NYC NOW - Five Things with Brian Lehrer: Mamdani’s Rise Signals Changing Tides in City Politics

Episode Date: June 28, 2025

In this edition of Five Things, WNYC’s Janae Pierre and Brian Lehrer break down the Democratic mayoral primary, where Zohran Mamdani has taken a commanding lead over Andrew Cuomo. They discuss what the results say about the city’s political direction, whether Eric Adams could reemerge in the general election, and how Alvin Bragg easily held on to his DA seat.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Junae Pierre. Happy Saturday, and thanks for joining us. Voters in New York City braved the scorching heat Tuesday to cast their ballots in one of the most closely watched primary elections in years. In the Democratic primary race for mayor, Assembly member Zoran Mamdani holds the lead, well ahead of Andrew Cuomo in what's considered a major political upset. The former governor was quick to concede the race Tuesday night, even though neither candidate got a majority of the vote. And with that, the focus now turns to what could be a crowded, unpredictable general election in November. So what do the results in the election's high turnout tell us about the political direction of the city? It's time for five things with Brian Lerer.

All right, Brian, we want to chew over the primary election results, at least as much as we know right now. But we have to start with this heat because I am telling you, it has been a scorcher. And I've done various things to keep cool. But I'm wondering, how does Brian Laira stay cool during a heat wave? Yeah, it's cooler now, but it's not even July yet. So the heat will be back. But I'm a bad person to ask because I've always been extremely heat tolerant. I must have been from the tropics or Phoenix or something in another life because summer is

my season and up until about 93, 94 degrees, I am actually quite a happy camp. Oh, my goodness. But I do take care to keep hydrated and I keep a couple of wet wash claws in the fridge and I pull them out and give my face on my chest a treat from time to time if I'm home and it's really hot. That's a good low cost tip. Oh, and ice cream. Of course. Or a popsicle or an ice cream soda, I will admit. Yeah, yeah. But you know, even with the heat, we saw a surge in early voting and high turn out for Tuesday's primary election and the stunning upset of Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral race by 33-year-old State Assembly member Zoran Mamdani. I actually heard him on your show, Brian, on Wednesday morning, saying he won over many Trump voters? That's right, Janay. Momani identifies

as a Democratic socialist, as most of our listeners probably know. I knew that he had previously spoken about Donald Trump doing better in New York last year than in the past. So I asked him if he thought they were Trump mom-dani voters in his coalition, and he said this. I think there were many. I met some of them myself. And I actually asked those same New Yorkers, the vast majority of whom were Democrats, what it would take to bring them back to the party. And they said a relentless focus on cost of living. So I asked if he rebranded Democratic socialism from being about inequality to being about affordability. And he said this.

I think it has always been about the same thing. I think it has always been about the same thing. I think it's just a challenge to ensure that people see that in their own lives. And I often think back to the words of Dr. King who said, call it democracy or call a democratic socialism, there must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God's children in this country. And people feel that across the city. This is the most expensive city in the United States of America. Well, obviously, that message resonated with more people than the messages of nine other

Democrats. But I also tend to think it might have been a lot of. whole other campaign, if Andrew Cuomo didn't try to swoop in and bigfoot it. Would Mamdani also have trounced Red Lander and Adrian Adams, for example, without the Cuomo factor, making it seem like a two-person race? We'll never know. I like how you put that coming in in bigfooted. Let's shift now, Brian, to the DA primary in Manhattan. Four years ago, Alvin Bragg won that seat, but was a lightning ride, as critics said, you know, he was soft on crime. But this year, he easily beat the one challenger that he faced in the primary. That's litigator and former Bronx

prosecutor Patrick Timmons. What changed for DA Bragg, one of the most, you know, well-known DAs in the U.S., by the way? Yeah. You know, I was genuinely surprised that no high-profile challenger to Bragg emerged from sort of the Eric Adams or Andrew Cuomo wing of the party. Bragg was such a lightning rod at the start of his term for being a progressive DA aiming for alternatives to prosecution and incarceration for low-level offenses, just as crime was spiking as a side effect of the pandemic. The best explanation I can glean for why he cruised to renomination would be kind of a tale of two Alvin Braggs

and two Alvin-Brague reversals. Here's one. On crime, consider this from the conservative Washington examiner last week. It says, quote, Bragg entered office as a liberal reformer, but has since distanced himself from the, movement that helped put him into power. Now he's pitching himself as a prosecutor focused squarely on cracking down on crime. And the examiner argues that his shift is not a surprise, as he had

likely seen electoral challenges, losses and recalls of big city progressive DAs and other cities like in San Francisco and L.A. But the other Alvin Bragg reinvention was on prosecuting Donald Trump. At first, if you remember, he thought there was not much point or not enough chance of victory to charge Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money cover-up case. But after public backlash from the left, he had a change of heart. And as we all know, Alvin Bragg won that 34-count conviction of Trump, the only Trump criminal case to have gone to trial. And Bragg won it. So you might say he reinvented himself in response to the left on Trump and in response to the right on crime and became a consensus candidate in the primary. I'm still

surprised, though, that the Law and Order Camp didn't go after him harder. Yeah, surprised as well. So let's get back to the mayoral race and look ahead to the general election. This may not be a two-person race in November. So, Brian, let's talk about the various scenarios that we should be looking out for. Well, Jeannay, we actually know less today than we did before primary day. It was assumed that it would be at least a three-way race among marquee candidates because Mayor Adams dropped out of the Democratic Party. And, is running as an independent. So there would be Adams plus the Democratic nominee, plus Republican Curtis Sliwa, plus if Cuomo lost the primary, which we now know he did, he might run as an independent. Now the going speculation is Cuomo lost too badly to run that campaign and that the Republican Party might find a way to replace Curtis Slewa on the ballot with Eric Adams. If that happens, it might just be a two-man race after all, with Democrats or on Mamdani and newly minted Republican, Eric Adams, maybe even with an endorsement from Donald Trump, fasten your seatbelts. In whatever scenario, Mamdani's challenge now is to try to make even more people see his affordability policies

as solutions relevant to their own lives for the general election. The fact that he went from 1% in the polls in February to this victory in June shows how fast things can change in politics, of course. And the high turnout may be a good sign for the Democratic Party nationally after low turnout did a lot to contribute to Kamala Harris's loss last year. So, Brian, as we come to an end here, let's talk big picture. What does this primary election tell us about where New York City is politically and what voters are looking for right now? Maybe we can say New York is looking for leaders who can kick butt on the cost of housing, but there is no easy solution, not for Momdani, not for anyone. New York is looking for

leaders to reduce the perception that some unstable person might push you off a subway platform at random out of the blue at any moment, but also someone who won't relaunch mass incarceration or overuse involuntary hospitalization. Can a Momdani, an Alvin Bragg, and Eric Adams, or whomever strike that balance? Maybe New York is looking for leaders who will either fight or sweet, We talk, Donald Trump, or some combination, into not defunding the city to the extreme and not deporting thousands of people just trying to live their lives. And New York is looking for leaders who can take the spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes, which is very real, seriously, but also the right to express yourself about Gaza without being

called an anti-Semite and also not lose focus on other kinds of bias. The single person who can do all of the above things I mentioned may not exist. So voters will have to use their best judgment in good faith in the fall to decide who they think and represent them or deliver on as much of all that as possible. That's WMYC's Brian Lair. Brian, thanks so much. You welcome, Janie. And thank you for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre.

Have a nice weekend. We'll be back on Monday.