Hogg on NYC mayoral race results: ‘It's gonna be a fun next couple years'
Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) vice chair David Hogg lauded New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani's victory in Tuesday's New York City mayoral primary and what it could mean for the party's future.
'It's gonna be a fun next couple years,' the 26-year-old gun control activist wrote on the social platform X late Tuesday evening.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old self-described democratic socialist who campaigned on affordability concerns, fought off a crowded field that included former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who was considered a frontrunner and favored candidate of the Democratic establishment.
Incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), who previously faced a federal corruption indictment, is running as an independent and will face Mamdani in the general election. Cuomo has said he is considering also running as an independent.
Hogg's political group Leaders We Deserve endorsed Mamdani days before the Democratic primary.
As election results rolled in Tuesday night, Hogg wrote, 'Cuomo is cooked,' with emphasis on each word. He followed up: 'And so is the establishment that brought us here.'
Hogg opted not to run again for his DNC post after he sparked backlash by backing candidates in primaries, targeting incumbents and criticizing the party's leaders during his brief stint as one of two vice chairs elected in February.
'What people are trying to do is focus on talking about me a lot of the time, when really it's because they don't want to talk about the fact that we do have a real problem,' he told The Hill in a recent interview. 'They don't want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth, which is that we have to dramatically change as a party and what brought us here is not what's going to get us out.'
Mamdani addressed his supporters at a rally shortly after midnight on Wednesday in Queens.
'Eight months after launching this campaign, with a vision of a city that every New Yorker could afford, we have won,' Mamdani said.
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Hogg, who ignited controversy over his decision to get involved in Democratic primaries while serving as a DNC vice chair, also came out ahead. Hogg's Leaders We Deserve group endorsed Mamdani in the lead-up to the primary and spent time with the New York lawmaker on the campaign trail. Hogg's political group also gave $300,000 to a Working Families Party super PAC, which ranked Mamdani first on its slate of endorsed candidates. Mamdani is the first member the group has endorsed who has won a primary this cycle. The gun control activist wasn't shy about taking a victory lap. 'It's gonna be a fun next couple years,' Hogg wrote on X. Progressives weren't the only ones reveling in Mamdani's win. Republicans gleefully goaded their Democratic counterparts over the New York City race, too. In Mamdani, they see a new target, and one they can effectively link to Democrats across the country. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller described Mamdani on X as a 'an anarchist-socialist,' while the House Republicans' campaign arm called the New York legislator the 'new face of the Democrat.' 'If you engineered the modern Democrat Party in a lab, you'd get Zohran Mamdani: Antisemitic, anti-police, and anti-American. Every vulnerable House Democrat will own him, and every Democrat running in a primary will fear him,' Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the campaign arm, said in a statement. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who's widely presumed to be running for governor next year, fundraised off of Mamdani's win. Republicans are already seeking to tie Mamdani to vulnerable Democrats ahead of next year's midterms. 'I call on Kathy Hochul and all New York Democrats to immediately state if they endorse Zohran Mamdani for NYC Mayor, and all the radical socialist policies he has endorsed on his campaign,' Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who could also launch a bid for the governor's race next year, wrote on X. Young Democrats also had a reason to be optimistic after Mamdani became the first Millennial to win the Democratic nod for New York City mayor. Young voters, a voting bloc that Democrats struggled with last cycle, were core to Mamdani's coalition, as his social media-savvy campaign sought to connect with younger Democrats on TikTok, Instagram and X. He also had plenty of young Democratic surrogates and endorsers, including Hogg; Ocasio-Cortez; model and actress Emily Ratajkowski; and Ella Emhoff, the stepdaughter of former Vice President Harris. Cuomo suffered the biggest blow on Tuesday as the scandal-ridden former governor saw his comeback attempt — which only months ago seemed virtually predestined — fail miserably. Despite the fact that former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg spent $25 million in outside efforts to boost Cuomo in the race, it wasn't enough to put help carry Cuomo in the primary. While a winner has not officially been declared, Cuomo concession tells the story. It was a stunning development for the former governor, who appeared to be the clear favorite in his bid to regain power after resigning from the state's top executive office in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations. Cuomo hasn't taken the idea of running in the general election under a separate party line off the table. But even if he does, Cuomo still faces serious questions around his viability. The Democratic establishment was a big loser on Tuesday night, as a number of centrist and establishment figures their weight behind Cuomo. Bloomberg, former President Clinton, influential Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), and New York Reps. Adriano Espaillat, George Latimer, Tom Suozzi and Ritchie Torres were among the high-profile figures who threw their weight behind the former governor. Others, like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), stayed out of the primary. The setback for the establishment wing of the party comes amid a large internal battle with progressives over the future of the party. Many Democrats have accused the party's leaders of being out of touch and have pushed for a younger generation of leadership. While Cuomo's loss by no means the establishment has lost the larger battle taking place within the party, it's a significant black eye for those resisting the progressive, populist direction favored by the likes of Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders. The newspaper's editorial board, which declined to make an endorsement in the mayoral race, also lost on Tuesday after it came out against Mamdani. 'We do not believe that Mr. Mamdani deserves a spot on New Yorkers' ballots. His experience is too thin, and his agenda reads like a turbocharged version of Mr. de Blasio's dismaying mayoralty,' the board wrote last week. The editorial board was not in favor of electing Cuomo either. Some of its members, though, were reading the tea leaves Wednesday morning over what Mamdani's victory meant. 'Tuesday night, Democratic voters said they were ready to move on,' Mara Gay, a member of the editorial board, wrote in her own op-ed on Wednesday. 'That kind of coalition is there for the taking in many places for the politicians who recognize how to build it.'
