Democrats’ real vulnerability is on crime, not economics

In 2025, Zohran Mamdani shocked the political world by winning the New York City mayoral race as a democratic socialist. Now, in his first term as mayor, he has shocked his own base with a decision no one on the left expected: He asked for more cops. 

His push to add 580 officers to the NYPD — over the objections of the chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America that helped elect him — says something important about where the Democratic Party’s real vulnerability lies. It isn’t where either the moderate or progressive left thinks.

In fact, the internal fight consuming the party now misreads what is actually killing left-wing governments across the world.

Between 2022 and 2023, left-wing governments held power in 13 countries across Latin America. Today, that number has collapsed to roughly five. The same contraction is visible in Europe, where Nordic countries long celebrated as models of humane governance have overhauled their criminal justice systems in response to surging gang violence — embracing punitive policies that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. 

In neither case was the collapse driven by rejection of left-wing economics. It was driven by crime — and that distinction matters more for Democrats than most party strategists would like to admit. Sixty-six percent of Democratic voters now view socialism favorably, up from 51 percent in 2012, according to Gallup. The ideology isn’t the liability. Public safety is.

American voters are not ambiguous about this. According to Pew Research Center data from 2025, public agreement with Republicans on handling crime has risen from 40 percent in 2023 to 45 percent. Over the same period, agreement with Democrats fell from 30 to 28 percent. Note that the gap between the........

© The Hill