the policies of FDR.

And Mamdani is going to hurt us nationally. And at a time when we really need to focus on stopping Trump's Fascism. https://www.newsweek.com/how-popular-is-socialism-what-polls-show-as-democrats-condemn-it-11090485

As an old person I realized this is not a popular opinion. However.
What's good for New York is really not good for the rest of the Country!

It gives the republican party and the GOP
Ammunition to say that Democrats are Socialists. Which might sound good to some people? The people of New York in some cases were young people. But it does not sound good in places that we need to win like Iowa, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Everybody wants change but not at the expense of the Republicans keeping control of this Government.

We need the focus to stay on the radical GOP
Not to let the GOP ammunition to say it about us.

If more progressives and socialists are elected, there will still be those who spend more time bashing them than the Republicans.

As an old person I realized this is not a popular opinion. However.
What's good for New York is really not good for the rest of the Country!

It gives the republican party and the GOP
Ammunition to say that Democrats are Socialists. Which might sound good to some people? The people of New York in some cases were young people. But it does not sound good in places that we need to win like Iowa, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Everybody wants change but not at the expense of the Republicans keeping control of this Government.

New York City is not indicative of the rest of the Country.

And we just selected a Soclialist/progressive..Rabb. I understand that not all Democrats consider themselves progressives or socialists and that is fine, but it is trending right now in the party and everyone will need to work together after the general.

I was soundly criticized here for having that opinion.

I support Democrats.

actions you can see why. But I live in Colorado so he's not a problem that I have to support.

These primary victories reflect a local area in NYC. The voters there are apparently looking for the candidates characteristics where they vote.

The same three candidates would have lost in many other congressional districts in New York and in other states.

You win where you are. That is no guarantee of winning elsewhere.

Next, we'll start hearing Mamdani in 2028! I certainly hope not. He was elected to a different office. Let him do what he can in that office. We'll see how he performs.

However he is not a naturalized citizen and per the constitution, he cannot run for that seat. House and Senate, yes. President, no.

races in NYC. He carefully only gave endorsements in districts where he thought he could endorse the winner.

That's interesting. I'd like to ask him why he didn't endorse anyone in those other districts. Wonder what he'd say.

Somehow, three districts out of all the districts across the country are supposed to carry so much weight that they overbalance the rest. That's a mistake that leads to overstated expectations. Those three districts are pretty much guaranteed to go to progressive candidates, generally, so they were safe for Mamdani's endorsements.

The other districts in New York City aren't that progressive in nature, so he wisely didn't make endorsements in those, and those districts are not even mentioned in these articles and posts. They're still very important districts and there is interesting news from fhem as well. It's irrelevant to the goals of some Democrats, though, so we don't hear about them much.

For example

"The only grandson of John F. Kennedy hoped to carry on his family's legacy from within the halls of Congress, but ultimately fell short to establishment darling Micah Lasher in a crowded Democratic primary"

https://people.com/jack-schlossberg-loses-house-race-ny-12-primary-12003722

We didn't hear about that in this post on DU. Nothing wrong with that, but It's also important to see a broader perspective, even from a single city in a single state.