Business and Politics Collide in NYC Mayor’s Race

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Alex Ossola (0:33)

Hey, What's News listeners, it's Sunday, November 2nd. I'm Alex Ossola for The Wall Street Journal. This is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news by reaching out to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world. On the show this week, we're talking about the New York City mayoral election, which is coming up on Tuesday. And although it's a local race, it's being watched nationally and has nationwide implications. Its outcome could not only set a new direction for the National Democratic Party, but also for corporate America. Today, we're talking with two Wall Street Journal reporters about what the mayoral race needs for politics and for business.

For me, living in Brooklyn, the election has been unavoidable. Canvassers have rung my doorbell and handed me flyers as I walked down the street. Candidate signs dot stoops between my home and the subway. You've surely seen signs for your own local races too. But in New York, the biggest city in the US, as well as the capital of finance, policies can have reverberations around the country. And at a moment when the National Democratic Party is figuring out how it moves forward, this election could be a microcosm for where voters' heads are at. For more on the political implications of the election, I'm joined now by Josh Chaffin, Senior Special Writer for the National Affairs Team at The Wall Street Journal. Josh, for people who haven't been following the New York City mayoral race all that closely, get us up to speed here. We've got our three candidates. We have Democrat-turned-independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and Democrat Zohran Mamdani. Give us a very brief overview of who each of these people are.

Josh Chaffin (2:17)

Cuomo is the Democratic establishment, three-term governor, son of a governor, close to the business community, had designs of possibly going to the White House during the COVID pandemic, when he became a national figure, and that all fell away in a hail of sexual harassment complaints and disgrace. Sliwa has been a New York character forever, the Guardian Angels back in the days of when New York was a scary, violent place to be. He became a folk hero for his group, riding subways and protecting people, stepping in where the police were not. Zohran Mamdani has come out of nowhere, and he would be the city's first Muslim mayor, just turned 34, and in the capital of world capitalism, he is an avowed socialist, and he has captivated a younger generation in the city.

Alex Ossola (3:13)

As you kind of alluded to here, I think it's safe to say that basically no one outside of New York or maybe even within New York had heard of Mamdani until he won the Democratic primary in June. Why has this race captured national attention?

Josh Chaffin (3:26)

The contrast between Cuomo and Mamdani is so stark. Mamdani is just so open, and he has used social media in the most clever ways, and Cuomo is a old school politician, for better or worse. This race has played out at a time when the Democratic Party is really lost in the wilderness. The party's approval ratings are the lowest that they've been in more than three decades, and in the era of Trump, this moment in particular is the moment where the Democrats are trying to figure out who they are, what their next chapter is, which way they should be going, how do they reform themselves after Kamala Harris' defeat. And so a lot of people are saying this Zohran guy is creating enthusiasm and excitement in a way that no one else has in some time.

Alex Ossola (4:22)

Josh, I'm glad you brought up the implications for the National Democratic Party, because I'm curious what this label for Mamdani of Democratic Socialist means in the context of a Democratic Party that's trying to re-appeal to Americans.

Josh Chaffin (4:36)

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrats' leader in the House, he came out finally belatedly and endorsed Mamdani. But of course, he also mentioned that there were key areas where he had differences. And so Democrats, the establishment, to the extent that they're beginning to embrace Mamdani, they're trying to do it in a qualified way to give themselves some space to say, well, we're not socialists, per se, but we agree with his goals of creating a more equitable society, improving affordability. But how socialist of a socialist he is or will be or try to be in practice is still sort of a mystery.