Mamdani's Economic Populism Closes Gap With Big-Money Rival Cuomo

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Progressive candidates and researchers say his approach can win the U.S. back from Trumpism.

by Whitney Curry Wimbish June 12, 2025

Every day, voters experience an unfair and increasingly precarious economy. Nearly nine million civilian workers, more than five percent of the overall workforce, were holding down multiple jobs as of the end of last month, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. More than two in three Americans worry that they wouldn’t be able to cover living expenses for the next month if they lost their job, Bankrate’s most recent annual survey on emergency spending found. And over half of Americans are “uncomfortable” with their level of savings.

Against such a backdrop, the rising price of eggs is merely a distraction from the far more life-altering and life-ending decisions Americans must now make, such as whether to put off having children, maybe indefinitely, or whether they can afford to buy an inhaler.

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for the New York mayoralty has demonstrated how progressives can capitalize on this awareness among working people. He’s been promoting a brand of economic populism that acknowledges the affordability crisis and offering solutions to fix it, which his polling numbers show is a winning strategy. According to the most recent survey from Data for Progress, Mamdani has narrowed the gap to just two points separating him and his main opponent, the billionaire-funded political establishment front-runner, Andrew Cuomo, a former governor who is the son of a former governor. And a poll released last night actually shows Mamdani ahead.

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Other political candidates, researchers, and voters told the Prospect that Mamdani is leading the way on a electorally potent message that can snatch back economic populism from Republicans, who at the federal level are promoting flashy, small-stakes, allegedly pro-worker programs in their deadly spending bill, like no taxes on tips or savings accounts for babies, which will in no way offset the harm they’re planning by cutting Medicaid coverage, nutrition assistance, and other vital social services. A Quinnipiac poll published yesterday found that the majority of voters oppose the spending bill, and well over half disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy.
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-06-12-zohran-mamdani-cuomo-mayor-new-york/