Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman and democratic socialist, scored an upset victory in the Democratic primary over Andrew Cuomo (the former Governor, whose father had also been Governor of New York).  He ran on an actual "populist" economic platform (not a fake Republican one), calling for rent freezes, free buses, free childcare, and making NYC affordable more generally, with higher taxes on the wealthy among other proposals.  Dopey members of the ruling class, like Bill Ackman, are having meltdowns (scroll down his feed) about this unexpected triumph of someone critical of capitalism, which is itself rather amusing.  The New York Times editorial board, ever loyal to the prudnet wing of the capitalist class, went so far as to editorialize that voters should not even rank Mamdani (NYC has a ranked voting system)–so it's additionally satisfying to see the irrelevance of the NYT editorial board rendered so palpable.

All this being said, if Mamdani wins the election (Cuomo and others may still run as independents), I am not optimistic that he will be successful.  The problem is that NYC, although the biggest city in the country, is still far too small a stage on which to enact a successful redistributive agenda, especially when there will be a race to the bottom in competing jurisdictions to recruit the wealthy and businesses from NYC with the kind of tax giveaways that make redistribution impossible.  The NYC mayor's power is also limited by the NY Governor, who is mostly a pathetic centrist, and Mamdani's past trafficking with "defund the police" childishness is likely to put him at odds with the powerful police union and the rank-and-file.  Add to that the fact that he thinks Palestinians are human beings, and he will find the still powerful conservative Jewish community aligned against him.  So while Mamdani's victory is satisfying, and might perhaps inspire other Democrats to run on actual economic issues instead of identity politics, I doubt it's going to lead to the realization of his agenda, and could lead to an economic collapse in NYC.   But one step at a time, and hopefully my pessimism is misplaced.