Two days after state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, Republicans at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference are casting the 33-year-old socialist as the new face of a “radical” Democratic Party, a bogeyman they hope will rally evangelical voters ahead of 2026.
With plans to raise taxes on the wealthy, freeze rent on over 1 million apartments, and champion city-run grocery stores, Mamdani has swiftly become a poster child for Republicans’ warnings about “radical socialist” Democrats.
Speakers at the conference, aimed at helping Republicans hold the House and Senate, seized on Mamdani’s win as a symbol of the Democratic Party’s hard-left turn, using it to paint the entire party with the same brush.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley did not hold back, pointing to Mamdani’s win as proof that the Democratic Party has veered far to the left.
“Look, what we just had happen in New York, antisemitic, anti-American, anti-capitalist, socialist communist won the primary to be the mayor,” Whatley said. “Every single Democrat in Washington and around the country said, ‘This is my guy.’”
Since Trump’s second election, Republicans have not had a clear-cut figure on the left to rally against. Now, they hope Mamdani, despite being a local candidate, can become that stand-in, a symbol of the Democratic Party’s most extreme ideas.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) mocked Mamdani’s platform as extreme and unworkable, warning that Democrats are embracing policies that would drive voters and businesses out of blue states.
“Just look at what happened in New York … they nominated a mayoral candidate that would make Bernie Sanders blush,” Youngkin said. “You know what his big idea is? Government-run grocery stores. Now let me be clear, the charm of the Department of Motor Vehicles combined with the efficiency of Maduro’s Venezuela, that’s where he wants New Yorkers to go for bread, milk, and eggs.”
“I will say, as governor of Virginia, I do get a little excited to think about all of the U-Hauls that are packing up in Manhattan right now on their way across the Potomac and into Virginia,” Youngkin added. “But it’s not just New York. This is the challenge that we continually face and why we have to continually remind ourselves that elections have consequences.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has been deep in negotiations over what Trump has dubbed his “big, beautiful” tax bill, took a break to join Faith & Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed onstage, where he warned that Mamdani’s win signaled a troubling shift for New York.
“I don’t want to pay for Caracas on the Hudson, which is what it looks like New York is going to turn into,” Bessent said to laughs from the crowd.
By targeting Mamdani, Republicans are hoping to shift the 2026 midterm elections from a typical referendum on the sitting president, an uphill battle for the party in power, to a clearer contrast between the GOP and what they portray as a far-left Democratic agenda.
Reed, speaking with reporters at an on-the-record lunch on Friday, said Mamdani’s rise is not just symbolic — it could reshape the political landscape. Comparing the moment to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 1993 win, he argued that if Mamdani wins the general election, it will define the Democratic Party in ways that could reverberate nationally.
“If he wins the general, it’s going to be a gamechanger, 100%,” Reed said. “The mayor of New York City is one of the most prominent political figures. Whether the Democrats like it or not, he won the primary, he’s helping to define that party in the same way that when Rudy won in ’93, he helped define us.”
“If he’s able to do what he says he wants to do, he’ll destroy it,” Reed added. “… In a fairly short period of time, [New York City] is going to look like it did pre-Rudy Giuliani, and it will be an unmitigated disaster.”
In the wake of the primary, Republicans are betting that Mamdani’s name and agenda will take center stage as they frame 2026 not as a referendum on the president, but as a choice between what they call “commonsense” conservatism and a Democratic Party they argue is moving decisively left.
MAMDANI GIVES REPUBLICANS OPENING TO TETHER DEMOCRATS TO SOCIALISM
“This is where the Democrats are going — they are open borders, inflationary spending, weak America,” Whatley said. “Right now, we know America needs better.”
A Mamdani spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.