Zohran Mamdani’s bombshell upset win in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City has some wondering if far-Left radicalism is the future of the Democratic Party, which is struggling to find its footing after last year’s crushing presidential defeat.
Ryan Girdusky, host of the podcast “It’s A Numbers Game,” broke it down for The Daily Wire’s “Morning Wire,” explaining that urban areas like New York City are “sponges” for far-Left radicalism.
“If you have purple hair and 36 genders and don’t know if you’re a boy or a girl, why would you stay in Long Island? Why would you stay in Tennessee? Why would you stay in Ohio? You come to New York,” Girdusky told “Morning Wire.”
However, Girdusky noted that self-described socialist Mamdani did not receive a majority of first-round votes.
“I don’t know if in a head-to-head combat, he could have won,” Girdusky said, “and he was challenging a very problematic figure, being Andrew Cuomo, who had to resign in disgrace, and he was not considered an ally of progressives, and a lot of other people didn’t like him because of the COVID response.”
Cuomo, former governor of New York, was widely expected to snag the Democratic nomination for mayor before Mamdani’s win.
Zohran Mamdani’s far-left mayoral victory in New York could signal a takeover of the Democratic Party—and a warning for November. Political analyst and native New Yorker @RyanGirdusky breaks it all down. pic.twitter.com/jA9fncwcJg
— Morning Wire (@MorningWire) July 3, 2025
Girdusky noted that over the last year, Republicans have registered more new voters than Democrats have in Staten Island, Queens, and the Bronx.
“There is an increasing number of people who live without of a five mile radius or eight mile radius of Manhattan who are aligning themselves increasingly with the Republican Party,” he said.
Trump won 37% of the vote in Queens and 27% in the Bronx, both the highest for a Republican since the 1980s.
“These are astronomical numbers for a Republican, especially a Republican that had no support as far as a ground game or commercials or anything. It’s completely organic and it’s really happening,” Girdusky said.
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Meanwhile, the people still registering as Democrats look at “identity-based, Neo-Marxists” like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) or Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and think, “this is my kind of party,” Girdusky said.
The Democratic Party has changed in New York City because many Democrats who were not far-Left progressives have either moved, died, or become independent or Republican, and now the progressives outnumber them, he explained.
“That is the recipe for a lot of parts of our country,” he said. “In these urban areas where organization, especially around high-propensity voting, college educated, mostly white uber-progressives — when they can coalesce, they vote like it is their religion, mostly because they don’t have one.”
He added that places with high concentrations of ethnic minorities often “demand elected officials cater to them,” and this has intensified with mass immigration.
“That could be a good thing in some capacity, but when you’re doing it solely based on left-wing identitarian politics, you almost surely get people who are more like Ilhan Omar, AOC, Cori Bush, and all the rest of them,” he said.
Girdusky said that the groups driving far-Left politics are white, college-educated millennials and Gen Z-ers, Southeast Asian immigrants like Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and black women, who often push a narrative that “all the cancers of society are because of whiteness.”
“Black women are increasingly identity-driven, far-Left radicals. Look at the cast of MSNBC. None of them can read, and it doesn’t matter,” he said.
Also, the children of Southeast Asian immigrants “usually assimilate very well because they all go to college, but they assimilate to — pardon my French, but s***lib behavior,” he said.
Girdusky noted that prominent Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) did not immediately embrace Mamdani, and Democrats on Long Island “openly said this was a mistake.”
Powerful Democrats like Schumer, who represent urban areas, are “all going to be primaried out of this machine,” he said.
“There used to be parameters that kept them in power, the black vote, unions, senior citizens, certain Jewish coalitions. Those are becoming one, less powerful, and two, less organized,” Girdusky said.
“I think that they’re genuinely worried. There’s definitely Democratic politicians and political operatives and donors behind the scenes as of right now saying, ‘How do we either get Cuomo or Eric Adams to run in the general, and how do we stop this guy now?'” he said.
He added that, going into the 2026 midterms, he would advise Republicans to encourage non-college-educated people to vote early.
“It is the most essential thing,” Girdusky said. “It’s the only way to counter this very active, very strong minority of the population, but a majority of the voting base, and that is what we’re going to see around the entire Democratic Party is how they can sit there and cater to them.”