National Review is typically not in the habit of weighing in on Democratic primary races. But, even were we not founded and headquartered in New York, the fate of the world’s most important city would still matter to us, as it does to America. Therefore, decency requires us to state the obvious: Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old progressive candidate in tomorrow’s election for the Democratic mayoral nomination, belongs on nobody’s ballot — whether ranked first, fifth, or 100th.
Mamdani — acknowledged by all to be the only candidate threatening the resurrection of former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s political career — is currently the progressive darling of New York, which on its own terms is enough to disqualify him for the position he seeks. He is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, with a list of campaign promises that revisits nearly every discredited left-wing fantasy of the past decade: universal health care, rent freezes, the use of “social workers” as opposed to policing to control urban violence, etc. His most prominent campaign initiative is a promise to eliminate city bus fares, a fantasy which would, if implemented, blow a hole in the MTA’s budget and inevitably lead to service reductions. He has also advocated the eventual implementation of a $30 minimum wage.
New York City need only look at the fate of Chicago — with its ultraprogressive and despised mayor, Brandon Johnson — for a truer vision of the sort of future Mamdani is advertising. Instead, we oppose Mamdani’s moral unworthiness: He is worse than a democratic socialist; he is — as evidenced by an adult life’s worth of political actions — a deeply committed pro-Hamas activist and advocate for the abolition of Israel.
Mamdani has stated repeatedly — including during a recent mayoral debate, when pressed directly on the issue by both Cuomo and the moderator — that he does not believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. Invoking (by now) familiar code language, he instead argues that Israel can only exist “as a state with equal rights” — that is to say, the “right of return.” A week ago, in an interview, Mamdani refused to condemn use of the phrase “globalize the intifada” — universally understood as a call to bring Hamas’s particular tactics of “resistance” to the Western world — and doubled down by favorably comparing the term to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
These are not fashionable or late-adopted positions for Mamdani. While in college at Bowdoin, he co-founded his school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. For years (including during his brief tenure as an assemblyman), Mamdani has been a vocal supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement designed to academically and intellectually isolate Israelis and Zionist Jews from Western scientific discourse. He has repeatedly and emphatically called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide.” In 2017, he recorded a rap song sending his “love” to the “Holy Land Five” — leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development convicted in 2008 of providing “material support for terrorism” to Hamas. Perhaps most tellingly of all, when news of the October 7 massacre first arrived, Mamdani issued a statement saying nothing about Hamas; he instead called for “ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
The mayor of New York has a job unlike that of any other politician in the United States. Theoretically, he is just another local politician; in reality, he is a representative for America on the global stage, the leader of the most important metropolis in the free world, the gathering place of the United Nations. The city is also home to more Jews than anywhere outside of Israel, a population increasingly threatened by hatred and violence. For the sake of the city, America’s global reputation, and simple decency, voters should leave Zohran Mamdani’s name off their ballot altogether. He is not merely the worst choice on offer; he is unacceptable under any circumstances.