The Democratic Tea Party Is Here
But the larger landscape suggests that the establishment has a paucity of ideas and energy while the left populists are overflowing with both. As Cohen noted, establishment figures like to fixate on the rough edges of insurgent candidates, but it’s not like the figures they have rallied around in recent years—Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Andrew Cuomo—have been charismatic or free of baggage. At the moment, the Democratic base is forgiving of novice candidates who bring energy and new ideas, and is suspicious of anyone who smacks of the old guard.
Perhaps, then, several major Democrats did Mamdani a favor by not endorsing him even after he won the party’s primary—most notably, New York’s two U.S. senators. Kristen Gillibrand, who apologized for Islamophobic remarks she made shortly after he won the Democratic primary, stayed out of the race while Chuck Schumer, the party’s leader in the Senate, strongly suggested that he didn’t vote for the Democratic nominee at all. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents a Brooklyn district, only offered a tepid endorsement late last month. Whether any of this bothered Mamdani, he didn’t show it—but it’s likely that among most of his core supporters, this cold shoulder only validated why they supported him in the first place. Few Democrats are voting for Mamdani out of a desire that he play nice with the likes of Schumer.
Here is where the Tea Party analogy may prove strongest—at least it’s where I bet that it will. In 2014, a still simmering base ousted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Republican congressman from Virginia who had positioned himself as a leader of the party’s new era, in favor of a right-wing populist who taught college economics. Democratic anger at Jeffries and Schumer has cooled somewhat in the wake of the shutdown, but Jeffries, who is up for reelection next fall, will likely face a dynamic, Mamdani-aligned challenger in the coming weeks. Schumer, meanwhile, is likely already sweating at the prospect of facing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as his 2028 reelection draws closer.
