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Hochul and Mamdani Teach Democrats a Vital Lesson in Party Unity

New York State’s governor and New York City’s mayor are illustrating how ideologically diverse Democrats can build winning coalitions.

To paraphrase a classic work, there is a specter haunting the Democratic Party, and its name is “socialism.” Or at least that’s what the mainstream American media would have you believe.

Whichever network I appear on, I’m sure to get a breathless question about the looming civil war between the progressive and moderate wings of my party.

It is treated as an article of faith that peaceful coexistence is an impossibility, and that any chance of unity will inevitably be subverted by the wily and newly empowered Democratic Socialists of America.

This narrative is oh-so-clean and fulfills the normal journalistic desire for conflict.

But the facts on the ground in 2026 suggest a far different reality, one that has been consistently developing over the last decade and that in truth offers new possibilities for the growth of the party.

The most powerful example is on display in my state: New York. Here, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul have formed a mutually beneficial and strikingly cohesive alliance. In the New York context, we are getting an object lesson in the ways both wings of our party actually need each other.

On many of the issues that matter, it is Mamdani who often sets the tone ideologically and moves Hochul leftward, a phenomenon we will see more frequently around the country.

The recent adoption by the state legislature of a pied-a-terre tax for NYC—asking a little more from those with expensive second homes—is an example of a progressive policy that Albany would never have passed on its own but felt it had to because of the grassroots energy created by Mamdani’s movement.

To be clear, this is not an entirely new reality. When I was elected mayor in 2013 on a platform of higher taxes on the wealthy to fund Universal Pre-K, my campaign created inexorable pressure on then-Governor Andrew Cuomo to act.

The difference now is that rather than resisting Mamdani at every turn (which was my experience with Cuomo), Hochul understands that the best way to both win elections and to govern is with the mayor by her side.

The governor has taken positions on taxation and on Mamdani’s enlightened Universal Childcare Plan that she otherwise might not have. But instead of the sky falling for her politically because she worked with a........

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