Panic in the Hamptons: The fight to stop Zohran Mamdani [View all]

Panic in the Hamptons: The fight to stop Zohran Mamdani
Behind closed doors, rich donors plotted to stop a movement reshaping NYC politics — and exposed their deeper fears

By Russell Payne
Staff Reporter
Published October 30, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Conversations around the effort to defeat insurgent mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have often started with a seemingly unrelated question: “Do you summer in the city?” At least they did for much of this past summer, when the ruling class of New York City still believed that a well-funded unified campaign to defeat the democratic socialist was on the table. Now, as Election Day draws near and a sense of fatalism sets in, the highest echelons of wealth and power in Gotham are panicking as a bungled attempt to reassert an old order enters its final push and becomes a desperate scramble, not only in the city but also within the Democratic Party at large. The stakes are much higher than one mayoral election. It’s about whether or not the rich and powerful can still command politics in the beating heart of American capitalism.

....(snip)....

Essentially, the plan revolved around the hope that Mamdani’s young supporters wouldn’t come out again to support him in November, at least not to the degree they had in the Democratic primary, and that the anti-Mamdani resistance could scrounge up about half a million voters who don’t normally vote in mayoral elections to support someone else — essentially, anyone else — this fall.

The event acted as a sort of preview for an effort grounded in one-on-one conversations and private meetings in which a collection of folks who were big names 30 years ago — dressed in nice suits and behind closed doors — voiced their concern not only over Mamdani’s plans for fast and free buses or to freeze rents for rent-stabilized apartments, but also over what they believe his rise represents: the end of an old political order and, potentially, the birth of a new one.

....(snip)....

From “Cuomosexual” to Trump whisperer

Most of the schemes to defeat Mamdani have revolved around different ways to consolidate the field behind former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was the preeminent politician in the stat for more than a decade before resigning in disgrace in 2021 following allegations of sexual harassment, which Cuomo denies. Though Cuomo denies having spoken with the president about the race, plans have sometimes included intervention from President Donald Trump’s White House, marking a figurative political enemies-to-lovers arc for the former governor, who was once beloved by the “#resistance” and who now, in an ironic twist of fate, stands as the candidate of many Trumpists in New York and beyond. .....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/10/30/panic-in-the-hamptons-the-fight-to-stop-zohran-mamdani/