On Tuesday, dozens of the biggest Democratic power brokers in New York City gathered to try to claw back some of the power they had lost. Just how much became clear in June when no-name socialist Zohran Mamdani trounced the incumbent mayor and former governor in the mayoral primary.
With only eight weeks left until election day, they got together in the Seagram Building in midtown Manhattan to figure out how to convince voters—and themselves—that their candidate, Andrew Cuomo, is the party’s future.
There were no obvious answers, but there was a dire sense of alarm about how fast the change has happened, and what will happen if Mamdani isn’t stopped.
“If we fail to mobilize, the financial capital of the world risks being handed over to a socialist this November,” an invitation to the event said. “We cannot—and will not—let that happen.”
Evidence of the change in power was everywhere I looked on Saturday night in a packed auditorium at Brooklyn College. It was a stop in the Bernie Sanders “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, subtitled “A Town Hall on Making New York City Affordable with Special Guest Zohran Mamdani.”