New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated the mayoral victory of democratic socialist David Morales. The socialist won Rhode Island’s mayoral primary with 54% of the vote, a development that Mamdani believes dictates the future of the Democratic Party.
“I think it comes back to what I’ve said before, which is what is the Democratic Party, if not its voters?” Mamdani asked during a news conference.
“We’re seeing that the voters across this country are eager for not only a change, but also for a vision of something that we are fighting for,” he added. “And, you know, I’ve spoken a lot about childcare this morning. I’ve often couched it as the second driver of the cost-of-living crisis. The first driver is housing.”
“The little that I do know about this soon-to-be new mayor is that one of the central issues in his race was around rent stabilization and around the importance of delivering on affordability, not just as a goal, but as a result,” Mamdani stated. “And what we’ve seen is that his constituents agreed with exactly that.”
In his victory speech, Morales said, “Few believed that a 27-year-old democratic socialist could ever, few believed that we could ever take on big money, corporate real estate interests and endless attack ads — and we took them on and we won.”
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also congratulated Morales. “Congratulations to David Morales on winning the Democratic primary for Providence Mayor,” he wrote on X. “In November we’ll have elected Democratic Socialist mayors in NYC, Seattle, D.C. and Providence. From coast to coast, Americans are clear: No more status quo politics. We want real change.”
