Nolte: New York City On Brink — Socialist Zohran Mamdani Leads Cuomo In Primary Poll

Tomorrow, New York City will vote to decide who will be the Democrat nominee for mayor, and the latest polling shows Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a full-blown, self-admitted socialist, in the lead due to the city’s ranked-choice voting system.

In the first-choice vote, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo leads Mamdani 36 percent to 34 percent. That should be that, but in the insane ranked-choice system (an election system which has kept Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski in the U.S. Senate), if no candidate reaches 50 percent, the race moves to round two where the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are distributed based on the second choices made by voters. This continues, round after round, until someone hits above 50 percent.

In other words, Andrew Cuomo might have a plurality of support in round one, but if more voters choose Mamdani as their second choice than choose Cuomo, then Mamdani gets more votes from the person eliminated.

According to this poll, that’s what’s happening, so Mamdani is more likely to win.

And should Mamdani win, he would make former Democrat Mayor Bill DeBlasio look like Barry Goldwater. Mamdani is a bona fide socialist who has promised disastrous rent freezes, despises Israel, would almost certainly kill any kind of school reform or choice, tie the hands of the police, and is anti-business.

Mamdani is a radical activist who doesn’t hide his radical activism. New York is already in desperate straits and he would drive this once great city right to its knees.

Tee hee.

But it’s not like Democrat voters have much choice. Andrew Cuomo — really? The guy who got COVID exactly wrong? Who locked down his state for no reason? Who poured COVID into nursing homes where it could kill the most vulnerable? Who was serially accused of harassing multiple women?

Sure, he’s a little more moderate, but he’s a terrible manager who would never stand up to the far-left base of his party.

New York’s current mayor, Eric Adams, is a former Democrat running as an Independent after it became clear he was too moderate to win a Democrat primary.

Personally, I hope Mamdani wins. Watching him do to New York what Mayor Sadiq Khan has done to London would be fascinating to watch. Democrats deserve to get what they vote for, and Mamdani would give it to them good and hard.

One of the most interesting political reality shows going today is watching Democrats in these Democrat-run cities continue to vote for failure, ruin, and blight. Their unwillingness to change, even as it all burns down around them, is like nothing we have ever seen before. In the past, even urban Democrats eventually said enough is enough and voted for a Rudy Giuliani. No more. Today’s Democrats are so childish that, rather than admit they are wrong, they smugly let it continue to burn.

I’m fine with that. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the rest are not my problem.

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