Generational Turnover Coming for Democrats?

Nate Silver (“Zohran delivered the Democratic establishment the thrashing it deserved“):

Zohran Mamdani, a previously obscure state assemblyman who polled at as little as 1 percent in early surveys of the race, became the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City on Tuesday.

Technically speaking, the contest isn’t over yet because votes have not yet been reallocated as per New York’s ranked choice voting (RCV) system. As of just after midnight New York time, Mamdani has 43.5 percent of the first-preference vote: the lack of an outright majority means that second-choice preferences1 will come into play.

[…]

Cuomo’s campaign produced a laundry list of endorsements, such as Bloomberg, former president Clinton, former majority whip Jim Clyburn, plus lots and lots of unions. Meanwhile, the New York Times, which can be incredibly influential in the city, issued a half-hearted anti-Zohran endorsement after initially swearing off involvement in local races, encouraging voters to rank Cuomo toward the lower end of their ballot but Mamdani not at all.

The Clintons, Clyburn, the New York Times and the unions, plus Black groups, Jewish groups, Italian groups and every other stripe of the rainbow: that was supposed to be a winning formula in New York. But the old formula doesn’t compute anymore.

It’s hard not to be reminded of the past three presidential races, and particularly the Democratic establishment forcing an eat-your-spinach choice down the throats of the primary electorate. It was Hillary Clinton’s turn to win the nomination in 2016 after she lost to Obama in 2008 and she heavily emphasized this in her campaign — although to be fair, she performed much better in New York City against Bernie Sanders than Cuomo did against Zohran.3

Democratic Party leaders including Clyburn, panicking about a potential Sanders nomination as the COVID pandemic hit American shores, then successfully intervened to boost Joe Biden in 2020. That was forgivable — maybe even quite smart — given that Biden won. But then Democrats made a catastrophic error by failing to seriously challenge Biden in 2024 until it was too late, pretending that a primary against the likes of Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips constituted a real choice for voters — and then nominating Kamala Harris in lieu of the sort of “mini-primary” that some observers4 had called for.

Cuomo, like Clinton, was from a political dynasty that most people under the age of 40 have little or no affection for. And although Bernie is an exception, maybe it isn’t that complicated. If you want to inspire younger voters, nominate younger candidates. Mamdani, at age 33, is literally half Cuomo’s age: the former governor is 67.

Meanwhile, Clinton, Biden and Harris were all nominated despite all being previous primary losers. (Clinton in 2008 to Obama; Biden in both 1988 and 2008; Harris in 2020.) You can’t say the same about Cuomo, at least, who thrashed former Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon in the 2018 gubernatorial primary. But in the mayor’s race, Cuomo trotted out the same boilerplate, tired themes, including a heavy emphasis on Trump, that had also failed Clinton, Biden (in 2024) and Harris rather than the local issues that mayoral races often turn upon.

The extent to which this might be a leading indicator for national politics, and particularly the 2028 presidential nomination race, is an open question. But I think you could go too far in dismissing it, and some fellow center-left types probably will. New York City is a weird place, but it’s also an exceptionally diverse place, home to every imaginable ethnic group, more conservatives in the Democratic primary electorate than you might think, and plenty of voters who were probably closer to Cuomo on the issues but who just didn’t like his vibe, or who liked Mamdani’s.

So Zohran thoroughly earned the win, and Cuomo and the Democratic establishment thoroughly earned the loss. And even if they finally take the hint, generational turnover in the Democratic Party is coming whether they like it or not.

By definition, generational change always comes. But there are signs that the octogenarian and septuagenarian hold on the leadership is finally crumbling.

Otherwise, I’m not particularly prone to reading much national import into local primary elections, even for such a significant polity as New York City. (If it were a state, it would rank 12th.) While Tip O’Neill’s maxim “all politics are local” is considerably less true now than it was when he said it, NYC is not representative of the nation as a whole or even the national democratic primary electorate.

Hat tip: Taegan Goddard