New York Democratic mayoral candidates Andrew Cuomo, Whitney Tilson, Zohran Mamdani, and Michael Blake at an NBC primary debate, June 4, 2025.Yuki Iwamura/Pool/AFP
For the first time in two decades, the Democratic Party has found itself without a clear political leader—or even an obvious frontrunner. Angry and adrift, voters are clashing with politicians over how to fight back.
They’re also dealing with an uncomfortable new reality: The communities that shifted furthest away from Democrats last fall were the same ones that for years formed the backbone of the party’s coalition—working-class, nonwhite, and immigrant-rich parts of blue cities and states.
Now the battle for the party’s future and reckoning over its recent past is coming to a head in New York City, where support for Democrats has cratered among Latino and Asian voters. In one of the first big tests of the party’s direction after Donald Trump’s reelection, Democrats will choose between radically different options for mayor: a centrist former governor in his 60s who resigned in disgrace, and a millennial democratic socialist whose rise in the polls has shocked the political establishment.
This week, Reveal heads to New York to talk to voters who ditched the Democratic Party in November—and looks at the party’s sometimes bitter fight to win them back.
