For Establishment Press, the Lesson of Mamdani's Victory Is to Take No Lessons

Julie Hollar

In the first election since Donald Trump and the GOP have upended US democracy, Democrats won resoundingly in closely watched state and local races across the country. The biggest headline was the general election thumping of establishment candidate Andrew Cuomo by democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election, but Democrats also won big in Virginia, New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania, among other places.

Corporate media acknowledged the strong rebuke to the Trump regime, but pundits and reporters across the country's major national newspapers quickly warned Democrats against reading too much into Mamdani's victory or shifting too far to the left.

'Pragmatism and compromise'

The New York Times (11/4/25) urges Zohran Mamdani to break his promises on buses and childcare.

The New York Times editorial board (11/4/25), which, as it acknowledged, opposed Mamdani in the New York City primary (and then kept quiet in the general), offered the victorious candidate congratulations and a heaping helping of advice.

"He should start by building a leadership team light on democratic socialists," the board counseled, "and heavy on officials with records of accomplishment and proven management skills." While of course a mayor should surround themself with experienced and skilled people, it's also unrealistic to ask them to shun the political organization that propelled them to victory.

According to exit polling, 24% of New York voters described themselves, as Mamdani does, as democratic socialists—and they made up roughly 41% of Mamdani's voters. To suggest that this broad swath of the city should be excluded from governing because of their ideology smacks of McCarthyism.

Mamdani will find success by "marrying his admirable ambition to pragmatism and compromise," the board wrote. What does that look like? Well, one of Mamdani's central and popular campaign promises was free and fast buses. The Times instructed him to abandon the "free" part of that promise: "A better idea" is to offer "a reduced fare" on just some routes. Because voters love a politician who breaks a promise!

No 'talent for moderation'

The Wall Street Journal (11/4/25) warns against raising taxes on the wealthy, noting that "the top 1% of taxpayers contribute about 40% of the city’s income-tax revenue." Not noted by the Journal: Personal income tax provides only about 22% of the city's total revenues.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board (11/4/25), generally well to the right of the board at the Times, similarly hoped to find "a pragmatic streak" in Mamdani. It predicted "a challenge" for Democrats if Mamdani "inspires more leftist candidates to challenge incumbent Democrats," or "begins to define the Democratic Party in the public mind." It concluded with little hope, writing that Mamdani "has never demonstrated a talent for moderation."

It would seem that "pragmatism" in the minds of the country's establishment punditocracy means not the dictionary definition of "dealing with a problem in a sensible way that suits the conditions that really exist," but instead something more like "upholding the status quo."

The facts are that half of New Yorkers are rent-burdened, and an estimated 350,000 are without homes; freezing rent, building affordable housing, raising the minimum wage, and asking billionaires and corporations in an increasingly unequal society to hand a tiny fraction of their profits back to the city are actually quite pragmatic solutions to those problems—unless you're the elite media.

'Learn the lesson from last time'

The Washington Post (11/5/25) reported that Virginia's Democrats "lurched too far left" after "big wins in 2017 and 2019." In fact, Virginia Dems in 2019 were embroiled in scandal, with two statewide officials found to have worn blackface and a third facing sexual assault charges. The three statewide offices were swept by Republicans in 2021.

Such admonishments weren't reserved only for Mamdani. In a piece on the results in Virginia—where centrist Abigail Spanberger won the governor's race by a 15% margin amid a statewide sweep—the Washington Post (11/5/25) acknowledged that the results were "a resounding rejection" of Trump's second term, but then turned to a source who said Democrats "need to learn the lesson from the last time this happened, which is don't misread the mandate."

You see, the party "lurched too far left, after its big wins in 2017 and 2019, ushering in a backlash" that led to a GOP sweep in Virginia in 2021. "Now, he said, the Democrats may have a more promising path forward if Spanberger can fulfill pledges to govern as a moderate."

One wonders what that even means; the Post never got around to telling readers. But that 2021 loss was not by a progressive; it was centrist Democrat Terry McAuliffe who lost to Republican Glenn Youngkin in 2021. As I pointed out at the time (FAIR.org, 11/5/21):

McAuliffe has been outspoken about Democrats hewing to the center on things like healthcare and corporate tax cuts, and backed two major fracked gas pipeline projects in the state while raking in big money from pipeline developers.

To elite media, if a centrist Democrat wins, it's on the strength of their "moderation." If they lose? Well, that's the fault of progressives.

'Springboard to nowhere'

Ross Douthat's podcast (11/5/25) is called Interesting Times, for reasons that are unclear.

"Mamdani’s Victory Is Less Significant Than You Think," insisted New York Times columnist Ross Douthat (11/5/25). Don't believe those who would have you believe Mamdani can "remake the Democratic Party." Why, you ask? Because "the media…tends to hype New York mayoral politics beyond its real significance," and because "the office of mayor of New York City has tended to be a political springboard to nowhere." It's a very weird take for a columnist at a New York City newspaper.

Voters in any city would be pretty pissed if their mayor approached the job as little more than a springboard for national political ambitions. "There might be a future where Mamdani ends up getting elected as a governor or a senator," Douthat allowed—which would seem to not leave out much but the presidency, which Mamdani as a naturalized citizen is ineligible for anyway.

But also, Mamdani doesn't need to launch into national politics in order to impact them. What Douthat is really doing is pretending that a populist Democrat who rode a huge wave of enthusiasm despite—or even because of—holding positions the establishment strongly opposes can't have a major impact on that party today.

'Whichever winner fits their biases'

Michelle Cottle (New York Times, 11/6/25) seemed to suggest that one lesson Democrats should learn from New Jersey and Virginia is that there's no need to "electrify the party's base."

Fellow Times columnist Michelle Cottle (11/6/25) advised readers to expect the "ideological tug of war between centrists and progressives" to "persist into next year’s midterms, as the competing wings brandish whichever winner from this week best fits their existing biases."

She wrote this with an apparently straight face in a column arguing that while Mamdani "electrified much of the electorate with his rock-star persona and lefty politics," centrist victories from Spanberger and New Jersey Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill "offer lessons that are more replicable for the party."

What those lessons might be wasn't entirely clear. In terms of campaign strategy, Cottle wrote, they did what Mamdani did: "leaned in hard on the economy and the issue of affordability." The also won by "dragging Mr. Trump into their races and tying his excesses to their opponents"—but so did Mamdani.

Perhaps the difference was that they "largely steered clear of the culture-war issues"? And yet while their opponents tried culture-war attacks against both the centrists and Mamdani, all three candidates kept the focus on cost of living and Trump.

Cottle seemed to like that Spanberger and Sherrill had previously "staked out centrist positions and were known to buck their own leadership when the spirit moved them." But those are the kinds of Democrats who—like former senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—block the party from taking the kind of actions they promise, leading to what a recent poll (Jacobin, 10/15/25) found to be the No. 1 voter complaint about Democrats: They don't deliver.

At best 'a big zero'

Republican claims that Mamdani is a "Soviet-style communist" go unrebutted in the Washington Post (11/5/25).

New York Times pundits were certainly not alone in desperately wanting Mamdani's victory to have no impact on the ideological direction of the Democratic Party. At the Washington Post (11/5/25), Tuesday's Democratic victories

kick off a year-long fight over who best personifies the Democratic Party as it heads toward crucial midterm elections: Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who will run New York City, or moderates like Abigail Spanberger, the centrist with a CIA background who was elected governor of Virginia.

What are the two sides of the debate here, according to the Post? If you're thinking it's pro-corporate centrists versus progressives, you aren't thinking like a legacy political reporter. It's actually "Republicans," who say Mamdani's victory "confirms that the party is in thrall to left-wing extremists," and "Democratic leaders," who are "eager to shed the 'woke' label that dogged their party in 2024."

Early in the piece, reporters Naftali Bendavid and Yasmeen Abutaleb quote uber-centrist Rahm Emanuel and several GOP leaders, strategists and campaign ads. Finally, some 12 paragraphs in, the progressive perspective is given exactly two paragraphs:

Some progressives, however, say they welcome efforts to make Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party, noting his ability to electrify an array of voters with an unapologetically liberal message.

A quote from Bernie Sanders constituted the second of the paragraphs, which was quickly followed by perspectives from "other Democrats" who sought to downplay the significance of Mamdani's influence or role within the party. Every other source in the lengthy, quote-riddled piece was either a Republican or an establishment Democrat.

The piece closed with one of the latter. Former DCCC chair Steve Israel argued that Mamdani only impacts the midterms "if he overreaches as mayor of New York":

If he governs too far to the left and there are daily headlines about his going too far, then yes, the narrative continues and could affect certain districts in the midterm election…. If he governs more reasonably, with less controversy over his views, it becomes a big zero in the midterm elections.

'Bright spot' for the GOP?

The Washington Post (11/5/25) said "some Democrats" are "worried about the socialist label sticking," since their party has been framed as being "too concerned about special classes of Americans over others." "Others" in this case presumably refers to billionaires.

Another Washington Post article (11/5/25) listed the "Winner and Losers from the 2025 Election." The four winners included the obvious—like "Democrats"—and the much less obvious: "Republican attack ads for the next year."

Reporter Amber Phillips explained: "In Mamdani, Trump and Republicans feel they’ve found the perfect foil for next year’s midterm elections." In fact, Mamdani is "so far to the left that the top two Democrats in Congress, also from New York, hesitated to endorse him or just didn’t," she wrote. She pointed to Trump's social media claim that the "Radical Left…keep getting me, and other Republicans, elected!"

Politico (11/5/25), too, let the GOP frame Mamdani's win as a victory for the right. "Republicans found their only bright spot in Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral victory—one they believe will allow them to tie the national party to him at the hip." Politico offered no reason to question this, only to support it:

Mamdani’s quoting of Eugene Debs, the avowed socialist who sought the presidency from a prison cell, in the opening seconds of his victory speech only made Republicans’ case against him easier to prosecute.

No Dem playbook

Politico (11/5/25) suggests that Mamdani quoting Eugene V. Debs—who last ran for president in 1920—will help turn voters against Democrats in 2026.

Many outlets did seem to figure out that voters care a lot about the cost of living, which both the centrist and progressive candidates emphasized. Politico (11/5/25):

For as much as 2025 has dealt Democrats a series of intra-party proxy battles between progressives and centrists, on Tuesday night they coalesced around a message—affordability—that could bridge the divide ahead of the midterms.

The Washington Post (11/5/25) similarly found "one through line that connected all three winning campaigns: affordability."

But the New York Times' Lisa Lerer (11/5/25) didn't see it that way. Lerer managed to find weakness in the resounding nationwide victory:

Yet for all the invigoration that success brings, the Democratic Party still hasn’t coalesced around a coherent political identity or a clear electoral playbook that can win in swing states and safe states alike.

Corporate media will always push for that "coherent political identity" to be firmly centrist. But voters don't just want promises of affordability; they want results. And a party beholden to corporate interests, that would rather tinker around the edges than push for real inroads against inequality, will have a tough time making good on those promises.