Republicans are champing at the bit to use Mamdani to attack Dems

Republicans in New York finally have a real socialist to rail against when attacking Democrats. And they wasted no time weaponizing Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic primary victory against Gov. Kathy Hochul ahead of next year’s gubernatorial race. 

Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is exploring a run for governor, released a statement about an hour after the polls closed – before former Gov. Andrew Cuomo even publicly acknowledged his loss. And she made it very clear whom she blamed for Mamdani’s victory. “Make no mistake, it is BECAUSE OF Kathy Hochul and the NY Democrat Party’s inept weakness and sheer incompetence that this has happened,” Stefanik said. “Kathy Hochul and NY Democrats have fully embraced Marxism, antisemitism, anti-capitalism, and sheer insanity.” In fact, she used Hochul’s name six times in her short reaction to Democratic primary outcome. She didn’t use Mamdani’s name once. 

Stefanik called Hochul “the worst governor in America” who “got a Communist antisemite elected” as the Democratic nominee in the contest to run the largest city in the country. “And mark my words, Kathy Hochul, we are going to fire you in 2026 to SAVE NEW YORK,” she concluded. 

Not long after, Rep. Mike Lawler, a fellow potential GOP gubernatorial hopeful, struck a similar tone in a post of his own. “Tonight, Kathy Hochul and New York Democrats embraced the absolute worst of their party,” he wrote on X. “A radical, antisemitic socialist was just nominated to be the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City – and Kathy Hochul didn’t lift a finger to stop it from happening.” Lawler did deviate a little bit from the Hochul bashing to urge his followers to support Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor. But he closed out his message like Stefanik with an eye toward next year. “And make no mistake – Kathy Hochul and NY Democrats will pay the price for this insanity at the ballot box this November and next – when we elect our first Republican Governor since George Pataki,” Lawler wrote.

Lawler spent Wednesday needling Hochul on her measured non-endorsement of Mamdani. The governor released a statement on election night that stopped short of congratulating the presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor while acknowledging the success of his grassroots campaign and stating that she looked “forward to speaking with him in the days ahead about his ideas.” Lawler demanded that she make her stance clear. “Paging @GovKathyHochul: do you endorse @ZohranKMamdani for New York City Mayor?” he wrote on X, accompanied by a poll. The choices were “yes,” “no,” and “OMG FML.”

Stefanik took a different route. Instead of drawing attention to Hochul’s decision not to explicitly back the Democratic nominee, she treated her statement as a wholesale endorsement. “Finally, Hochul weighs in after clearly agonizing over her tweet,” she wrote on X. “Hochul is the leader of the NY Democrat Party and fully embraced the antisemitic, Communist nominee. She owns this catastrophe.”

A spokesperson for Hochul did not have additional comment about the GOP attacks on her in the wake of Mamdani’s victory and whether she would explicitly back him as the party nominee given her position at the head of the state party. The latter has been an issue before when a socialist won a Democratic primary for a major city in New York. After India Walton bested then-incumbent Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, state Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs declined to support the Democratic socialist victory, and drew scrutiny for making a KKK reference while explaining the non-endorsement. Hochul also declined to endorse, saying at the time – still new to the position of governor – she would make no local endorsements.

And it’s not just Hochul who is now catching strays from Mamdani’s victory. The National Republican Congressional Committee also jumped on the opportunity to tie vulnerable Democrats in Congress to Mamdani in the aftermath of the primary election in New York City. It shared an image labeled “Socialist Zohran and Friends” that depicted Mamdani alongside Reps. Tom Suozzi, Laura Gillen and Josh Riley. Sozzi and Gillen have already sought to distance themselves from their party’s presumptive mayoral nominee. “I had serious concerns about Assemblyman Mamdani before yesterday, and that is one of the reasons I endorsed his opponent,” Suozzi, who endorsed Cuomo, wrote on X. “Those concerns remain.” Gillen, whose race last year was tighter than Suozzi’s, used even stronger language in a statement. “Socialist Zohran Mamdani is too extreme to lead New York City… Beyond that Mr. Mamdani has called to defund the police and has demonstrated a deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable antisemitic comments,” she said in a statement. “He is the absolute wrong choice for New York.”

The state Senate Republican Campaign Committee put out a statement Wednesday naming seven Democrats in relatively nominal districts, demanding they denounce Mamdani. Those are James Skoufis and Pete Harckham in the Hudson Valley, Jessica Scarcella-Spanton on Staten Island, newly-elected Sam Sutton in Brooklyn, and Toby Ann Stavisky, Joe Addabbo and James Sanders Jr. in Queens. “If (they) won’t condemn Zohran Mamdani’s radical agenda, then they’re endorsing it,” the SRCC said in a statement. “It’s time for them to choose to stand with New York’s working families and law enforcement, or with the leader of the socialist fringe that’s going to destroy New York City and our state.”

President Donald Trump also weighed in on Mamdani’s win Wednesday afternoon, implying that top Democratic leaders were beholden to him now in easily the most personal attack on the socialist nominee. “We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting ridiculous,” Trump wrote on rightwing social media site Truth Social, and calling Mamdani a communist. “He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart, he’s got AOC+3, Dummies ALL, backing him, and even our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him.”