In 2025, the American political stage has been dominated by the 47th – and 45th – president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. However, the greatest political surprise of the year we’ve just left behind is dated November 4. It was the the day Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democrat, won by a landslide the 2025 mayoral election in New York.

It was obvious that he would defeat Curtis Sliwa – a Republican who never stood a chance in New York. The surprise was how crushing was Mamdani’s victory over the former governor of the state of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who, after losing to Mamdani in the race for the nomination of the Democratic Party, decided to run as an independent, without resigning from Democratic Party membership.

Towards the end of the campaign, Cuomo amassed a wide coalition of wealthy donors, centrist Democrats, and even president Donald Trump himself. Yet, Mamdani got 50.7% of the vote; Cuomo came second with 41.3%. Sliwa received 7.1%.

The result is quite fascinating: a millenial (the youngest mayor since 1892), the first Muslim to be elected mayor of New York, and an has an extremely strong political mandate. Furthermore, this powerful mandate is based on a manifesto that emphasises wealth redistribution, the importance of immigration, and a very modern approach to human rights – effectively the opposite of everything that gave Trump a massive victory in the US only one year earlier.

The main factor in Mamdani’s way to City Hall was his ability to activate voters, especially young, from immigrant backgrounds, and on lower household incomes. Donations to his campaign were, on average, a fraction of what the supporters of other candidates were able to afford. Mamdani can say that his support comes from regular, average people – because it does.

This explains why Mamdani’s victory immediately resulted in a major U-turn from Donald Trump. Before the election, the president warned against a “communist as the mayor of the largest city of the nation”. Soon after the election, Mamdani was very warmly received by the president in the White House – with the media explaining this ‘surprisingly cordial meeting’ with Trump’s admiration for winners, regardless of their political agenda.

“‘Fascist’? ‘Communist’? For an afternoon, they were just two guys from Queens,” the New York Times commented.

Democrats: push to the left

Mamdani’s victory definitely improved the Democrats’ situation – after the disastrous 2024 presidential election, the party seemed divided and lacking clear direction (Mamdani running as a Democratic nominee against another Democrat was a good example).

Republicans: division or the ‘Red Scare’

Even more interesting is the result Mamdani might have on the Republicans. On the one hand, Trump’s U-turn indicates that the currently dominating, alt-right faction of the Republican party, grouped around president Trump, has the capacity to move in pretty much every direction – both in 2016 and 2024 Trump presented himself as the defender of American working-class people, and for his successor (Trump legally is not eligible to run in 2028) adopting parts of Mamdani’s economic manifesto will not be as difficult as it might seem.

The cost of such a move, however, will be alienation of more traditional Republican party members and voters, who will not have anything to do with even slightly ‘reddish’ politics, so Republicans will have to carefully calculate what is going to be more beneficial for them

Effectively, Republicans will likely approach the 2028 presidential election with their leader benched by the constitution, and with judgement on what could work in their favour clouded. This may throw the party into a crisis similar to the one the Democrats have experienced after the Biden-Harris administration faltered — and which Mamdani might have ended.