Why Mamdanism Will Not Win Colorado

By Booker Lightman | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Zohran Mamdani’s upset victory in the New York City mayoral election has sparked excitement on the far left and dread on the right. Will Mamdani herald a new age of far-Left ascendancy? Fortunately for Republicans, his victory was contingent on factors specific to New York City that are not present in the rest of the country.

Mamdani’s voters were not scattered randomly throughout New York City. They were heavily concentrated in what political analyst Michael Lange calls the “commie corridor,” an area of Northern Brooklyn and Western Queens populated by a peculiar demographic – young, non-black, college-educated, middle-income, often without children, and often employed in the nonprofit sector. 

These were the people who voted for Mamdani and provided him with the money and volunteer energy he needed to win. 

There are far fewer of these kinds of voters in Pennsylvania steel towns, Arizona suburbs, the Las Vegas Strip, or Colorado. While the nonprofit sector makes up 18% of New York City’s non-governmental workforce, the figure for Colorado is just 7%.

New York City’s many left-wing nonprofits attract ideological leftists from around the country, creating an unusual situation in which politically engaged, younger voters are a notable share of the electorate. 

In most of the country, including Colorado, the electorate skews older, with young people often expressing disinterest or contempt for politics. 

Politicians like feeling like they have the youth on their side, as young people are hip and cool, but the savvier among them know the middle-aged and elderly are more dependable voters, particularly in off-year elections.

Mamdani’s young, politically active fans provided his base, taking him over the finish line was his ability to tap into something that’s long been present in New York City’s politics: a sense of “class war” between renters and landlords. 

Many Mamdani voters were not ideological socialists; they weren’t attracted to his messages on Palestine, policing, or “queerness.” They liked his simple promise: I will freeze your rent. The real reason rent in New York City is so high is government regulations that make it difficult to build new housing: New York state ranks 41st in the country in new housing units authorized per existing housing unit. 

Rent control will only make the problem worse, yet to those looking for a simplistic, easy answer, Mamdani’s message was attractive.

Coloradans, like New Yorkers, are frustrated about rising housing costs. But they’re far more likely to own their own homes, with Colorado’s homeownership rate being 66% as opposed to 30% in New York City. And many Colorado renters want to eventually buy a home or condo; they’re not interested in waging a class war against landowners, they want to be a landowner. 

They’re more likely to understand that housing is expensive because too little of it is being built, a result of intrusive government regulations like minimum lot sizes, which prevent cities and suburbs from expanding.

A Mamdanist message may do well in already deep-blue Boulder and parts of Denver, but would fall flat in Colorado’s “swing” areas, the suburbs and mid-sized cities along the Front Range that contain the bulk of the state’s voters. These voters have homes, cars, and college degrees. They work for private, for-profit companies. Many are older. 

The good news for Republicans is that these voters will be a firewall against Mamdanism, the bad news is that many of them find the current Colorado GOP to be equally unattractive. 

Republicans will have to win back these voters if we are to win back the state.

Booker Lightman is a Denver resident active in the local GOP.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.