Zionism and the Race for NYC Mayor

What the New York primaries do and do not tell us

Tablet Magazine’s Instagram graphic based on polling data from the New York Times

In this week’s New York mayoral primary elections, former Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) leader and champion of BDS against Israel, Zohran Mamdani handily beat former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani is so maniacally focused on Israel that he has publicly stated he will arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes.

There was a concerted social media effort to frame the New York elections as a referendum on Zionism (read: Jews and Israel). Many antisemitic influencers like SNEAKO declared that Mamdani won because “people are tired of Zionism.” This falsehood, of course, is built on the older falsehood that Zionism (the liberation movement of the Jewish people that saw the rebirth of the State of Israel) is a White/European, settler colonial, racist, apartheid ideology.

However, the data compiled by the New York Times and presented by Tablet Magazine on Instagram reveal that Mamdani’s victory is owed to White and Arab middle-class voters. Black, Latino, and working-class voters rejected Mamdani and chose Cuomo. In fact, in Black neighborhoods across New York, votes were as high as +58 for Cuomo. Quoting Tablet, “Black voters stood out as the only group to swing solidly for Cuomo.”

According to the Jew-hating propaganda that surrounded this election, exit polling is showing that Black, middle-class voters are Zionists. Of course, this generic assertion is absurd. As IBSI has stated before, Black (especially working-class) voters in America cast their votes based on the same principles as all other working-class voters: The economy, jobs, education, and safe streets, not on US foreign policy. But what this week’s vote in New York did further disprove is the lie that Black people as a monolithic group are anti-Zionists or antisemites. If this were true, then New York’s Black voters would have joined the White, Arab, and even smaller but significant percentage of Jewish middle-class voters who chose the Marxist, anti-Zionist Mamdani. They did not.

(See Black New Yorker and political strategist Julian Acciard explain the primary vote in this short video.)

Last year, the late Olga Meshoe-Washington made a similar case regarding Black South Africans and the anti-Israel ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). Olga pointed out that, as the ANC descended further into antisemitism and Israel hatred, the party suffered its worst defeat since the post-apartheid era. Why? Because, as with Black people in America, freeing Palestine (destroying Israel) is not a serious issue for Black South Africans, the vast majority of whom are Christian supporters of Israel.

The further irony is that Zohran Mamdani is now squared off to face incumbent mayor, Eric Adams — a Black Christian Zionist and proud, outspoken supporter of Israel and the Jewish people. For many reasons, all eyes will be on the mayoral election in New York this fall.