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Zohran Mamdani's Battle Against the Billionaire Class and Democratic Establishment Is Just Beginning
Noting that corporations, large landlords, developers, and donors "want to keep him out of the mayor's office," India Walton urged Zohran Mamdani's campaign to "stay ahead of the messaging and stay on doors."
Jun 26, 2025
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday beat disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic NYC mayoral primary—but progressives within and beyond the city don't expect the billionaire class and party establishment that lined up against him to give up so easily. Going into the general election, those who believe in Mamdani's vision are encouraging him and his supporters to maintain the momentum of the movement they've built.
"This is a foot-on-the-gas kind of moment," RootsAction senior strategist India Walton told Common Dreams.
Walton knows about what she speaks. In June 2021, the community activist and healthcare worker defeated incumbent Byron Brown in the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo, New York's second-largest city. However, following a bruising general election race, Brown won in November as a write-in candidate—dashing the hopes of Walton's working-class agenda.
"Folks like myself and Zohran have not fallen out of the sky," Walton said. "We have our roots in organizing, and to be able to turn out 40,000 volunteers speaks volumes about how Zohran has been on the frontlines of movements and of issue-based campaigns. And when people know that you have a moral compass and you are fighting for them, they are motivated to come out for you—not only to vote but to volunteer, and I think that we have to believe for ourselves, as progressives, that not only is our message resonant, but our relationships are vital to continuing to see these kinds of wins."
"The way that you combat fear and lies is by having one-on-one conversations with people, because if it comes on a glossy mailer, it's easy to believe."
As Mamdani and his supporters—in New York City and across the country—turn their focus to the general election, Walton said, "we need more people out, more people in the media, cheering him on, congratulating him, and talking about how progressive values do win elections."
"Do what is in your lane to do right: if you can donate five dollars, then donate five dollars; if you can spend an hour phone banking then spend an hour phone banking; if you can make a piece of original art and send it to the campaign to be used on campaign materials, do that," she said. "Whatever it is in your spirit, whatever time, talent, and treasure you have, do that, because this is gonna take all of us in order to make sure that he makes it over the finish line, and it's gonna send a resounding message in November, what this country wants, what this country needs, and what a city that really sets the stage for the tone of the rest of the nation could be."
Walton also cautioned that "I think that we should have every reason to be suspicious of people who endorsed Andrew Cuomo and now want to jump on the Zohran train, because they're only there for their own self-interest."
"I think that a part of where I made a mistake was trying to cozy up to the corporate Democrats who rejected me in the first place," she said, reflecting on her 2021 loss. Mamdani can "keep the tent big," because "we know other people are gonna wanna come along when the train is moving," she noted, "but you don't have to put them in your inner circle."
Billionaires, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and corporate interests, such as DoorDash, poured money into Cuomo's primary race. "There's gonna be more of that," as well as attacks on Mamdani from "folks who traditionally donate to Republicans," Walton warned. "It's corporations. It's large landlords. It's developers. It's the donor class. It's the billionaires and the 1% who want to keep him out of the mayor's office."
As Common Dreams has reported, members of the U.S. oligarchy—including Republican President Donald Trump, an erstwhile New Yorker who publicly melted down about Mamdani's primary win, and billionaires like Bill Ackman—are "terrified" that the democratic socialist may be the city's next mayor.
Warren to CNBC's Joe Kernen as he fear-mongers about Mamdani being a socialist: "Where is your outrage over a Republican Party that is saying 'We want to fund every more tax giveaways for billionaires ... while we take healthcare away from everyone else'"
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 26, 2025 at 9:03 AM
On Thursday, the billionaire hedge fund manager Ackman, who has made his distaste for Mamdani well known, announced he would lavishly back any "superhero" candidate who emerged to challenge the Democratic primary winner in the general election. Ackman said large amounts of donor money would "pour in" for a candidate who could take on Mamdani's proposals for more affordable housing, healthcare, food, and transportation in the city.
Walton urged Mamdani's campaign to "stay ahead of the messaging and stay on doors. The way that you combat fear and lies is by having one-on-one conversations with people, because if it comes on a glossy mailer, it's easy to believe and people don't have time to go doing their own research, but if someone knocks on your door and has a three-minute conversation with you about who Zohran is, what he's done, and why you should vote for him, that's so much more meaningful than getting a piece of mail."
It's not yet clear exactly who Mamdani, a current member of the New York State Assembly, will face in the general election. Cuomo is considering his next move after conceding Tuesday night—but the ex-governor, who resigned from that post during a sexual harassment scandal, is openly teasing a potential independent run.
"I said he won the primary election," Cuomo told The New York Times in a phone call shortly after his concession speech. "I said I wanted to look at the numbers and the ranked-choice voting to decide about what to do in the future, because I'm also on an independent line. And that's the decision, that's what I was saying. I want to analyze and talk to some colleagues."
The city's current controversial mayor, Eric Adams, is already running as an independent for another term—and, as Semafor reported Wednesday, in the wake of Mamdani's win, the ex-cop has suddenly found "'overwhelming support' from NYC's desperate business elites."
As Gothamist detailed Wednesday, the other candidates are the Republican nominee, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who "is back on the GOP ballot line four years after Adams trounced him in the general election," and defense attorney Jim Walden, a former federal prosecutor "running a centrist campaign on yet another independent line."
Tuesday's results may be enough to deter Cuomo from launching another campaign for this cycle. As progressive Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid wrote Wednesday for Zeteo:
Mamdani's victory redrew the map of what's possible in New York City politics. He didn't win on the backs of white gentrifiers alone; he built a multiracial, cross-class coalition that reached from the brownstones of Park Slope in Brooklyn to the apartment towers of Jackson Heights in Queens. He ran up margins in progressive enclaves like Park Slope, East Village, and Cobble Hill, but also won working-class, immigrant-heavy neighborhoods across Queens and Brooklyn—Bangladeshi, Chinese, Latino, Arab, Indo-Caribbean. He was the highest performer in Queens among Latino and South Asian precincts and carried South Asian strongholds like Richmond Hill and Jackson Heights, and East Asian precincts like Sunset Park, Chinatown, and Flushing. Most strikingly, he flipped Oakland Gardens, a swing district in Queens... long seen as part of Cuomo's base. Mamdani didn't just activate the left; he broke into communities that conventional wisdom says don't vote socialist. And he did it with a disciplined message on public goods and affordability, backed by a massive, relentless volunteer field operation.
During the primary race, Mamdani battled Islamophobic threats and unfounded allegations of antisemitism. The Muslim victor and fellow candidate Brad Lander, who is Jewish, also endorsed each other—encouraging voters to take advantage of the city's rank choice voting system by listing both men on their ballots and leaving Cuomo unranked.
Other prominent Jewish people and groups also backed Mamdani—including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action, which "endorsed Zohran on the first day he launched his campaign because we knew this would be a historic opportunity for our movements," the group's political director, Beth Miller, said in a Wednesday statement.
"Trump-supporting billionaires and hateful politicians spent millions of dollars trying to smear Zohran and use the New York Jewish community as a political pawn to drive division. They failed," Miller continued. "Jewish New Yorkers joined the broad and diverse coalition of this campaign to elect a mayor who will fight with us for the humanity, dignity, and freedom of all people—from NYC to Palestine."
"For decades, traditional political wisdom said that in order to win elections, politicians shouldn't speak about Palestinian rights, or hold the Israeli government accountable to international law," she pointed out. "But Zohran's historic victory last night that toppled a political dynasty shows that people are done with that tired, racist, and hateful old version of politics. Our future is not about any one politician. It's about all of us. It's about our movements and what everyday people can build when we come together."
While billionaire Jeff Bezos is popping champagne bottles in Venice with his rich celebrity friends at his $20 million wedding, he wants to lecture struggling New Yorkers that Zohran Mamdani is bad for New York City.The same Bezos-owned Washington Post that pulled its endorsement of Kamala Harris.
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— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin.bsky.social) June 26, 2025 at 12:01 PM
In a Thursday opinion piece for The Guardian, Ben Davis, who worked on the data team for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, noted that "Mamdani is the progeny of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the U.S.'s largest socialist organization in a century."
"He is among the many young people inspired by Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign," Davis wrote. "Mamdani was built by the DSA and the young left-wing milieu that emerged after the Sanders campaign. They cannot be separated. Not his charisma or campaign style. He is a product of the movement."
Sanders endorsed Mamdani last week and told Politico after the primary election: "Look, he ran a brilliant campaign. And it wasn't just him. What he understood and understands—campaign's not over—is that to run a brilliant campaign, you have to run a grassroots campaign. So instead of taking money from billionaires and putting stupid ads on television, which the people increasingly do not pay attention to, you mobilize thousands and thousands of people around the progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working-class people, and you go out and you knock on doors."
"You cannot run a grassroots campaign unless you excite people. You cannot excite people unless you have something to say. And he had a lot to say," Sanders explained. "He said that he wants to make New York City livable, affordable for ordinary people, that the wealthiest people in New York City are going to start to have to pay their fair share in taxes so that you can stabilize the outrageously high costs of housing in New York, which, by the way, is a crisis all over this country. That you could deal with transportation in a sensible way, deal with childcare, deal with healthcare, deal with the needs of ordinary working-class people."
Sanders—who has responded to Trump's second term and Republican control of Congress by taking his Fighting Oligarchy Tour around the country—framed Mamdani's win as an opportunity for Democratic Party leaders to learn important lessons after devastating losses during the last cycle: "We need an agenda that speaks to working-class people, activates millions of people around this country to get involved on that agenda. Take on the billionaire class, take on oligarchy. That's how you win elections."
"I think they have a lesson to learn, and whether or not they will, I have my doubts," the senator said of Democratic leadership. "If you look at the dynamics of this campaign, what you have is older folks voting for Cuomo, the billionaire class putting in millions of dollars into Cuomo, all of the old-time establishment candidates and politicians supporting Cuomo, and he lost."
In an early signal that Sanders may be right about the party leadership not learning any new lessons, Axios reported Thursday that "many Democratic leaders and donors are panicking" about Mamdani's win—noting that some party leaders have congratulated but not endorsed him, while other officials continue to speak out against him.
Responding to that report on social media, Nina Turner, a former progressive congressional candidate from Ohio, and David Hogg, a gun violence prevention advocate recently ousted as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee after pushing for primary challenges to "asleep-at-the-wheel" Democrats in blue districts, both pointed in jest to a longtime part line: "Vote blue no matter who."
Hogg this week also joined a growing chorus of progressives using Mamdani's victory to call for primary challenges against the Democratic establishment, and to launch campaigns prioritizing working-class priorities.
🎴 Mamdani's insurgent campaign—backed by grassroots activists and first-time voters—overcame tens of millions of dollars."This wasn't just a local upset," said Joseph Geevarghese, leader of Our Rev. "It's a referendum on the direction of the Democratic Party."@newsweek.com: tinyurl.com/4j6pmr5z
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— Our Revolution (@our-revolution.bsky.social) June 26, 2025 at 12:28 PM
"People are tired of a status quo that isn't working for them. Zohran Mamdani's campaign has sent shockwaves across the country and shown what's possible when candidates have the courage to stay true to their values and speak authentically to working people," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, which is working to elect the primary winner.
Victor Rivera, co-founder and executive director of Beyond the Ballot, another organization backing Mamdani, said in a statement that "America's largest city just sent a clear message: Billionaire rule is on borrowed time."
"New Yorkers are done with a politics that serves luxury developers, hedge fund landlords, and police lobbyists. Zohran's victory proves that ordinary people, tenants, workers, students, and immigrants, are reclaiming power for the people," added Rivera, whose group is made up of Gen Z organizers fighting "both far-right extremism, and the corporate wing of the Democratic Party."
In a Wednesday fundraising email with the subject line "Zohran Mamdani," Sanders argued that "we cannot stop with just one primary victory in New York City," and promoted candidates including Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate hopeful in Michigan, and Troy Jackson, who is running for governor of Maine.
The senator also highlighted four candidates seeking seats in the U.S. House of Representatives: Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin, Adelita Grijalva in Arizona, Donavan McKinney in Michigan, and Robert Peters in Illinois.
"The political future of our country rests upon the very simple principles that working people need to stand together EVERYWHERE to fight back against corporate greed and create an economy that works for all of us, and not just billionaires and large corporations," he said. "We need to elect people up and down the ballot who have the guts not only to stand up to Trumpism, but to take on the monied interests and fight for a working class that has been ignored for far too long."
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'Mamdani-Mentum': AOC Endorses Democratic Socialist for NYC Mayor
"Assemblymember Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack," Ocasio-Cortez said.
Jun 05, 2025
Progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday threw her weight behind democratic socialist state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani in the final weeks of New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, which will take place on June 24.
Mamdani has gained ground in the race with his bold proposals such as taxing the rich to fund free buses, a rent freeze, and city-run grocery stores; his engaging social media presence; and his success at fundraising and mobilizing volunteers. Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told The New York Times in an interview that she thought Mamdani was the best choice to unite progressive voters to defeat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who, she said, "belongs to the hedge funds."
"Assemblymember Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack," Ocasio-Cortez told the Times. "In the final stretch of the race, we need to get very real about that."
"It's almost like fighting for the working class unapologetically is a likable trait, and proposing bold new ideas is better than maintaining the status quo."
Mandani, who is currently polling second behind Cuomo, welcomed the news.
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a once-in-a-generation leader who has led the fight for working people in Congress," Mamdani wrote on social media Thursday morning. "In 2018, she shocked the world and transformed our politics. On June 24, with @AOC's support and this movement behind us, we will do the same."
Mamdani, a 33-year-old who represents Queens, now polls at 23% to Cuomo's 35% in the first round of the New York City Democratic primary's ranked-choice voting system. A simulation of a 10th round of voting showed Mamdani finally losing to Cuomo by only eight points, at 46% to Cuomo's 54%.
While Cuomo has greater name recognition, he has several scandals to his name. In 2021, he resigned as state governor following a report documenting his harassment of several women, claims he has denied. But constituents had called for his resignation even before over a cover-up of the amount of deaths caused by Covid-19 in state nursing homes.
AOC advised progressive voters to make strategic choices in order to defeat Cuomo, recommending that they rank Mamdani first, followed by New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, City Comptroller Brad Lander, former comptroller Scott Stringer, and New York Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-20). The progressive Working Families Party and the United Auto Workers (UAW) region 9A have also both urged voters to rank Mamdani in the No. 1 slot.
"Even if the entire left coalesced around any one candidate, an ideological coalition is still insufficient for us to win," Ocasio-Cortez told the Times. "We have to have a true working-class coalition."
The Democratic congresswoman's endorsement came the day after the first televised mayoral debate, and three days after Mamdani won the backing of UAW president Shawn Fain.
Several other progressive organizations and leaders celebrated AOC's endorsement.
"Mamdani-mentum. We love to see it," the youth-led Sunrise Movement, which has also endorsed Mamdani, wrote on social media.
Progressive Michigan State Rep. Dylan Wegela (D-26) wrote: "Zohran Mamdani can win this thing! It's almost like fighting for the working class unapologetically is a likable trait, and proposing bold new ideas is better than maintaining the status quo."
New York Communities for Change posted simply, "Let's goooo!!!"
Julian Gerson, the political director for Mamdani's campaign, promised, "On June 24, we're making history."
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'Should Send a Chill Down the Spine of Every American': Trump DOJ Charges New Jersey Democrat
"The most corrupt administration in our country's history is targeting and punishing public officials who seek to hold them accountable."
May 20, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's Justice Department announced Monday that it is pursuing assault charges against a Democratic congresswoman from New Jersey who took part in an oversight visit at a privately run migrant detention center in Newark earlier this month.
In a statement, Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba announced the charges against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), claiming the lawmaker "assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement" at GEO Group's Delaney Hall. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded GEO Group a billion-dollar contract earlier this year to detain migrants there, even as the facility faced legal challenges and accusations of abuse.
McIver rejected the charges against her as "purely political," saying that "they mischaracterize and distort my actions" in an attempt to "criminalize and deter legislative oversight."
"We were fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities, as members of Congress have done many times before, and our visit should have been peaceful and short," said McIver. "Instead, ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they chose to arrest Mayor [Ras] Baraka."
Habba said Monday that her office has agreed to drop the trespassing charge against Baraka, who welcomed the decision while expressing solidarity with McIver.
"Congresswoman McIver is a daughter of Newark, past Newark Council president, a former student of mine, and a dear friend," said Baraka. "I want to be clear: I stand with LaMonica, and I fully expect her to be vindicated."
"It reveals the increasingly authoritarian nature of this administration and its relentless, illegal attempts to suppress any dissent or oversight."
The U.S. attorney's announcement sparked an outpouring of support for McIver and grave warnings about the implications of the Trump administration's attempt to prosecute her and other officials who try to stand in the way of its lawless mass deportation effort.
"This is a clear political attack on Rep. LaMonica McIver for having the courage to stand up to Trump's abuses of power," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party. "Let's be clear who the real lawbreakers are. In just the last week, both Donald Trump and [Attorney General] Pam Bondi have been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. Bondi sold millions of shares of stock on the same day that Trump announced his disastrous tariffs. And Trump accepted a $400 million luxury plane from the Qatari royal family."
"The most corrupt administration in our country's history is targeting and punishing public officials who seek to hold them accountable," Mitchell added.
McIver's fellow congressional Democrats also rallied to her defense.
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) called the charges a "purely political act" and said that "oversight is not a criminal offense unless you are living under a fascist regime."
The chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), said that "the baseless charges against Congresswoman McIver for simply doing her job should send a chill down the spine of every American."
A group of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee warned that "charging members of Congress for doing our jobs is a dangerous precedent to set."
"It reveals the increasingly authoritarian nature of this administration and its relentless, illegal attempts to suppress any dissent or oversight, including from judges, members of Congress, and the American people, which check lawless executive power," the lawmakers said. "Representative McIver has our full support, and we will do everything in our power to help fight this outrageous threat to our constitutional system."
The scene at Delaney Hall earlier this month was highly chaotic, with video footage showing jostling and heated verbal exchanges outside of the facility's gate as federal agents moved to arrest Baraka after three New Jersey lawmakers—McIver and Reps. Robert Menendez and Bonnie Watson Coleman—visited the inside of the detention center, which they have a right to do under federal law.
The Department of Homeland Security released a video claiming to show McIver "assaulting" an ICE agent, and one DHS official accused the Democratic lawmaker of "body-slamming" and "body-ramming" officers. McIver, who rejected the claims, said at the time that federal agents at the scene were "roughing up members of Congress."
Watson Coleman, who is 80 years old, said she was "manhandled" by ICE agents as they moved to arrest Baraka.
In a statement late Monday, Mike Zamore of the national ACLU and Amol Sinha of ACLU-NJ said that "the Trump administration's political charges against Congresswoman McIver [are] a method more suited for authoritarianism than American democracy."
"If the Trump administration can target elected officials who oppose its extreme agenda, it can happen to any one of us," they said. "We demand that they drop the charges against Rep. McIver, and we implore her fellow members of Congress to call for the same."
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