Out of left field

Zohran Mamdani's primary win in New York should be a warning for Democrats View in browser Xavier Greenwood • Thursday 26 June 2025 Dear friend, Welcome to today's Sensemaker. Long stories short Nato agreed to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP (more below). Shell denied that it was in early talks to buy BP. Gareth Southgate became the seventh football manager to be knighted. Out of left field Record-breaking donations, decades of political experience and favourable polling meant that many expected Andrew Cuomo to win the Democratic primary to be New York's next mayor. So what? He lost to a 33-year-old legislator and socialist who supports rent freezes, free buses, city-owned grocery stores, universal childcare for under-fives and a wealth tax on New York's one percenters. Zohran Mamdani's victory is nothing short of a political earthquake that leaves Mamdani the front runner to win one of the top political jobs in America; New York City on course to elect its most progressive mayor ever; and the Democratic establishment looking like yesterday's news.   Writing on the wall. Final totals may not be known for several days due to New York's ranked-choice voting system, but with 93 per cent of ballots counted, Mamdani leads Cuomo by 44 per cent to 36 per cent. On Tuesday night Cuomo conceded to Mamdani, who declared victory and told jubilant crowds that "the power belongs to the people". Against the odds. In early February, Cuomo was 23 points ahead of his nearest rival in Democratic surveys. Mamdani was on 1 per cent. Even surveys conducted in the days before the vote appear to have dramatically understated Mamdani's popularity. Rank and file. Cuomo's endorsements included former US president Bill Clinton, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, former majority whip Jim Clyburn and several labour unions. A super PAC created by an adviser raised $25 million to boost Cuomo's campaign, receiving donations from Bloomberg, the food delivery service DoorDash and the investor Bill Ackman. It was the largest super PAC ever created in a New York mayoral campaign. Stars and socialists. Mamdani, on the other hand, was endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, the NYC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace. In the final days of the race, his telegenic campaign also brought in a slew of celebrity supporters from the model Emily Ratajkowski to the pop star Lorde. Cuomo lost the race. The former New York governor relied on name recognition and government experience, repeatedly describing how he "delivered as governor". This was always a risk given his term was cut short after he resigned due to sexual harassment allegations. Mamdani won it too. At the same time the state assemblyman took advantage of Cuomo's quiet ground operation to be everywhere, all at once. He took a lesson from Trump's alternative media playbook to leverage off-beat podcasts, streaming shows and popular New York online staples such as Subway Takes. Unlike Trump, he also stepped outside his political comfort zone to do interviews with Never Trump Republicans and Obama administration vets. Mamdani, the person. Born in Uganda, Mamdani moved to New York when he was seven and would be the city's first Muslim and Indian American mayor, and the youngest in more than a century. He had a short, unsuccessful, rap career under the name Mr Cardamom. The policies. Despite Cuomo's efforts to make the race a proxy war on Israel-Palestine, Mamdani focused on radical solutions to local problems, from childcare to food costs and rent prices, which have made New York an increasingly unaffordable place to live. The reality check. Mamdani would be taking on an unforgiving job in which many of the things New Yorkers care about lie beyond his purview, including the subway, bridges and tunnels. He would also need backing from the state capital to raise city taxes, which is the way he wants to fund much of his policy platform. Next step. Mamdani will be favourite to win November's mayoral election: New York is a liberal city despite shifting redwards in national contests, and the incumbent Eric Adams, running as an independent, is nursing record low approval ratings. But New York can throw curveballs. Mamdani's path to victory will be more difficult to predict if Cuomo remains in the contest as an independent. Big picture. That would highlight the paralysis at the heart of a Democratic party still divided after November's presidential election loss. Mamdani's primary win is a shot across the bow of establishment Democrats, who may need to tack left to mobilise young voters and minority groups but would then run the risk of putting off moderates and independents. What's more… how Mamdani does in practice may become a litmus test for the direction of his entire party. The Observer News Matrix The Nibs Capital Economy, business and finance Hire and higher Two studies analysing Uber in the UK and the US suggest the rideshare company has been quietly boosting profits. A Columbia University study this week found that Uber's "non-transparent, often deceptive" tweaks to its algorithms hiked prices and took a larger cut of fares from drivers. The research is based on nearly 25,000 trips by a single US driver, as well as two million journey requests. The biggest change was replacing fare estimates based on time and distance with prices determined by the maximum a consumer is willing to pay and the minimum each driver is willing to accept. The findings echo a University of Oxford study published last week that found Uber introduced similar "dynamic pricing" in the UK while skimming a higher share of fares from drivers. These revelations could explain how Uber went from being a loss-maker to enjoying its first year of profit in 2024. Technology AI, science and new things Off the rails For the train operators bidding to challenge Eurostar on its Channel Tunnel monopoly, the past few days should come as a warning. Due to two fatalities on the tracks, services between London and the continent were delayed or cancelled throughout Tuesday. The following day, thousands more travellers were left in the lurch when 600m of cables were stolen in France. Eurostar's prospective competition may offer different prices, but they don't have different infrastructure. The Channel Tunnel remains the bottleneck for all international services, meaning that if something goes wrong on the High Speed 1 line then widespread disruption occurs. It is the only stretch of English railway built to European standards, with greater loading gauge clearance allowing for taller and wider continental trains. Trains travelling along this line cannot be diverted on other UK tracks as they won't fit. That's why space at the Temple Mills depot in Stratford is so heavily fought over: international trains cannot get anywhere else. The 100-year life Health, education and government Daddy issues Nato had one of its stranger moments yesterday when its secretary general appeared to call Donald Trump "daddy", but that needn't distract from the detail. Last year, the alliance denounced Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine at length and called on Moscow to "completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its forces". A statement issued ahead of Wednesday's summit struck a different tone. Although it mentioned the "long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security", it merely reaffirmed the "enduring sovereign commitments" of allies to support Ukraine. It was hardly an iron-clad statement of solidarity with Ukraine and speaks to nervousness about testing the patience of Trump, who has repeatedly attacked President Volodymyr Zelensky. Nonetheless the mood at the summit was upbeat. Trump has previously cast doubt on the alliance, but renewed US support for Article 5 after members agreed to raise defence spending to 5 per cent. Our planet Climate and geopolitics Youth revolt Vibrant democracies don't usually pull TV stations off air for covering protests. That is what Kenya did yesterday as thousands of young people hit the streets, demanding the prime minister's resignation. The nationwide rallies commemorated Gen-Z anti-tax protests last year that culminated in the storming of parliament and left more than 60 people dead. On Wednesday police erected razor wire to block major roads in Nairobi, blasting protesters with tear gas and water cannons. At least 16 people were killed and more than 400 people injured, according to rights groups. The Kenyan capital has already witnessed unrest this month, sparked by the death of a blogger in police custody. He was arrested after criticising an officer online. Across Africa, protests are on the rise as young people voice their anger with ageing leaders and the cost of living. Ghana, Mozambique and Nigeria all saw upheaval last year. Culture Society, identity and belonging Hit the books A federal judge ruled this week in California on a landmark case for AI copyright disputes. Anthropic, creator of the large language model Claude, was accused of pirating and training AI on 183,000 books without permission. The judge found that the company must go to trial for allegedly stealing the dataset, but that the training constitutes transformative fair use under copyright law. What this means for authors is that AI companies can train on their work without their permission, as long as the work was accessed or purchased legally. It did not weigh in on AI recreating copyrighted works without permission. Researchers have found that Meta's AI model had "memorised" and could regurgitate entire passages from works such as 1984. Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up and tell us what you think. Xavier Greenwood xavier@tortoisemedia.com Additional reporting by Fred Harter, Brad Gray and Bex Sander. Graphic by Bex Sander. Edited by Giles Whittell.     More from The Observer Read I didn't know I had 'skin hunger'. 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