The primary victory of the mayor of Mamdani in New York creates tensions within the Democratic Party

President Donald Trump reiterates his assertion that the mayor’s Democratic Party candidate in the most populous city in the country is a “communist”.

“If a communist is elected to direct New York, it can never be the same again,” said the president this week speaking to journalists at a meeting from the Cabinet to the White House.

Trump referred to Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic-Socialist assembly of Queens, whose convincing victory two weeks ago against the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and nine other candidates of the Democratic Primary of the New York town hall sent political shock through the country.

For the Republicans, the strategy to react to the victory of Mamdani is clear – painted Mamdani relentlessly – who took a big step to become the first Muslim mayor of New York – as an extremist and anchor to the Democrats across the country before the mid -term elections next year.

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The Democratic candidate for town hall, Zohran Mamdani, goes on stage during his main night victory group on Wednesday June 25, 2025 in New York. (Photo Heather Khalifa / AP)

For Democrats, it’s more complicated.

Mamdani has achieved a main victory thanks to an energetic campaign that has emphasized the affordability and high cost of New York.

He made intelligent use of social media platforms, including Tiktok, while he was initiating voters with low propagation. He proposed to eliminate the prices to set up the vast bus system from New York, making rents from Cuny (University of the City of New York), freezing rents on municipal housing, offering “free daycares” for children up to 5 years and the establishment of grocery stores managed by the government.

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Thanks in part to the efforts of a huge army of basic volunteers, Mamdani has brought a wave of support for younger and progressive voters to catapult themselves in first place on Cuomo, which had been the main favorite.

“I think it is clear that voters favor action on inaction, and not only progressive changes, but a big change of scanning,” the veteran democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo told Fox News Digital, when asked what Mamdani’s victory means for the party.

Zohran Mamdani raises his hands with Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, during a campaign event in the Harlem district of New York on June 28, 2025. (Adam Gray / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

And Caiazzo, a veteran of the 2016 presidential campaigns 2016 and 2020 of Senator Bernie Sanders, said that one of the reasons for Mamdani’s victory was that he encountered tirelessly “the voters where they are”.

But Mamdani’s political earthquake seems to have exacerbated the tensions between the moderate and progressive party wings. This also fueled the existing debate on the question of whether the policy or messaging of the Democratic Party was to be blamed for the setbacks of the elections of last November, when the Democrats lost control of the White House and the Senate, and did not recognize the majority of the Chamber.

“Democrats continue to have a crack in their own party, which has been aggravated by Mamdani’s candidacy,” said Wayne Lesperance, a veteran political scientist and president of the New England College.

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In New York, the best leaders of the Democratic Party, including Governor Kathy Hochul, the head of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, and the minority chief of the Hakeem Jeffries room, praised the Mamdani campaign. And although they defended him against Trump’s attacks, they have refrained, for the moment, to approve him by the mayor’s candidate.

Democratic strategist Lauren Hitt worked for representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Dn.y., and sat in the presidential campaign of Biden-Harris 2024. This year, she helped a super Pac to Booster Mamdani and told Fox News that her main victory was a “clear rejection of the old guard”.

Even Matt Bennett, executive vice-president of the moderate group aligned by the Democrat, The Third Way, admitted that Mamdani “focused on affordability”, which, according to him, is “big”.

Bennett added that Mamdani is “young, charismatic, a great communicator. All that is great. We want to see this.”

But Bennett told Fox News “the problem is that he has the wrong prescription.”

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Without a singular leader leading the Democrats while the party works to escape the political desert, internal debates will continue.

But Caiazzo warned “not to read too much” what Mamdani’s victory means for the party as a whole, and argued that “the Republicans make it too much”.