New York City’s consistent error looks to metastasize in extremist form. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani stands on the threshold of becoming mayor. But while much has been made of his extremism, it’s been overlooked that he’s more continuation than aberration of where NYC has been heading.
According to recent polling, Mamdani holds almost a 2-1 lead over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo—42 percent to 23 percent—while current NYC mayor Eric Adams stands at 9 percent. Together, these three Democrats hold three-quarters of mayoral support. That’s as close to a political monopoly as could be found, especially in a city mired in myriad problems at the hands of Democrat politicians.
Thanks to New York City’s 8.5 million residents, the nation’s fourth-most populous state of 19.9 million hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Reagan in 1984. In six of those intervening 10 elections, Democrats’ margin of victory has been 20 percentage points.
It’s not that New York state has fared well under Democrat governors either. Cuomo was forced out of office amid a sex scandal. His replacement, Kathy Hochul, has a negative net approval rating too and only 36 percent in a recent poll supported reelecting her.
New York City has no shortage of problems: high taxes (NYC has its own income tax of 3.9 percent for those making over $50,000—higher than that in 14 states), higher spending (its FY 2026 budget is $115 billion and its outstanding debt stood at $125 billion at the end of FY 2020—an 84 percent growth since 2005), crime (apologists will try to whitewash this by pointing to decreases from its height, but major crime is still 30 percent above pre-pandemic levels—with felony assaults 40.4 percent over 2019 levels), illegal immigration (over 600,000 “undocumented” immigrants as of December 2024), a severe housing shortage, homelessness, drugs, a declining population, and a fleeing tax base.
These problems are not simply attributable to Democrat politicians, but to Democrats’ policies. These problems are not due to poor implementation; they are due to the continuation of bad policy trajectories to their logical (or rather, illogical) results.
The same applies to Mamdani himself. Yes, he is an extremist. Yet he is only at the extreme end of the left side of the spectrum which Democrats have been pushing the city down for years.
Democrats have spent the city into a perilous financial situation. Mamdani wants to spend more—much more. He has proposed increasing spending with free buses and free childcare, government-run grocery stores, rent freezes and government-built housing.
Democrats have also taxed the city to an uncompetitive level. Mamdani wants to tax more—much more. He has proposed increasing it on the wealthy and corporations and target “whiter neighborhoods.”
New York has serious crime and illegal immigration problems brought on by sympathy with defunding the police and abolishing ICE. Mamdani has supported these causes too.
In June 2020, he posted on X: “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.” In a June 29, 2025, NBC Meet the Press interview he stated: “We saw ICE agents arrest a migrant at Federal Plaza, and then we saw NYPD officers arresting a pastor who was peacefully observing that arrest. Those days are coming to an end when I’m the mayor.”
Mamdani represents more of the same, not a sea change, in Democrat policy and politics. True, there is nothing in past Democrat administration failures indicating an ability for a democratic socialist to successfully implement even more aggressive policies; however, there is also nothing in Mamdani’s proposals that are a deviation from Democrats’ long-established trajectory for New York—his are merely further extreme extensions of it.
New York City’s lamentable condition is the result of its increasingly leftist policies that have been pursued unchecked by Democrats. This progression has been administered by leftist Democrats in the city, covered over by Democrats in Albany, and indulged by Democrats in Washington, D.C.
Mamdani is no deviation of any of these mis-labeled “progressive” Democrat trends. He is merely an extreme extension of them. He is blessed by Democrats of the same ilk: Bernie Sanders, AOC, Elizabeth Warren. And if Madani wins, he will be blessed by even more who will try to paper over his democratic socialism beneath the banner of their Democrat Party.
It is not the extremism that should be taken note of in this New York City mayoral race. It is the Democrat policy errors that have made it possible and, to too many New Yorkers, an acceptable and logical extension of them. What appears on the cusp of occurring in the city is only a surprise in having taken so long to reach this point.
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J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management, and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.