Trump overturned the table, the Democrats start throwing the chairs. Which is not the worst case scenario. It was really harmful to perpetuate the political model of traditional elites, embodied in the New York elections by Andrew Cuomo, who stubbornly ran as an independent after Zohran Mamdani defeated him in the Democratic internal elections.
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Cuomo was governor of New York for ten years (his father held the same position for 11 years) and was dragging behind him the cans of resounding scandals: of multi-million dollar corruption or mismanagement of nursing homes in the pandemic, followed by his resignation as governor in 2021, at the request of President Biden, after the attorney general's report found him guilty of harassing 11 women during his term.
From 1% in the February poll for the internal elections of the Democrats, the unknown and inexperienced Mamdani managed, in only nine months, an electoral performance all the more spectacular as the electoral turnout for the election of the mayor was the highest since 1969.
The fact that the victory comes in a context of prolonged confusion in the Democratic Party creates the possibility of the ideological radicalization to the left promoted by the self-styled democratic socialist whom Trump has labeled a communist.
So, the first conclusion of the New York election is the generalization of the Trumpist (populist-aggressive) model of doing politics. The second is the revolt of the base of the Democratic Party against the top that stubbornly bet, in the last two years, on figures like Biden, Kamala Harris and Cuomo.
However, it is premature to speak of a left turn of urban America, after the signal given by the financial capital of the world and the cradle of neoliberalism, given that the first spring of victory was the rejection of the discredited cadre system of the Democrats. Let's not forget that the incumbent Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, decided not to run in the primary elections, being compromised by complicity with the Trump administration, in exchange for dropping corruption charges against him.
It is also possible that within the Democratic Party the confrontation between the left and the center – visible since nine years ago, when Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton competed in the race for the presidential candidacy – because, simultaneously with Mamdani's victory, two moderate Democrats were elected governor in Virginia and New Jersey (the former a former CIA officer, the latter a former helicopter pilot in the US Army).
It remains to be seen if and how the Democrats will know how to capitalize on this breath of oxygen, in order to regain their cohesion and credibility, in the perspective of next year's elections for some of the seats in Congress – elections which, by tradition, are an instrument of sanctioning power.
Even though Republicans are in control of all federal echelons, the American political atmosphere has suddenly changed.
Because the New York vote was largely anti-Trump. The authoritarian accents of the president and the economic impact of his mandate, with the budget paralysis from the very period of this election, amplified the snowball started by the complex social crisis of the metropolis.
Zohran Mamdani felt the pulse of the popular classes and the younger generation, fed up with the identitarian-conservative discourse and overwhelmed by the concrete problems of life. As unrealistic as his social promises seem to us (rent freezes, free transportation and nurseries, additional tax on wages over $1 million), they were appealing to just over half of voters.
And that's because New York is becoming increasingly unaffordable for low- and middle-income people, and the poverty rate has reached 25%, almost double the national level.
Returned to power largely on the promise to stop inflation, Trump is facing a revolt from Americans increasingly dissatisfied with the cost of living. 75% complain about rising prices, while the president tells them “inflation is almost non-existent”. His economic speech is increasingly being compared to that of Biden in the terminal phase of the mandate. But pessimism is on the rise: A majority of Americans (53%) believe the state of the economy is getting worse, compared to 48% last fall.
One year after his re-election as president, Trump sees himself, therefore, confronted on the main ground – the economy – by a young democrat who vigorously follows in his footsteps as rhetoric: “Donald Trump, I know you're following us, so I have four words for you: turn up the volume!”, challenged Mamdani, in the speech on the night of the victory.
