{"id":25059,"date":"2025-11-01T12:07:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T12:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/25059\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T12:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T12:07:15","slug":"new-york-city-election-a-referendum-on-michelle-wu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/25059\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City election a referendum on Michelle Wu"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City\u2019s mayoral election is a high-stakes referendum on Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who inspired socialist disciple Zohran Mamdani, now on the precipice of running the Big Apple.<\/p>\n

If Mamdani, who is the clear frontrunner, blows the election Tuesday, it will be a major setback to the far left and look poorly on Wu, who Mamdani says is his role model mayor.<\/p>\n

If Mamdani wins \u2013 and polls show him ahead \u2013 it will be a test of Wu\u2019s policies and positions since the New York Assemblyman does his best to emulate her with free buses, higher taxes, weak support for law enforcement, opposition to ICE and a lot of smiling and waving.<\/p>\n

If she\u2019s going to be allied with him, she has to bear the consequences if he gets tripped up or messes up when he\u2019s running City Hall.<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old Wu has been quietly supportive of 33-year-old Mamdani, calling his campaign \u201cinspiring\u201d but keeping her distance because of some of his controversial positions like his virulent opposition to Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s inspiring to see that someone who ran a campaign based on a joyful, positive vision of getting things done that matter to people win out over millions of dollars of negative ads and a much darker vision of what cities are and what they stand for,\u201d Wu said after Mamdani\u2019s surprise primary victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, which galvanized the left wing across the nation.<\/p>\n

Though Wu doesn\u2019t call herself a socialist like Mamdani, her positions might as well make her one. She is far left but Mamdani light, though she got launched to stardom before her New York compatriot.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has promised \u201cfast and free buses\u201d despite the fact that New York City\u2019s buses lurch along at just 8 mph, parroting Wu\u2019s plan to eventually make T buses fare-free.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one in five New Yorkers cannot afford the bus fare,\u201d Mamdani said in his final debate encounter with Cuomo, who is now running as an independent in a last-ditch effort to stop Mamdani.<\/p>\n

Fare-free buses is one of frontrunner Mamdani\u2019s central pillars of his campaign to make the city more affordable, which has struck a deep chord with young New Yorkers.<\/p>\n

Wu, coasting to a second term with no opposition, has connected to Boston voters with similar promises of making life more affordable with policies like rent control \u2013 which Mamdani also favors.<\/p>\n

Mamdani also pledges to launch city-run grocery stores to make food more affordable, and until the general election was embracing his socialist agenda.<\/p>\n

If he loses on Tuesday, it will send a message to Democrats that voters aren\u2019t quite ready to veer that far left, and it will maybe send a message to Wu to moderate some of her rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Wu took out opponent Josh Kraft in the preliminary election by nearly 50 points.<\/p>\n

Cuomo in the last few days has ridiculed Mamdani\u2019s promises of free stuff, but it may be too little too late. Polls show him trailing Mamdani by double digits.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it sounds good. Flying buses, free food, freezing rents,\u201d Cuomo said. \u201cIt\u2019s all untrue, it is all untrue. There is no Santa Claus. He has no plan, and he has no ability or experience to accomplish anything in this city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s mayoral election is a high-stakes referendum on Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who inspired socialist disciple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[80,16046,16047,85,267,16048,86,9,24,11,10,12,299,11542,87],"class_list":{"0":"post-25059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-andrew-cuomo","9":"tag-boston-city-hall","10":"tag-joe-battenfeld","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-michelle-wu","14":"tag-national-politics","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-new-york-headlines","18":"tag-new-york-news","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-opinion","21":"tag-opinion-columnists","22":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}