Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon is warning that democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral election should set off “alarm bells” and “flashing red lights” about the growing influence of the Democratic Party’s populist base.
“What this kid got was 5,000 people canvassing in Brooklyn by going door-to-door, the Working Families Party and the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America],” Bannon told Politico. “People should understand they’re the rising power organizationally.”
Mamdani, whose views on issues from freezing rent to the Israel-Hamas war are considerably to the left of those of party leaders, was able to deliver a coalition of voters Democrats have struggled to retain in recent elections.
He carried precincts with younger voters and districts with predominantly people of color, according to voting data.
Bannon added that Mamdani had some of the same anti-establishment views that propelled Trump to power, and similarly showed how a grassroots movement could support a candidate that party elders were skeptical of embracing.
“The energy is in the populist right, Trump, and what Mamdani is, what I would call the neo-Marxist left,” Bannon said. “The Democratic Party was basically worthless here. The Republican Party, as a party, was worthless.”
Indeed, party leaders were slow to embrace Mamdani, if they endorsed him at all. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a fellow New Yorker, declined to say who he voted for, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries offered a last-minute endorsement but has batted down suggestions that Mamdani is the future of the party.
Commentators on the left agreed, with The New Republic writing that Mamdani’s election was a Tea Party moment for the Democrats, a reference to the anti-establishment uprising in the Republican Party in the mid-2010s that swept out a previous generation of party leaders and candidates.
Looking ahead to the 2026 elections, Bannon said Republicans will rise or fall based on how closely they align with the MAGA movement because the institutional Republican party is a “husk” that has “no following” outside a small circle of donors, establishment figures, and aligned journalists.
Trump, for his part, has greeted Mamdani’s victory with threats to withhold federal funding.
If the president’s record so far is any indication, he could clash with the New York mayor over immigration issues, making the president’s home city the latest Democrat-run jurisdiction where Trump has sent National Guardsmen and a surge of masked immigration agents.
