POLITICO: Zohran Mamdani is surging
IS THIS A MAMDANI MOMENT?: While the New York political world braces for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s imminent entrance into the New York City mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani, the millennial Democratic socialist with a savvy social media sense is enjoying a boomlet.
02/28/2025 05:44 PM EST
Democratic socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani is showing early signs of a strong campaign, but his costly proposals and attacks on Israel have earned him criticism. | Jason Beeferman/POLITICO
IS THIS A MAMDANI MOMENT?: While the New York political world braces for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s imminent entrance into the New York City mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani, the millennial Democratic socialist with a savvy social media sense is enjoying a boomlet.
The Queens assemblymember’s candidacy announcement in October seemed like a longshot.
He’s since raised over $3.4 million with public matching funds, collected over 7,000 donations, and boasts an average contribution of $74, which his team says proves true grassroots support. He said he expects to raise $8 million through the city’s matching funds program. He also churns out buzzy social media videos and takes unapologetic policy stances, which earn him criticism from rivals that he’s unrealistic and unyielding.
In short, Mamdani is running strong in the ideological lane of the energized left — a strategy which, when coupled with his criticisms of Israel, would appear to have a ceiling in a New York City Democratic primary, but one that’s getting him a lot of attention nonetheless.
“I don’t think this movement has a ceiling,” Mamdani told Playbook, noting that Bernie Sanders got 47 percent of the vote in Republican-heavy Staten Island in 2016. “I do think there’s a majority of New Yorkers who feel left behind by the economic policies of this mayoral administration and by the economic policies of today, and they are hungry for a relentless focus on an economic agenda.”
Now those who are working to oppose him — and who have been leery of Mamdani’s aggressively anti-Israel stances from the start — are worried.
“They’re running a really smart operation, this is what I’ve been warning people about,” said Sara Forman, executive director of the New York Solidarity Network and the treasurer of Solidarity PAC. Both were formed to challenge antisemitic politicians in New York’s state and local government and neither is yet involved in the mayor’s race at the moment, Forman said.
Forman expressed grave concerns about Mamdani’s positions against Israel — like when the assemblymember said “the path toward peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid” just one day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel.
“Everybody underestimates it,” she said of his campaign. “They are going to wake up and he is going to be in a position to potentially be the nominee.”
Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, who is backing Cuomo, agrees: “The DSA candidate is treacherously smart and should not be underestimated,” he told Jewish Insider.
A poll shared with Playbook — paid for by Mamdani’s campaign and executed by EMC Research — shows him making it into the final round of ranked choice voting before Cuomo clears 50 percent.
Mamadani’s analysis, which quizzed 700 voters by phone, email and text from Jan. 23 to 27, found that Cuomo, City Comptroller Brad Lander, former Comptroller Scott Stringer and Mamdani reach the sixth round of ranked choice voting, in that order.
Another poll commissioned by Cuomo-aligned Tusk Strategies this week found Mamdani in second place — an ideal outcome for the moderate ex-governor and anyone looking to fundraise for a PAC that would benefit Cuomo. The Tusk poll showed Mamdani beating out a host of New York insiders — including Mayor Eric Adams — who entered city politics before the Ugandan-born 33-year-old could even vote.
“We always were setting up a campaign that could win this race,” Mamdani told Playbook. “This is indicative of what we’ve always thought, which is that there has been a misreading of New York City’s electorate, and while there’s been so much talk of us moving to the right, I think what people are also missing is that people want to vote for something.”
To that end, he was among just three candidates at a forum this week to unequivocally promise a rent freeze — a policy determined by what’s supposed to be an independent board of mayoral appointees. The others were state Sen. Jessica Ramos and former Assembly Member Michael Blake, who have yet to qualify for matching funds.
A rising Zohran is a good scenario for Cuomo. The former governor would likely find it easy to fundraise in a race that pits the moderate Democrat against a young assemblymember who wants to see the NYPD budget slashed and the minimum wage raised to $30.
And Mamdani knows this.
“When we face the inevitable opposition spending because of the audacity to believe in universal human rights, what gives me confidence is I believe the vast majority of New Yorkers want that politics of consistency,” Mamdani said. “They want to know where politicians stand on an issue, regardless of who it applies to, regardless of who they’re speaking about.”
He acknowledged the prospect of independent expenditures running ads criticizing him and said, “they will be competing with our own narrative about this campaign.”
On the ground, he has a sprawling operation: the campaign says it’s knocked on 56,000 doors, has over 4,000 volunteers and launches between 20 to 30 neighborhood canvasses every week.
Not to mention, even decidedly moderate Democrats privately envy his social media operation.
Mamdani’s campaign tells us his social media is spearheaded by filmmaker duo Melted Solids, who produce videos that lead to over 20.6 million impressions on X, 200,000 likes on TikTok and 8 million Instagram views with 30,000 new followers in the last 90 days.
But he’s getting heat from some opponents who say his planned expansion of services — like free buses, child care and city-owned grocery stores — would be nearly impossible to pay for.
“I find there’s a lot of people that have magic wands in this race,” Lander told the outlet Hell Gate in January.
The comptroller once previously joined the Democratic Socialists of America and voted against a budget because it didn’t properly defund the NYPD in his estimation. He has taken strides to move toward the center in this election, as some of his former stances are no longer popular, while Mamdani said he doesn’t need to moderate his stances to become mayor.
Lander told the outlet, “I have like, 75-page policy plans, not ‘freeze the rent’ or ‘emanate a million homes.’” — Jason Beeferman
NYSN | February 2025 Newsletter
Once again, and all at once, the depravity of Hamas and all those who gleefully celebrated the atrocities of October 7th is all encompassing. The first phase of the deal was supposed to last for 42 days, only for Hamas to repeatedly threaten to sabotage the ceasefire. We saw our hostages’ physical deterioration and evident starvation, as well as stories of the torture they and those left behind endured deep underground. And now, the bodies of innocent hostages, the most innocent imaginable.
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NYSN | January 2025 Newsletter
Most of the world will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz today, January 27th. It is likely the government of Poland is planning the annual photo-op with Polish political prisoners who survived the camp as teens or children. They will wear reproduction striped uniforms bearing a triangle with a P and lay memorial wreaths at the executioners’ wall.
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NYSN Statement on the Hostage Deal
The release of the living hostages brings joy, deep relief, and unfathomable grief for all who were murdered in captivity. As we grieve for all those we’ve lost, we find strength in our community bond that has only grown exponentially since October 7, 2023.
The release of the living hostages brings joy, deep relief, and unfathomable grief for all who were murdered in captivity. As we grieve for all those we’ve lost, we find strength in our community bond that has only grown exponentially since October 7, 2023.
Hamas sympathizers are on notice: New York and American Jews have rekindled a community that had been faltering for some time prior to this fateful date. Israel has survived the first coordinated and sophisticated attempt to annihilate Jews of the 21st century. It is our mission to ensure it remains the only attempt. Let there be no more hostages.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: What issues are Jewish voters thinking about as New York City’s mayoral campaign gets underway?
In about six months, New York City will almost certainly choose its next mayor in the Democratic primary — and Jewish issues could take center stage in the campaign.
The campaign for the June 2024 primary — which is the competitive race in this solidly blue city — features multiple Jewish candidates. But all of the hopefuls may be called upon to address issues of Jewish concern, from street protests about the Israel-Hamas war to public funding for haredi Orthodox yeshivas.
By Luke Tress
December 10, 2024 3:59 pm
Street protests, masking laws, yeshiva education and Israel could come to the fore in the run-up to the June 2025 primary.
Eric Adams, center, campaigns with Brad Lander, left, and Jumaane Williams outside Brooklyn Borough Hall, Oct. 22, 2021. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
In about six months, New York City will almost certainly choose its next mayor in the Democratic primary — and Jewish issues could take center stage in the campaign.
The campaign for the June 2024 primary — which is the competitive race in this solidly blue city — features multiple Jewish candidates. But all of the hopefuls may be called upon to address issues of Jewish concern, from street protests about the Israel-Hamas war to public funding for haredi Orthodox yeshivas.
New York City is home to roughly 1 million Jews. And given how news about Israel and Gaza has dominated the headlines and activist spaces over the past year-plus, non-Jewish New Yorkers may pay some attention to those issues, too.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of focus, perhaps even disproportionate focus, on ‘Jewish issues.’ That’s happening at the national level. It’s certainly going to be happening here in the city,” Phylisa Wisdom, the head of New York Jewish Agenda, a liberal advocacy group, said.
“Of course, Jewish voters are focused on issues that impact us, but I think our neighbors are [focused on them] in this election as well, in a way that is perhaps unusual,” she said.
Here’s a rundown of the Jewish issues that could feature in the 2025 mayoral election.
Street protests against Israel
Pro-Palestinian street protests represented one of the clearest ways in which issues of Jewish concern spilled over into the city’s general consciousness.
Rallies have rocked the city since Oct. 7, 2023, shutting down major thoroughfares, disrupting holiday events and targeting institutions without a direct connection to Israel, such as the Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer hospital and the Brooklyn Museum. They have also taken place at colleges and public high schools.
The NYPD said in early October that there had been more than 4,000 street protests over the past year, though they did not say how many related to the war in Gaza. That number also includes some large pro-Israel protests as well.
Sara Forman, the head of the New York Solidarity Network, a pro-Israel political group, said her organization had conducted polling of Jewish voters ahead of the 2024 state assembly races. That polling, done in June, shortly after the encampment protest at Columbia University ended with the occupation of a building and arrests, showed “how terrible the psychological impact of the protests was.”
“People felt vulnerable, they felt unsafe,” she said. “Almost a third of New York Jewish voters felt that New York wasn’t a safe haven for Jews anymore.”
Forman added that the survey was specific to the time it was conducted — about a year before the Democratic primary. The pace and scale of demonstrations has since slowed.
Masking laws
Some New York legislators have sought to combat the protests and associated acts of vandalism with legislation banning masking, which police say makes it harder to prosecute crimes. Long Island’s Nassau County passed a masking ban in response to anti-Israel protests in August, and Jewish groups and legislators are pushing for an anti-masking law at the state level, an idea Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for reelection, has endorsed.
The state’s anti-masking law was on the books since the mid-1800s but was repealed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the push to reinstate the law is at the state level, Jewish voters will likely want to know where candidates stand on the issue, Forman said. The legislation came back into focus this week after a masked assassin gunned down UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan on Wednesday.
“It’s clear that people won’t be happy with candidates who oppose reinstating the mask [ban], as they’re not prioritizing the safety of New Yorkers, including Jewish New Yorkers,” said Yaacov Behrman, the head of the Jewish Future Alliance, a group encouraging the increasing voter turnout in Crown Heights, the home base of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement.
Behrman said candidates who oppose the ban would likely be perceived as weak on crime and unpopular anyway in his neighborhood. Still, the issue could influence turnout, a key factor for his community in the election, he said.
Progressive Jews may take a different approach. Alicia Singham Goodwin, the political director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a leftist group in the city that has participated in pro-Palestinian rallies and come out against anti-masking legislation, called the measure “anti-protest, anti-free speech.”
“We at JFREJ certainly want a mayor who will protect our right to protest, who will protect our freedom of speech, who will prioritize the functions of democracy that we rely on to get change,” she said. “And so I think an antagonism towards protesters is not productive.”
Hate crimes and antisemitism
Hate crimes have spiked in the city since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel, with the number of antisemitic crimes topping the list every month.
Lawmakers have also introduced legislation to combat the surge. At the state level, legislators passed a law criminalizing the forcible removal of someone else’s kippah. Hochul said earlier this year that she would back legislation expanding the number of crimes eligible for hate crimes prosecution, but the bill has not yet passed.
The only candidate to have laid out a specific policy on fighting antisemitism, corporate attorney Jim Walden, said he would urge the city council to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, review curricula at schools for bias related to Israel, and demand protest organizers state whether a foreign group is paying for the event.
NYJA’s Wisdom said liberal Jews take the issue seriously and will likely take a nuanced approach amid concerns about politicians using charges of antisemitism as an excuse to penalize institutions such as universities and nonprofits.
“We’re looking for a serious intention to combat antisemitism and also to do so from a place of nuance, and not fall into the trap of weaponizing antisemitism to go after liberal institutions and organizations,” she said.
Singham Goodwin said progressive Jews would support candidates who use “genuine compassion and understanding” to combat antisemitism through programs like education and mental health services rather than law enforcement.
“We’re looking for candidates who take public safety actually seriously and don’t just say, ‘I would write the NYPD a blank check to do whatever they want,’” she said.
Public funding of yeshivas
In past mayoral races, candidates have courted the support of the city’s Hasidic communities, which tend to vote in blocs with the potential to sway the primary. Adams received the endorsement of the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg en route to winning Gracie Mansion in 2021.
The year after that election, a series of articles in The New York Times scrutinized public funding of haredi Orthodox yeshivas that, according to the articles, fell far short of state secular education requirements. The yeshiva education system is a priority for haredi voters, where the schools are a linchpin of the community.
Adams has spoken in favor of the system in the past, saying the city needs to “learn what you are doing in the yeshivas to improve education.”
“If the mayor runs, we know he’s very pro-yeshiva education,” Behrman said. “If some of his opponents are anti-yeshiva education, I think it would drive more turnout” in Crown Heights.
Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running to unseat Adams, called for more oversight of yeshivas prior to his mayoral campaign. “That so many young people have been denied the necessary skills they need to succeed in the higher educational opportunities, jobs, and diverse cultural and civic life of our city is a tragedy,” he said.
Some regulations mandating secular education at yeshivas will come into force in the coming year, which may return focus on the issue.
“I do think liberal Jewish New Yorkers certainly want a mayor who is following the law and is committed to, as the law says, that kids are required to get a certain level of secular education, in particular when state and city funding is involved,” Wisdom said.
Education at the city’s public schools, which the mayor oversees, could also relate to Jewish concerns. Public schools have seen protests against Israel, and the city has run programs to teach students about antisemitism. Diversity initiatives at the schools could also impact how they address bias against Jews.
Israel
While the mayor is not involved in foreign policy, being a supporter of the country has long appeared to be a prerequisite for the job: Every single New York City mayor dating back to Vincent Impellitteri in 1951 has visited the country while in office. (William O’Dwyer, who was in office when Israel was established in 1948, also supported the country’s establishment and appears to have visited after his term ended.)
This year, a faction of the Democratic base actively opposes Israel. The Democratic Socialists of America, for example, has backed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement targeting Israel. The group also backed an anti-Israel protest a day after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, a rally that drew widespread condemnation.
“Anybody that has a dalliance with the DSA is going to have to say they share those beliefs so I certainly think Israel will be brought up,” Forman said.
The “Not On Our Dime” act, legislation backed by the party, may also become a campaign issue. The bill aims to block New York nonprofits from “engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.” Pro-Israel critics say the bill’s broad scope would target Jewish organizations, snarl charity work by forcing an onerous vetting process, and hamper humanitarian groups from providing essential services.
Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who introduced the bill, is running for mayor as a Democratic Socialist. His website touts his efforts to “bar charities from funding illegal Israeli settlements.” JFREJ has come out in support of the Not On Our Dime Act and Democratic Socialist candidates in the race.
“What JFREJ members are looking for and what those types of Jewish voters are looking for is candidates who are going to be leaders who express empathy with Palestinians alongside the empathy we expect and need them to express for Israelis and Jews,” Singham Goodwin said.
Behrman said anti-Israel positions could fuel antisemitism. “There are elected officials who hold anti-Israel positions that are deeply concerning to the Jewish community. When Israel is unjustly attacked, it almost always leads to an increase in violence against Jews,” Behrman said.
The big picture
Jewish activists said that, while there are issues specific to the community, Jews are also concerned with the bread and butter issues that non-Jewish New Yorkers are concerned with, such as crime and housing.
“When you think about the Jewish community as a voting community, we’re regular New Yorkers just like everyone else,” Forman said. “We have the same concerns that everyone else shares.”
Wisdom agrees. “What I’m hearing from liberal and progressive Jewish New Yorkers is that when it comes to the mayor, they’re really thinking more about public education, K-12, antisemitism, migrants, criminal justice reform,” she said.
The race is also still in its early stages and the issues will likely change by the time of the vote.
“Everything is speculation at this point,” Forman said.
Statement on Not On Our Dime Act Rally
Statement from Sara Forman, Executive Director of New York Solidarity Network, in Response to Not On Our Dime Congressional Support
“At a time of rising antisemitism, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is wrong to support a bill that would single out and target only Jewish charities. The Not On Our Dime act is an attempt by the DSA far left to force the New York legal system to dictate to private Jewish charities.
Statement from Sara Forman, Executive Director of New York Solidarity Network, in Response to Not On Our Dime Congressional Support
“At a time of rising antisemitism, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is wrong to support a bill that would single out and target only Jewish charities. The Not On Our Dime act is an attempt by the DSA far left to force the New York legal system to dictate to private Jewish charities.
It’s unconstitutional—and it’s unconscionable.
This bogus bill, which is extremely vague, would force Jewish charities to quadruple check every penny and every cause related to Israel, tie up their time, cast suspicion on all their work, and stifle critical dollars dedicated to meaningful causes in Israel and the United States, from education to anti-poverty efforts.
The DSA’s message to Jews is clear: supporting Israel is unacceptable on a political level and is demanded on a personal level.
Whether extremist DSA politicians like it or not, scapegoating Jews to prove your fringe bona fides remains an unseemly and disgusting tactic that erases any credibility. Supporting this antisemitic and unconstitutional state-level nonsensical legislation proves that AOC is using the Jewish community as a convenient punching bag to deflect from internal criticism and lock up her re-endorsement from the DSA.
It’s despicable to see the continued normalization by elected officials of antisemitism in New York, home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel.”
Statement: Houthis At A Glance
Following the Hamas attack on Israel in October, the Houthis, in what they claimed was a show of solidarity with Palestinians, began to launch a series of attacks against civilian mercantile ships traveling with cargo through the Red Sea, regardless of the ships’ destinations. In this timeframe, approximately 30 strikes have occurred, with most missing their targets.
The Houthis are an armed political and religious group which champions Yemen's Shia Muslim minority, the Zaidis. The Houthis routinely use child soldiers in combat, impose a regressive code of Sharia, have been accused of enslaving African migrants, and are about to be re-classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State.
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 deeply radicalized the Houthi movement, and the 2014 war with U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia strengthened their ties to Iran and to Hezbollah in Lebanon, whose leadership provided a role model for the Houthis. The Houthis adopted the slogan “God is great, death to the U.S., death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam,” in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. True to their hateful slogan, the Houthis expelled the last Jews of Yemen, forcibly ending a two-thousand-year-old community.
Following the Hamas attack on Israel in October, the Houthis, in what they claimed was a show of solidarity with Palestinians, began to launch a series of attacks against civilian mercantile ships traveling with cargo through the Red Sea, regardless of the ships’ destinations. In this timeframe, approximately 30 strikes have occurred, with most missing their targets. The United States, along with a multi-national coalition of partners, joined an international security effort designed to protect merchant ships and maritime transit that recently targeted several Houthi missile launch sites within Yemen. “We’re not looking for a war. We’re not looking to expand this,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on January 14. “The Houthis have a choice to make and they still have time to make the right choice, which is stop these reckless attacks.”
Never missing an opportunity to err on the side of what’s wrong, the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialist of America have launched a “Hands off Yemen” campaign that ties the U.S.-backed airstrikes on the Houthis to their Gaza “genocide” framing. Several DSA-backed elected officials and candidates have also hosted phone banks (or are scheduled to host one) to rally support for the Houthi terrorist organization and encourage the United States to stop bombing Houthi missile installations in Yemen.