Steve Cortes
Steve Cortes is president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group, and senior political advisor to Catholic Vote. He is a former senior advisor to President Trump and JD Vance, and a former commentator for Fox News and CNN.
How do we understand the victory of a Marxist radical?
It’s a sad day for the de facto capital of the world, New York City. The epicenter of American finance, media, and dynamism now enters a self-imposed trajectory of decline.
But those of us on the populist right should not merely shake our heads and bemoan the extremism of Mamdani, frightening though it is. Instead, we must understand his appeal, so that we may most effectively counter his un-American ideas and continue to build on our 2024 triumph – to earn further big gains nationally among young voters for patriotic populism.
Polling shows the pathway to that success.
First, the great news. Young voters have swung massively to the right over the last three presidential election cycles. President Trump won young men in 2024 and, overall, voters aged 35 and younger shifted materially from a +37 per cent preference for the Democrats in 2016 to only a +13 per cent preference in 2024. Cutting the young adult margin by two-thirds in just over eight years, it represents a massive macro shift.
In addition, a new national poll of 2,100 voters aged 18–25 shows a substantial rejection of Democrats’ radicalism on key social issues, especially transgenderism and free speech. Simultaneously, young voters express extreme frustration with the economy right now, creating a clear opening that Mamdani drove a campaign truck right through.
So, backed by data, here are the three lanes of success that Mamdani exploited:
Affordability
Even though all of his Marxist answers are wrong and immoral, Zohran laser focused on the issue that matters most to voters, especially to younger ones. Most young citizens have not benefited from the huge run-up in asset prices in recent years. Without substantial holdings of equities or real estate, they struggle to deal with sky-high costs for the staples of life. Even worse, the job market gets substantially tougher for young adults, adding even more angst.
These voters correctly blamed the Democrats for the pain of Bidenomics, but that anger has now shifted over to Republicans, fair or not.
Right now, per TIPP Insights polling, only 24 per cent of young adults rate Trump’s performance on the economy as “good” or “excellent,” while 54 per cent rate it as “poor” or “unacceptable.” On inflation, using letter grades, among young independents, only six per cent give the president an A, while 44 per cent deliver an F.
Mamdani smartly dove into this issue. All his alleged solutions will only make inflation worse, of course, from “free” public transit to lavish benefits for illegal aliens. But regardless, he fixated on what matters to voters, especially young ones.
Media Skills
After watching Mamdani closely during the campaign, I think it is fair to say that he truly hates the founding and history of the United States. He is, in reality, Exhibit A of why we are failing regarding immigration, including lawful migration to our land.
That said, as a media professional, I can only respect his acumen in front of the cameras.
In this new digital age, which President Trump helped create, successful politicians must be able to perform effectively. Mamdani exudes charisma and likability. His youth and enthusiasm captivated voters, especially those in the streaming/TikTok spaces.
Media savvy combined with lots of ludicrous promises of freebies forms a pretty powerful approach in this populist age. Young people are especially receptive to the heavy use of new/alternative media. TIPP Insights shows that only 31 per cent of independent young adults have positive sentiment for legacy media, and only 34 per cent of young women.
Focus on Home
Perhaps the most compelling moment of the campaign for Mamdani was during the July debate, when all candidates were asked where their first foreign visit would be as mayor of New York. All of them said Israel, with Ukraine thrown in as well. But Mamdani gave a truly “New York First” answer instead, one that might well have been uttered by a MAGA partisan. He said, “I would stay in New York City.”
That answer clearly appeals to young voters, who are decidedly non-interventionist abroad. For example, a whopping 69 per cent of young men think we “intervene too much in foreign conflicts.” Only 26 per cent of all young adults think that the United States should stay involved in Ukraine if Putin and Zelensky cannot reach a settlement soon.
That non-interventionism seeps over into a very negative view of Israel among young voters. Survey results found that only 25 per cent of them have a positive view of Israel, vs 52 per cent negative. Among young independents, only 18 per cent have a positive view of Israel.
Therefore, Mamdani probably did not generate the blowback he deserved for extremist postures, such as embracing a pro-terror Jihadi who was implicated, but unindicted, for the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
In conclusion, there is a lot to learn from Mamdani, even though he is a dangerous Marxist. Establishment Republicans have no effective answer to this kind of populism, because their default is always ‘cut taxes for the wealthy and go to war.’
The MAGA movement has a very different vision, one that can appeal to reasonable young people in increasing numbers, to continue this patriotic populist surge for decades to come.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
