It's Wednesday, you deserve a treat, like an episode of the Hell Gate Podcast! Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
For weeks leading up to Tuesday’s primary election, the consensus was that no matter the outcome, it would be seen as a referendum on how much power Mayor Zohran Mamdani had and could actually wield. Was Mamdani a singular, unreplicable force propelled into City Hall by his rizz and exceptional social media presence—or could he use his clout to propel leftist candidates all the way into Congress?
Well, we now have the answer. As voting returns filtered in Tuesday night, almost all of New York City's Democratic establishment whose challengers were endorsed by Mamdani or the DSA saw themselves knocked out one by one. Each of the mayor's candidates for both Congress and State Assembly won their races, and nine of the 10 candidates backed by NYC-DSA took theirs, too.