{"id":83420,"date":"2025-06-25T08:06:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T07:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=83420"},"modified":"2025-06-25T10:04:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T09:04:03","slug":"there-is-space-for-the-left-even-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/06\/25\/there-is-space-for-the-left-even-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"There is space for the left – even in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

News coming out of a US primary election in New York overnight is exceptionally cheering.<\/p>\n

The vote was to choose the candidate to run for the Democrats to be Mayor of New York, a position the Democrats almost always hold.<\/p>\n

This was the result as reported by the New York Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This needs a little unpacking.<\/p>\n

First, the result is provisional, and is on PR, and so will take time to confirm, but Andrew Cuomo has conceded.<\/p>\n

Second, Cuomo was mayor until 2021 when he resigned after allegations of sexual abuse were raised against him.<\/p>\n

Third, he had massive backing from the Democratic establishment, from Bill Clinton onwards, despite that history. The backing provided a huge campaign fund, unavailable to his lead opponent.<\/p>\n

The Democrat establishment did not want Zohran Mamdani. He is, as the New York Times puts<\/a> it:<\/p>\n

\n

[A] little-known state lawmaker whose progressive platform and campaign trail charisma electrified younger voters.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

They added:<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist from Queens, tapped into a current of anxiety around New York City\u2019s growing affordability crisis. His joyful campaign brought new voters into the fold who rejected the scandal-scarred Mr. Cuomo\u2019s ominous characterizations of the city and embraced an economic platform that included everything from free bus service and child care to publicly owned grocery stores.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mamdani calls himself a socialist.\u00a0 He ran a left-of-centre campaign. Unsurprisingly, Bernie Sanders and AOC swung in behind that.<\/p>\n

And so did the young people of New York, whilst its millionaires are all, supposedly, threatening to leave. They won't, of course. Talk from these people is always cheap, and far too widely reported.<\/p>\n

What can we conclude from this?<\/p>\n

First, policies matter.<\/p>\n

Second, pointing out corruption matters.<\/p>\n

Third, effective campaigning plus a dose of charisma matters - and Mandani has that.<\/p>\n

Fourth, delivering for people matters.<\/p>\n

Fifth, keeping it simple and focusing on what makes life better matters.<\/p>\n

Sixth, big money can be beaten by good ideas.<\/p>\n

Seventh, young voters matter - and they can be reached.<\/p>\n

Will we learn here? I can only hope so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News coming out of a US primary election in New York overnight is exceptionally cheering. The vote was to choose the candidate to run for
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83433,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83420\/revisions\/83433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}