New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani handily won the New York City Democratic mayoral primary in June, despite corporate media’s best attempts to discredit and suppress his campaign. But his opponents are not giving up, and Mamdani faces three noteworthy challengers in the general election.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s humiliating defeat, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams’ overwhelming unpopularity and Republican Curtis Sliwa’s eccentricities have not stopped the Wall Street Journal from trying to discourage New Yorkers from voting for Mamdani in the general election. Once primary results became official on July 1, the Journal published ten op-eds in a single week (7/1–7/25) that cast Mamdani in a negative light.

Red scare

Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which to the Wall Street Journal is equivalent to Stalinism. There are currently six mayors in America who are DSA members, and none of them have implemented purges or rounded up billionaires into gulags. That does not stop the Journal’s opinion writers from fearmongering about a dystopian future under Mamdani.

Under the headline “The Lure of Comrade Mamdani,” former Merrill Lynch strategist and current Heritage Foundation affiliate Mary Anastasia O’Grady (7/6/25) asked, “Have you made something of yourself? If so, [Mamdani is] coming for you.” O’Grady attacked Mamdani’s progressive platform through references to Argentina, Cuba and Venezuela, blaming their economic struggles on socialist leaders. She made no mention, of course, of the US interventionist policies—including not just coups and coup attempts, but also strangling economic blockades and punishments—that were key drivers of those struggles.

Columnist Jason L. Riley (7/1/25) offered readers a “Blueprint for Defeating Zohran Mamdani”: the 2021 Buffalo mayoral election. His op-ed gleefully recounted that when Black democratic socialist India Walton won the Democratic primary there, business elites collaborated with Republicans and establishment Democrats to flood the general election with money and crush her campaign in favor of “corrupt, incompetent” (Jacobin, 11/3/21) incumbent Byron Brown.

Sadanand Dhume (7/2/25) of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute contributed the outrageously headlined op-ed, “Mamdani Brings Third World Prejudices to New York.” “Why would someone who emigrated to the US from a poor country champion ideas that keep poor countries poor?” he asked.

More than one writer compared Mamdani to Trump in terms of their extremism. In his piece, Gerard Baker (7/7/25) lambasted the “siren song of socialism,” suggesting that Mamdani and Trump similarly adhere to a “reality-challenging radicalism.” Mamdani shows that Democrats “refuse to reconcile with the new order,” and would rather “take their chances on the easy appeal of radical ideas.”

Meanwhile, Long Island Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi (7/2/25) repeatedly drew parallels between Mamdani and Trump, and argued that New York would be destroyed by Mamdani’s “lofty, utopian promises: free public transit, free college tuition, more public housing, sweeping debt cancellation and massive overhauls of systems”—because they will be paid for by modestly increasing taxes on corporations and people making millions. Allysia Finley (7/6/25) took issue with Mamdani’s proposed tax increases for the wealthy, irrespective of the social benefits that money could provide.

Former hedge fund manager Jay Newman (7/7/25) published a satirical op-ed titled “Some Modest Proposals for Mamdani,” modeled on Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” While Swift’s essay was meant to bring attention to the plight of the Irish poor and the callousness of the English response, Newman used the format to mock Mamdani for wanting to respond to the homeless crisis. Newman suggested that Mamdani might convert the Metropolitan Museum of Art into public housing—ignoring the city’s tens of thousands of empty apartment units.

Israel: NYC’s sixth borough?

Much has been written about the Islamophobia and baseless accusations of antisemitism the Zionist establishment has hurled against Mamdani. The Wall Street Journal is a key player in that narrative. Five of the ten anti-Mamdani op-eds (7/2/25,  7/3/25, 7/3/25, 7/7/25, 7/7/25) included reference to Mamdani’s anti-Israel stance (or that of his supporters) as a means to paint him as unfit for office; all of these mentioned “Hamas,” “globalize the intifada” or both.

Dhume (7/2/25), who dedicated three entire paragraphs to Mamdani’s position on Israel, expressed outrage over Mamdani’s compliance with international law. He wrote that Mamdani “accuses the Jewish state of ‘genocide’ in Gaza. If elected, he said he would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister visits New York City.” This is presented as if Mamdani himself is making these accusations, rather than echoing the conclusions of several human rights organizations, and joining various world leaders in complying with the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu. (A Data for Progress poll—7/11-17/25—found that 78% of Democratic primary voters believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people, and 63% think that New York’s mayor should enforce the warrant against Netanyahu.)

Multiple writers warned of a mass exodus of Jews from New York in the face of a Mamdani mayoralty. In an opinion interview with political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, Tunku Varadarajan (7/3/25) wrote that Sheinkopf

expects Jews will start to leave New York in substantial numbers. “Never mind the general election. Jews will think, ‘If Mamdani’s got this far, who knows what’s next?’ ” There are now three-quarters of a million Muslims in New York—nearly 9% of the population. Mr. Mamdani campaigned extensively in their neighborhoods.

It’s an Islamophobic version of the Great Replacement Theory, using a dubious outlier number for the Muslim population, which most sources report to be around 3% of the city’s population (compared to a Jewish population of 7%).

Sheinkopf also suggested that Mamdani’s New York would be “the capital of class war and hatred and antisemitism, where it’s OK for a mayor to say the intifada’s just fine.”

Meanwhile, Dovid Margolin (7/3/25) wrote that Jews in New York “are nervous” because they “know what it means to have to flee. They know what it looks like in America, too, when their homes are no longer safe and there is no one to call for help.”  He painted such a dire depiction of the predicament of Jews under a Mamdani administration that he felt he had to quote Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, “One must stand firm and not run away.”

Despite the Journal’s allegations that Jewish New Yorkers are terrified of a Mamdani victory, his opponent Cuomo believes that “50% of the Jewish people voted for Mamdani” (Forward, 7/20/25). A recent poll by Zenith and Public Progress (7/16–24/25) found Mamdani getting a 43% plurality of the Jewish vote in a five-way race—vs. 26% for Cuomo. Mamdani was the choice of an overwhelming 67% of Jews between 18–44, with Cuomo having only 7% support from this group.

‘Useful idiot generation’

Mamdani’s youthfulness—and that of his most enthusiastic voters—also irked some Journal writers, who took a “back in my day” approach, presenting ageist and easily debunkable claims about the negative influence Generation Z supposedly has on US politics.

Sheinkopf (7/3/25), for instance, argued that, because of their politics, “the kids are going to be the death of New York.” He called Gen Z “the most pampered generation in the history of the world…. I’m sorry they can’t buy an apartment. But they can buy a $9 latte, and a $100 dinner.”

Given that the average price of a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan is $1.5 million, young people would have to forgo their imaginary daily latte and dinner for almost eight years before they could afford a down payment.

Varadarajan also criticized Mamdani for his privileged upbringing, contrasting it with Sheinkopf’s “hardscrabble background” in which he “‘cut corned beef at the Carnegie Deli’ as he put himself through college.” Neither Sheinkopf nor Varadarajan noted that around the time that Sheinkopf was attending college, the average yearly tuition for a US public college was $394. After adjusting for inflation, that’s a quarter of the cost in the 2020s.

The crown jewel of this argument, though, was an op-ed headlined “Gen Z: the Useful Idiot Generation” (7/7/25) by Democratic strategist/corporate lobbyist Mark Penn and disgraced former New York City politician Andrew Stein. They fret about the generation’s “radicalism,” which they argue stems from being “indoctrinated” at college (where, among other things, they supposedly “learn that socialism means free stuff”), delaying marriage and turning away from religion, all of which leaves them “unmoored.” They warned:

Socialism and antisemitism will continue to fester and grow if we don’t stand up and reform our universities, reinforce our basic values and balance our social media.

Though the primary results are finalized, the Wall Street Journal has joined with others in New York’s corporate media in trying to ensure that Mamdani’s success, and his supporters’ enthusiasm, ends there.