The conventional wisdom is that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, by losing the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York City to democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, was the biggest loser of New York’s 2025 primaries. He wasn’t. Nor were the many would-be city councilors, mayors, and county legislators across the Empire State who also went down to defeat. The real loser — and the one with the most to lose in 2026 — is Governor Kathy Hochul.
Mamdani’s victory is more than just a changing of the guard in New York Democratic politics. It marks a seismic shift in the ideological center of the Empire State’s Democratic Party. In the 2025 primary, the Democratic base didn’t just flirt with progressivism — it married it. And Hochul, who rose to prominence as a centrist Democrat, is now increasingly out of step with her party’s primary electorate.
Hochul built her early political brand on moderation. As Erie County Clerk, she opposed then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants — a position she’s since reversed. She won a 2011 special election in a Republican-leaning House district, and in her 2012 race for a full term in Congress, she even received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association. In the House, Hochul positioned herself as a pro-business moderate who was willing to stand against the more progressive policies of the Obama Administration. But since becoming a statewide official, Hochul, in an attempt to keep pace with her party’s ideological currents, has drifted steadily leftward.
The problem is, no matter how far left she moves, the voters who just propelled Mamdani to victory are unlikely to be persuaded. The progressive base isn’t interested in embracing a political chameleon.
The leftward shift in this year’s Democratic primaries weren’t confined to New York City. In Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany, progressive candidates for the mayoralty of these cities defeated more moderate Democrats by comfortable margins. Hochul may have deep roots in Upstate New York, but that’s no guarantee of loyalty from an increasingly ideological electorate in this key region of the state.
Much of this progressive momentum is being driven by the Working Families Party (WFP), which has long used New York’s unique fusion voting system to push Democrats to the left. Under state law, the WFP can nominate a Democrat to appear on its own ballot line, allowing it to exert influence in both the primary and general elections. While the WFP supported Hochul in 2022, it did so only after its preferred candidate lost the Democratic primary for governor. After scoring big wins with Mamdani and other progressives, the WFP may not feel obligated to play nice with mainstream Democrats like Kathy Hochul in 2026. With Hochul already seen as vulnerable, the WFP could certainly consider getting behind a progressive rival to the governor in 2026.
That person might be Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado. Once Hochul’s running mate, Delgado is now her declared rival in the 2026 Democratic primary. Most pundits have considered him a longshot. This analysis might change in the wake of Mamdani’s primary win. Delgado’s early campaign rhetoric has embraced many of the same far left themes that defined Mamdani’s campaign: universal health care, higher taxes, and a rejection of the political status quo. The parallels are no accident. Delgado is now backing Mamdani for New York City Mayor and is clearly betting that Mamdani’s progressive coalition is also his path to victory.
This wouldn’t be the first time a New York City primary foreshadowed a broader political shift. Rudy Giuliani’s 1993 defeat of incumbent Big Apple Mayor David Dinkins foreshadowed future Republican gains statewide. The following year, Republicans George Pataki and Dennis Vacco were elected governor and attorney general, respectively. More recently, moderate Eric Adams’ win in the 2021 Democratic primary for New York City mayor was widely seen as a repudiation of the far left and a return to pragmatic governance. Given Mamdani’s recent win, that tide seems to have turned again — and in the opposite direction.
Zohran Mamdani’s victory signals that the Democratic base doesn’t defer to party bigwigs, and the increasingly progressive voters of New York’s Democratic Party have shown that they have no qualms about embracing nontraditional candidates who are thought to be outside the political mainstream. Time will tell if the message sent by the young socialist and his voters will resonate with New York’s chief executive. Regardless of how Gov. Hochul views this rising tide of progressives within the Democratic Party, the fact remains that they’re likely to make her already difficult reelection even harder.