What the World is Learning from US elections
Steer Left or Center, that Was the Question
SPANISH VERSION HERE
Off-year elections in the United States are hardly the stuff of transcontinental nail-biting drama. But Tuesday’s election managed to draw intense attention well beyond U.S. borders. Politicians and activists across the world are trying to draw lessons they can apply to their challenges at home.
When New York’s Zohran Mamdani surged to first place in the mayoral contest, European leftists took notice, hoping that his experience could help invigorate their flagging fortunes. But the outcome of the Nov. 4 election is filled with useful tips for all parties, not just leftists. Eager observers risk extracting the wrong conclusions from focusing too sharply on Mamdani and not enough on the context of the campaign and the victories of other candidates.
Just as the Democratic Party in the U.S. has struggled to decide what went wrong in 2024, and whether it can find success by tacking further to the left or steering more decisively to the center, parties in Europe and elsewhere are confounded by how to counter the relentless rise of the populist far right.
After Mamdani won New York’s Democratic primary and then maintained a steady lead in the polls, he caught the attention of the battered European left. It promptly started to take notes.
The very leftist Jeremy Corbyn, disgraced former leader of the U.K.’s Labor Party, campaigned for Mamdani, trying to gain experience to build his new, even more leftist Your Party. Other progressive European parties sent envoys flocking across the Atlantic to learn from Mamdani, the man who would become the youngest mayor in New York history, and the first Muslim in the job.
Among those trekking to the Big Apple and joining Mamdani’s street canvassers was Manon Aubry, co-chair of France’s The Left in the European Parliament. Germany’s own The Left party sent four of its top members to hold meetings with Mamdani’s team. Liza Pflaum, from The Left’s EU parliamentary operation, said the party is already using the Mamdani playbook.
They all correctly noted Mamdani’s strong social media game and his focus on pocketbook issues, on cost-of-living troubles for voters. But then drew an inference that is not necessarily the correct one.
The Greens’ candidate for Paris mayor, David Belliard, said Mamdani’s success in appealing to voters worried about the cost of living, an issue plaguing Parisians as well as New Yorkers, had confirmed his suspicion that “the left can be radical, concrete and positive,” and his party needed to run a more progressive campaign.
Is a “more progressive campaign” a more radical left, the answer?
That may seem the conclusion if you look only at sui generis New York and very narrowly at Mamdani, but it is certainly not the takeaway from a night of races across the United States that saw Democrats sweep just about everywhere, in every kind of contest.
The most important insight from this election – and one that is already well at work across Europe – is that voters want to see candidates who address their needs rather than ideological platitudes or cultural issues.
Sure, countering the threats against democracy and corruption at the highest level are a high priority for candidates, voters, and the future of the country. But it is concrete solutions that produce tangible, reliable support. That’s true among voters in the U.S. and just about everywhere these days.
For example, the man who is leading the polls in Hungary, Peter Magyar, seeking to topple far-right strongman Viktor Orban, is using a similar approach, as I noted before.
“Magyar proposed a large-scale plan of investment in areas with direct impact on Hungarians’ quality of life. His “Hungarian New Deal” envisions an overhaul of the crippled health care system, improvements in public transportation and education, cuts in taxes for food and medicines, and higher benefits for struggling pensioners.”
That strategy worked for Mamdani, even though he also leavened his campaign with heaping servings of anti-Israel rhetoric – a focus that made many New York Jews say his victory makes them unsafe. But it is also true that every other candidate that waged a successful campaign, including those who won by biggest margins and, arguably, in harder races, also made quality-of-life issues the center of their campaigns.
Consider Abigail Spanberger, who won an extremely important race for governor of Virginia, flipping the state away from Republicans to become the first woman ever in the job.
Spanberger, and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill are very different from Mamdani. They are committed centrists with strong defense credentials. Spanberger was a CIA officer – no details, aptly, on what exactly she did at the Agency – and Sherrill served as a Navy helicopter pilot. They both performed very strongly without steering sharply left.
Spanberger’s campaign zeroed in on cost of living, childcare, tax credits for first-time homeowners. She ran on a vow to improve affordability, expand health care access, boost public education and support other goals that are embraced by voters, including abortion rights, clean energy and immigration reform.
To the cheers of ecstatic supporters on Tuesday night, she declared:
“We sent a message to the whole world that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos…You all chose leadership that will focus relentlessly on what matters most: lowering costs, keeping our communities safe, and strengthening our economy for every Virginian.”
The Democratic sweep was nationwide.
In Georgia, for the first time in two decades, Democrats won non-federal statewide races. They took two Public Service Commission seats from Republicans. It was the result of anger at soaring utility rates and frustration with the Trump administration.
In the age of plutocracy, with billionaires demanding trillion-dollar contracts, prices climbing for everyone, and democracy eroding, listening to the people’s most direct needs is a winning formula in functioning democracies.
Sure, Mamdani’s clever use of social media gave him a big boost. Everyone will also learn from that. Queue the Tik Tok campaign wars!
But it also helps to have terrible opponents. That was one of Mamdani’s advantages, which no amount of campaign imitation will be able to replicate. Mamdani faced a disgraced politician (Cuomo) and an almost-cartoonish crime fighter (Sliwa.)
Above all, Mamdani and every Democrat ran against a deeply unpopular President Donald Trump, whose poll numbers are crashing – the latest CNN poll has his approval at a dismal 37 percent.
That’s one other reason Democrats had a spectacular night.
It was a great night for a Socialist candidate in New York, but also for centrist Democrats across the country. For the rest of the world the lessons are clear and, because of the outsize focus on Mamdani, very likely to be misinterpreted.
I wonder about Mamdani's lack of real work experience (as an assemblyman he missed many votes).
Absolutely agree; continue to be concerned about observing countries misinterpretations.