New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist wave swamped his fellow Democrats last November and again in June. Now, some fear it could wash out the prospects of moderate members of his party in swing districts next month — especially in those with large Jewish populations.

Citywide, the mayor still coasts on a 60% approval rating and a swelling entourage of allies at the state and federal level, while Democrats nationally look to ride a tide of discontent with President Donald Trump. But a recent Quinnipiac poll put Mamdani’s support in the New York suburbs at 39%, and a Siena College survey in September found nearly two-thirds of Jewish voters in the Empire State view him negatively.

CNN correlated the latter figure with an astonishing 36-point collapse for House Democrats among New York Jews, one of the party’s most historically loyal voting blocs.

Embattled Republicans at the city’s margins have pounced. In Rockland County, home to fast-growing Hasidic towns, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) has in successive debates pushed Democrat Cait Conley to denounce the mayor’s stances on Jewish issues, piling on an ad by the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund depicting Conley alongside Mamdani and left-wing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). 

In Long Island’s Nassau County, home to more than 200,000 Jewish residents, the local GOP has bombarded mailboxes with literature linking Democratic candidates for state and local office with the New York City mayor.

And in southern Brooklyn, where Syrian and ex-Soviet Jews live alongside culturally conservative Asian American and Catholic communities, incumbent GOP members of the state legislature have sought with mixed success to establish a “Stop Mamdani” ballot line to run on.

Pressed on his potential November impact at an unrelated press conference last week, the mayor maintained his record could only boost his party’s fortunes.

“I think the work that we’re doing is an asset because the work that we’re doing over 10 months has been to make the city more affordable for working families,” Mamdani said.

But experts and operatives Jewish Insider consulted for this story disagreed, and warned that the mayor’s recent statement on the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel — a statement that devoted more space to Palestinian casualties in the subsequent military campaign than to those killed on the date three years ago — exacerbated an already bad situation for moderate Democrats.

“It has absolutely complicated the life of Democrats in the suburbs, especially where there are larger Jewish populations and larger, frankly, more pro-Israel populations,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic political consultant, Modern Orthodox rabbi and Mamdani critic.

The issues Mamdani’s commentary caused were evident in the latest televised face-off between Lawler and Conley. Under pressure from the Republican incumbent, Conley — who had long deflected questions about her fellow Democrat — called out the mayor’s remarks.

“Yes, I do denounce Mamdani’s statement on Oct. 7, a day we should be honoring and mourning the loss of life, the greatest loss of life to our Jewish community since the Holocaust,” Conley said during last week’s debate. “I condemn antisemitism from any party or anyone.”

David Schwartz, a longtime Democratic operative living in the district, praised Conley for denouncing Mamdani’s “very hurtful” statement. The mayor’s remarks surged into local WhatsApp feeds, joining a torrent of anti-Israel commentary from Mamdani.

“Democrats are paying a price because of the Mamdani headlines,” Schwartz said, decrying what he described as the mayor’s lack of both tactics and tact with his Oct. 7 post. “I mean, come on, what are you doing? Like, what’s one day? Say whatever you want in two days from now.”

The district is one of the few Republican seats that former Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 election, even as Lawler cruised to a second term. 

But polling shows this year’s race, despite the favorable Democratic environment, is still highly competitive — owing in large part to the district’s politically significant Haredi towns. Schwartz noted that, like Hasidic communities in New York City, those in Lawler’s turf mostly vote as a bloc. But unlike the communities in the city, whom the mayor has sought to mollify with generous outlays to social service organizations, Schwartz reported that his neighbors don’t benefit from any additional government benefits on Mamdani’s watch.  

Thus, he asserted, Lawler would likely carry these towns by a similar margin to 2024. But in such a tight race, Conley pulling even 10% of the vote from those communities could mean the difference between defeat and triumph, Schwartz argued. Any perceived proximity to Mamdani could eliminate those chances.

Still, Schwartz bemoaned what he saw as a double-standard for his party, noting that the president had suffered little local blowback for his warm relationship and multiple public appearances with the mayor.

“Why is Donald Trump allowed to hang out with Mamdani, and then Democrats are not?” he pointed out.

In Nassau County — where Trump’s endorsed candidate for governor, Bruce Blakeman, presides as county executive — two incumbent Democrats in competitive districts have fended off Mamdani-themed Republican attacks by blasting the mayor themselves. Since the democratic socialist became his party’s nominee, Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) have pilloried him again and again, all while doubling down on support for Israel and on measures aimed at improving security for Jewish institutions.

Suozzi appears to have had particular success: Last week, Republican PACs abandoned a planned $11 million ad campaign aimed at dislodging the centrist Democrat and elevating his GOP opponent, former state lawmaker Michael LiPetri.

“I stand with my Jewish brothers and sisters and I will fight to bring Democrats back to a place where our party is once again perceived as a true friend and ally of the Jewish people,” Suozzi told JI.

But local Republicans have still used Mamdani as a bludgeon against Democrats with lower profiles competing farther down the ballot, including in a closely watched contest for a vacant state Senate seat inside Suozzi’s turf. The race pits 30-year-old GOP Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz against veteran Democrat Rory Lancman, who served as a state lawmaker and then city councilman in Queens between 2007 and 2020.

Both candidates are Jewish and strong supporters of Israel, but over the summer Republicans blasted out a mailer accusing Lancman of vanguarding a “Mamdani takeover” of the suburban district.

“Mamdani, Lancman & NYC Socialists Are Trying to Take Our Communities. Don’t Let Them,” the literature warns.

Lancman scoffed at the GOP attacks.

“If [former New York City Mayor] Rudy Giuliani’s message was famously reduced to a noun, a verb, and 9/11, the Republicans in Nassau County have reduced their message to a noun, a verb, and Zohran Mamdani,” he said. “It’s a generic ‘Mamdani’s bad, and he’s a Democrat, and these other guys are Democrats.’”

Lancman asserted it would be impossible to tie his political record, largely liberal but ardently Zionist, to what he described as “Mamdani’s antisemitism,” and predicted efforts to link his fellow Democrats to the mayor would prove too “attenuated” to persuade voters.

A local Democratic insider, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely about the party, concurred with Lancman that attacks connecting Mamdani directly to lower-level candidates would likely make little impact. The real risk, they asserted, was at the top of the ticket: Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Historically weak on Long Island, and running against one of its native sons in Blakeman, they argued the governor’s close and highly visible partnership with Mamdani had further alienated local voters — with possible cascading consequences down the ballot.

The irony, Lancman and Sheinkopf said, is that the chief beneficiaries of a moderate Democratic wipeout in swing districts could be Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America themselves. For every pro-Israel Democrat who loses, the DSA’s growing bloc becomes proportionally more powerful. 

Much attention to date has focused on the trouble that far-left House members, including candidates Mamdani endorsed, could cause for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). But Jewish leaders told JI they were even more concerned about Albany, where decisions are made about education policy and the disposition of hundreds of billions in tax revenue — a process Democrats dominate entirely.

To counter the Mamdani bloc’s growth, institutional actors in the five boroughs hope to flip the heavily Jewish southern Brooklyn seat of Republican Assemblymember Michael Novakhov. Their candidate is Joey Cohen-Saban, a pro-Israel Democrat who nearly beat Novakhov in 2024.

Unusually, the rivals have sought to flank each other on the right — Novakhov by linking the Democratic Party to Mamdani, Cohen-Saban by accusing the Republican of being a closet socialist, noting that a decade ago Novakhov made multiple donations to the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). 

“This guy is not a real Republican,” the Democrat said of his foe in an interview with JI. “Compare somebody who has a record of delivering nothing to somebody who will fight for the issues and the values that this community cherishes, with a seat at the table, and fight against the far left and be a voice of reason and moderate politics.”

The other awkward element of the race, which both candidates downplayed in their remarks to JI, was that it pits the Sephardic Jewish community Cohen-Saban hails from against Novakhov’s base among Russian-speaking Jews. 

However, this rivalry may prove key for Cohen-Saban to succeed — and here Mamdani may indirectly have aided him. Syrian Jewish leaders answered the democratic socialist’s triumph in last year’s primary with an aggressive voter registration drive, hoping to stymie him in the fall. That effort failed, but has potentially enlarged Cohen-Saban’s electoral base.

Speaking to JI, Novakhov urged his largely conservative constituents of all backgrounds to vote their conscience — and against the party of the mayor.

“Every Democrat elected is empowering today’s Democratic Party, which is hijacked by the socialists and antisemites, and is led by Mamdani,” he said. “So why help Mamdani?”