Nationwide, progressives feel a surge of new optimism

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ZOHRAN MAMDANI's win in the New York City mayoral race shook even the Democratic establishment.

(ADAM GRAY Bloomberg)

sense of optimism that Trump and his MAGA movement aren’t unstoppable after all, and that their own party’s ability to resist isn’t just alive and well but gaining speed.

“Let me underscore, it’s been a good evening — for everybody, not just the Democratic Party. But what a night for the Democratic Party,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during his own remarks on the national wins. “A party that is in its ascendancy, a party that’s on its toes, no longer on its heels.”

“I hope it’s the first of many dominoes that are going to happen across this country,” Noah Gotlib, 29, of Bushwick said late Tuesday at a victory party for Mamdani. “I hope there’s a hundred more Zohrans at a local, state, federal level.”

On a night of big wins, Mamdani’s nonetheless stood out as a thunderbolt from the progressive left — a full-throated rejection not just of Trump but of Mamdani’s mainstream Democratic opponent in the race: former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Mamdani — a Muslim, Ugandan-born state assemblyman of Indian descent — beat Cuomo first in the Democratic ranked-choice primary in June. Cuomo, bolstered by many of New York's moneyed interests afraid of Mamdani's ideas for taxing the rich and spending for the poor, reentered the race as an independent.

Trump attacked Mamdani time and again as a threat. He said Monday that he would cut off federal funding to New York if Mamdani won. He even took the dramatic step of endorsing Cuomo over Curtis Sliwa, the Republican in the race, in a last-ditch effort to block Mamdani’s stunning political ascent.