New York Mayor's Race Shows Us a Better Way To Run Elections
The good news is that change is not only possible but already happening, if you know where to look. Anyone looking for a good example of progress that matters should check out the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City. We'll get a nominee who represents a majority of us, and we're getting a campaign where candidates are working together instead of just tearing each other down.
This year marks the second time New York City voters will select mayoral nominees with ranked-choice voting (RCV), and that has made a huge difference. You don't have to be a math person to see how RCV has created different incentives and made the campaign better. Take it from someone who has run in races with and without ranked-choice voting: It's working for New York and would do the same in cities and states across the nation.
Our primary is the kind of race that would be a mess without RCV: 11 candidates, representing a range of ideologies, backgrounds, and neighborhoods. In most places, such crowded primaries could be won with as little as a quarter of the vote as candidates go on a negative blitzkrieg against anyone they see as a threat. That drives up the candidates' negatives and everyone else's frustration.
Such negativity won't work here. In a ranked-choice election, voters have the power to name their second and third choices. If no one has 50 percent of voters' first choices, the lowest candidates are dropped. If your first choice is eliminated, your vote counts for your second choice. This process continues until someone wins a majority. Essentially, we turned the primary into an instant runoff that everyone can participate in, and that produces a winner with the widest and deepest support.
This explains why the New York mayoral race is seeing campaigns that otherwise might look—well, a little weird.
Queens assemblyman Zohran Mamdani—running second behind former governor Andrew Cuomo in most polls—urged his supporters to donate to one of his opponents, council speaker Adrienne Adams. Mamdani and Brad Lander, running third, cross-endorsed each other two weeks ago and encouraged their followers to rank them one-two, in whatever order. Mamdani, Adams, Lander, and Zellnor Myrie have locked arms and done multiple campaign events together.
All because voters can express support for multiple candidates. In a ranked-choice system, you can't write off voters who support another candidate—instead, it pays to talk to them, explain where you have common ground with their first-choice candidate, and ask to be their second choice.
Newspapers, unions, community groups, and even star politicians are getting in on the fun, too—endorsing several candidates, in order of preference.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 24: People vote in the mayoral primary election at the Park Slope Armory YMCA on June 24, 2025 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 24: People vote in the mayoral primary election at the Park Slope Armory YMCA on June 24, 2025 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.Without RCV, we'd be seeing a completely different final few weeks of this campaign. Instead of debating issues, candidates would be demanding that those behind them in the polls drop out or risk playing spoiler.
I've seen the difference firsthand. When I sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, I stood on the debate stage and watched allies take sledgehammers to each other. First they ran to the Left, then they ran over each other. Kamala Harris pounded Joe Biden over his stances on busing from the 1970s—a long-ago dispute that even became fodder for J.D. Vance in 2024. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, chasing the same progressive voters, made tiny distinctions into huge tempests.
Then, when I ran for mayor of New York in 2021—the first time the city used RCV—everything felt different. I lost, but the race was better. Don't get me wrong: All of us wanted to win. But when the election wasn't a zero-sum game, most of us took quite different paths that were much more voter-friendly. For example, I urged my supporters to rank Kathryn Garcia as their second choice. Kathryn and I spent the last weekend before the election campaigning together. No one had to drop out, and voters got to decide.
Some people accused us of trying to game the system—and have said the same about candidates and organizations that are "cross-endorsing" this year. That's silly. We were trying to engage more voters, right out in the open. That's not a game; it's what campaigns are supposed to be about. Ranked choice encourages candidates to go out and talk to more voters.
Of course, not everything in a ranked-choice campaign is sunshine and roses. There are still sharp elbows. As this campaign ends, the two leading candidates will draw sharp distinctions.
The race is also seeing some trends that we see in almost every Democratic primary—activists from the Left and the center both trying to pull the party their way, and more charismatic politicians rising to the top. That's all natural. Ranked choice is here to give voters more choice, not to overturn the laws of physics and turn politics into a lovefest.
It would also be better if this was happening not in a party primary, but in an election open to all voters—and if Democrats made it easier for everyone to take part. There is no reason—beyond making it harder to participate—to have a February registration deadline for a June primary.
We shouldn't judge RCV against perfection, but against the old rules—where agreements between campaigns would be struck in back rooms. Candidates would be told to drop out, or maybe not to run in the first place. Then endorsements would be traded for a job, or a promise of support down the line. Voters would be kept in the dark. Those who wanted more choices would be out of luck.
Americans want more choices and new voices. They want winners chosen by majorities, who are accountable to all of us. The road to better elections and more accountable politicians will be long. Ranked-choice voting is an important first step. What's happening right now in New York City is the proof.
Andrew Yang is a businessman, lawyer, philanthropist, and former candidate for president of the United States. In July 2022, Yang, alongside Democrats, Republicans and Independents, launched the new Forward Party to give Americans more choice in our democracy.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
39 minutes ago
- Politico
Mike Lee Can't Stop Throwing Social Media Grenades. His Church Isn't Happy.
It was Father's Day morning, but Mike Lee was still hard at work on social media. Just before 11 o'clock, Lee posted an image of Vance Boelter, the man charged with murdering a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband a day earlier. 'This is what happens,' Lee captioned it, 'when Marxists don't get their way.' Ten minutes later, he posted again. 'Nightmare on Waltz Street,' he wrote, suggesting that Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz was to blame for the grisly murders. Lee's posts generated near-instant national backlash. His mentions filled with people calling on him to resign. Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat, cornered Lee at the U.S. Capitol the next night and gave him an earful. So did Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, another Minnesotan. A top aide in Smith's office wrote a letter to Lee's staffers rebuking them for 'making jokes' to 'compound people's grief.' It wasn't just Washington that was buzzing over Lee's response to the tragedy. It also set off a debate in Salt Lake City. At the global headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a discussion over how to respond — if at all — began in earnest, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Several of the church's senior leaders saw the posts and were concerned. Lee is a prominent Latter-day Saint, arguably the best-known elected Church member in the nation. His insensitive words were reflecting poorly on the faith at large. One church official estimated the backlash from Lee's posts would have severe repercussions for the church's public image, the first person said. As extreme as the situation was, the issue at the center of the firestorm was nothing new. For two-and-a-half years, Lee has been sliding deeper and deeper into a hyper-online echo chamber. Posts pepper his timeline during nearly every waking hour, and some at night. While staffers run his official accounts, Lee himself is the primary author behind the @BasedMikeLee account, according to two former advisers granted anonymity to speak openly, where he feeds conspiracy theories and attacks against the political left. It has become one of the more prolific pages on X, the site formerly known as Twitter: Last year, he posted about 36 times a day, a Salt Lake Tribune investigation found; in the first four months of this year, he was posting 100 times a day, or once every 15 minutes. Along the way, Lee has become a cult hero in some corners of the online political right. Last year, Lee's account had just over 200,000 followers; now, it's surpassed 600,000. He finds a wide range of uses for his online megaphone: criticizing 'leftists,' disparaging fellow Republicans, theologizing, philosophizing, conspiracizing. On occasion, he uses the account as a tool to communicate to constituents, as he did last month while trying to save face when his public lands proposal faced wide backlash. But more often, the account is something entirely different: In 2023, his posts threatening the Japanese prime minister were so outlandish that his account was flagged and temporarily suspended for 'impersonation.' Those who know Lee suggest the account isn't a new persona, but rather the senator in his natural state. 'I think it's definitely the same Mike Lee that I know,' said Ryan McCoy, a longtime friend and adviser. One of the two former advisers suggested it is 'Mike Lee unfiltered.' Lee and his office did not respond to several requests for comment on this story. The more his online following cheers, the more Lee seems to dig in. 'There's the human-nature side of it,' said the former adviser. 'All of a sudden, you have 600,000 people caring about what you have to say. How can you resist that?' But for Lee's church, that bellicose online alter ego poses a problem. Even as some Christian denominations have delved into Christian nationalism or partisan politics during the Trump era, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly referred to as the Mormon Church) has consistently called on members to do the opposite: to be 'peacemakers' in the civic square. Russell M. Nelson, the church's president and prophet since 2018, has portrayed it as an assignment from God, encouraging members not to retreat from public discourse, but to enter and build 'bridges of understanding.' There is no partisan undertone — leaders are explicit that Latter-day Saints can belong to any political party. Regardless of political affiliation, the church is calling on its members to be on the frontlines of finding common ground. It has arguably become the central message of Nelson's tenure as the church's president. Lee, both as a keyboard warrior and flesh-and-bones legislator, is consistently getting in the way. For the first time in recent memory, the church has a high-ranking member in Washington not just failing to cooperate on some of its key priorities, but sometimes actively impeding them. While larger, more established faiths may not pay much heed to the antics of a single member, Latter-day Saints have a different challenge: They make up just two percent of the national population, and nearly half of Americans say they don't know a single church member. The actions and reputation of the church's faithful in public spaces — Congress, perhaps, being the most influential — plays a significant role in the public's perception of the church itself. Lee eventually removed the two posts about the Minnesota assassinations. But he never publicly apologized. The Deseret News, the Salt Lake City-based paper owned by the church, rebuked Lee in an editorial, calling on him to apologize and recognize his mistake. 'The tweets were unacceptable for anyone, let alone from a member of the Senate,' the editorial board wrote. 'It revealed a lack of compassion for both victims and their loved ones and cast a poor light on Utah, the state Sen. Lee represents.' The church, however, made the decision to stay quiet. Top-down, public rebukes of individual members are very rare in the faith, much less when action could be seen as a partisan exercise and further exacerbate tensions. The church, as an institution, has a strict political neutrality policy; its members, while encouraged to be Christ-like, are to act as they wish. But the incident brought to a boil something that had been simmering in Salt Lake City for some time. 'Mike Lee is far-right,' said one emeritus general authority, a former high-ranking church official, granted anonymity to speak openly. 'The church is not far-right.' The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, by many metrics, a traditionally conservative institution. It promotes the nuclear family as the core unit of healthy societies. Women are unable to hold top leadership positions. Members of the LGBTQ+ community are welcome to participate in church life, but may not marry or have sex. Its members have largely followed the same conservative tack: Though the share of Latter-day Saints who identify as Republicans has plummeted during the Trump era, a majority still hold conservative social views. Trump carried Utah all three times he was on the ballot. But in recent years, as other conservative Christian denominations wade headlong into the culture war, the church has charted a countercultural direction. Instead of doubling down on the hot-button topics — race relations, LGBTQ+ issues and the like — leaders have attempted formal engagement with groups others might see as hostile to the church. It formed a partnership with the NAACP to fund education and employment programs. It worked with advocacy groups to negotiate state and federal legislation codifying rights for the LGBTQ+ community while protecting religious liberty. The result was 'an effective truce on gay-rights issues nationwide,' Sasha Issenberg wrote in POLITICO Magazine. Some might see these efforts as minimal. But for a church that was a leading supporter of Proposition 8 in California less than two decades ago, it is a marked shift. Instead of leaning into far-right pseudo-Christianity, the church is paving a way 'antithetical to Christian nationalism,' the author and Brookings Institution scholar Jonathan Rauch wrote in his new book, Cross Purposes. It's more than just being 'nice' — it's actively working to partner with would-be enemies to find common ground. 'At the risk of exaggerating or oversimplifying (but only a little), one could put what [the church] is saying this way: Never dominate, always negotiate — because that is God's plan,' Rauch wrote. At the frontlines of this push is Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the church's highest governing body, the First Presidency. (He is the second-in-command to Nelson, the church's president.) A lawyer by trade, Oaks enjoyed an impressive career — as law professor at the University of Chicago, president of Brigham Young University and justice on the Utah Supreme Court — before entering ecclesiastical service. If Nelson is the chief architect on peacemaking, Oaks is its biggest proponent. Oaks has enunciated the theory in sermons and speeches. At the University of Virginia in 2021, Oaks taught that defending the Constitution requires us to honor the 'moral and political imperative of reconciling existing conflicts and avoiding new ones.' Oaks was clear that Latter-day Saints must not compromise their values or beliefs, but should be less forceful toward those who disagree. In a pair of sermons in the church's General Conference — the keynote semiannual event for church members — Oaks denounced rabid partisanship. 'On contested issues,' he said in April 2021, 'we should seek to moderate and unify.' Oaks' counsel received mixed reactions. Latter-day Saints view their leaders as literal prophets who receive guidance from God. But among some church members, the call to 'moderate' was a step too far. 'Don't get me wrong, we love our church leaders,' said Layne Bangerter, a former Trump administration official. 'They can share their opinions. But don't tell us to moderate.' Being a 'fence-sitter,' Bangerter added, 'is against everything we've been taught to do.' (Oaks, in another speech, said Latter-day Saints should not 'compromise our principles and priorities,' but 'cease harshly attacking others for theirs.') Lee, for many of these disgruntled Latter-day Saints, has become their political standard-bearer. On social media, he's forceful and brash, often cloaking his attacks in religious language. 'Which of your favorite scriptural and historical heroes could have succeeded had they treated 'suburban niceness at all costs' as their first article of faith?' Lee posted last year. Where some see Lee as an obstructionist, more willing to vote 'no' than engage in debate, his allies see him as unapologetically tethered to principle. 'He's an absolute bulldog,' said Don Peay, a friend and the former 'Utahns for Trump' chair. 'He didn't compromise, and what did he get us? Three conservative Supreme Court justices.' Lee was initially perturbed by Donald Trump. He was offended that Trump would push a conspiracy theory about the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Lee's friend. He was irked by Trump's 'religiously intolerant' statements. He recognized that Trump, at the time, was 'wildly unpopular' in Utah, thanks in part to the state's history of religious persecution. And, in a true Lee sense, he wanted 'some assurances' that Trump would be 'a vigorous defender for the U.S. Constitution.' At the 2016 Republican National Convention, Lee led a protest on the opening day to change the rules — that could have, in theory, allowed for a vote to block Trump from getting the nomination. And in October, when Access Hollywood leaked a video of Trump bragging about sexually harassing women, Lee called on the Republican nominee to drop out. 'If anyone spoke to my wife, or my daughter, or my mother, or any of my five sisters, the way Mr. Trump has spoken to women, I wouldn't hire that person,' Lee said in a Facebook video. 'And I certainly don't think I'd feel comfortable hiring that person to be the leader of the free world.' Trump won, and Lee eventually came around. Lee told The Atlantic's Tim Alberta he gave Trump an ultimatum shortly after the 2016 election: Adopt my priorities — fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, constitutional government — and we'll be friends. 'I got to know him as a person,' Lee told Alberta. 'I realized that there's a lot more to him than people realize. He has deep empathy for Americans. You find him to be a genuinely likable person.' Others maintain a more cynical view: That Lee was gearing for a seat on the Supreme Court — a position Trump dangled in front of Lee, albeit briefly, when the seat eventually filled by Justice Brett Kavanaugh opened up in 2018. It was an awkward position for the church. U.S. Latter-day Saints, though overwhelmingly conservative, were less enthusiastic about Trump than any Republican presidential nominee in decades. The faith's leadership — which pride themselves as strictly nonpartisan — nonetheless issued public statements critical of the travel ban on Muslim countries. In some instances, Lee's allegiance was helpful — he collaborated with the White House to retrieve foreign missionaries at the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and a Latter-day Saint imprisoned in Venezuela. But the church seemed to keep Lee at arm's length. Months before the 2020 election, Mitt Romney, Utah's junior senator at the time, was invited to the church's headquarters in Salt Lake City to brief the 15 senior leaders about the race. (He told them it was a choice between 'an awful person' or 'awful policies,' according to McKay Coppins' 2023 biography Romney: A Reckoning, which I helped research.) Lee, meanwhile, was invited to Arizona to campaign with Trump. Lee wasn't expecting to speak, but midway through the rally, Trump's team handed him a microphone and told him to deliver a short speech. Frazzled and sweaty, Lee stumbled through a plea to evangelicals and to his Spanish-speaking ' hermanos.' 'And to my Mormon friends, my Latter-day Saint friends,' he said, 'think of him' — pointing to Trump — 'as Captain Moroni.' The reference to a hero from the Book of Mormon, considered sacred scripture by Latter-day Saints, was jarring to many church members. Lee continued the analogy, paraphrasing scripture: 'He seeks not power, but to pull it down. He seeks not the praise of the world — or the fake news — but he seeks the well-being and the peace of the American people.' The comparison was deeply embarrassing to top church leaders and widely unpopular among Latter-day Saints in Utah. Lee wrote a long-winded Facebook post explaining his thinking, evading an apology. But Utahns kept a long memory. Former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a fellow Latter-day Saint, is still perplexed by the statement. 'It was like, seriously, he didn't say that, right?' Herbert said. 'That's a joke, right?' After Trump lost the election, Lee aided Trump's legal teams contesting the result. He eventually voted to certify the election, however, and said what occurred on January 6 was a 'very bad thing.' But as the January 6 Commission later pieced together evidence about the attack on the Capitol, a series of text messages between Lee and then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows surfaced, which made clear Lee was far more involved in exploring legal avenues to overturn the 2020 election than he let on. Lee denied any wrongdoing. Not everyone believed him: When friends would ask Romney about his relationship with Lee, Romney would pointedly remind them that Lee, 'a supposedly strict constitutionalist, had spent months trying to help a president remain in power despite losing his election,' Coppins wrote. Romney was the Mormon golden child, the most prominent Latter-day Saint politician in history, a true posterchild for the church. He was not universally loved by Latter-day Saints, but his influence on the church is unquestionable: He saved the scandal-ridden 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City; his two presidential campaigns brought more attention to the church than perhaps any other political events in U.S. history. Shortly after his 2012 loss, when it appeared his political career was over, a Latter-day Saint apostle gave him a blessing and promised that 'this is just the beginning' of his career in government. The prophecy came to fruition less than a decade later. When Romney was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2019, Lee, technically, was the senior senator from Utah. But that designation appeared to be in name only, given Romney's national stature. Lee quickly grew to hate being in Romney's shadow, according to the two former advisers. The two senators had conflicting perspectives on governing: Lee, the ex-lawyer, was a staunch conservative, prone to opposing legislation if it didn't fully match his worldview, while Romney, the former business executive, was a pragmatist first and a conservative second. Lee had spent eight years in the Senate, but few recognized him outside Washington or Utah. Romney was the most recognizable Latter-day Saint alive. It didn't help that Lee had a shaky relationship with Sen. Orrin Hatch, Romney's predecessor. Hatch, the Senate president pro tempore, was a titan — his four decades of service made him the longest-serving senator alive at the time of his retirement. But he and Lee frequently butted heads, and Lee refused to endorse Hatch's final reelection campaign. Six years later, Hatch handpicked Romney as his successor. Romney, for his part, tried to make amends. Surprised that his predecessor and Lee rarely met with one another, Romney in 2019 pitched Lee on a weekly breakfast meeting, an opportunity to synchronize their work and build camaraderie. Sometimes, the hour-long meetings were productive: early on, the two senators agreed to combine their constituent services staff to allow for streamlined help on issues from passports to veterans' benefits. The arrangement was believed to be the first of its kind in the Senate. In 2022, an opportunity to engage in religious liberty legislation arose. It was a pet topic for both senators, and a key priority for the church. The Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the Democratic-controlled House that July, was a way to codify the same-sex marriage rights the Supreme Court granted in Obergefell, and to prevent the Court from reversing course in the future (as Justice Clarence Thomas opened the door to in his concurring opinion in Dobbs). But some religious groups — the church included — were concerned it contained no religious liberty protections. They faced a choice: Wage a contentious fight against same-sex marriage, akin to the church's 2008 opposition to Proposition 8 in California, or find a way to strike a well-intentioned compromise. Top church leaders settled on the latter, seeing the opportunity in a similar light to the so-called 'Utah Compromise,' a 2015 package passed by the Utah state legislature that provided nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ individuals in housing and employment while safeguarding religious liberty. 'It gave neither position all that it sought,' Oaks said of that compromise, but granted both positions 'benefits that probably could not have been obtained' otherwise. That the church was willing to wade into a national legislative battle was evidence of just how important it was to church leaders, who often exercise extreme prudence on such matters. 'They're fully aware of the charge of theocracy that's oftentimes leveled against the church and its leaders,' said Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon Studies at Utah State University. 'Mormons and Catholics have always had that albatross around our necks.' As negotiations on the Respect for Marriage Act began in Washington, a bipartisan group of senators, including Romney, settled on an amendment that would prevent religious institutions from being forced to host same-sex marriages and protect religious tax exemptions. Oaks himself was involved, approving the amendment's early language, said one person with direct knowledge who was granted anonymity to speak freely. But it wasn't enough for Lee. He pushed his own amendment, including a preemptive blanket ban on the federal government retaliating against any person or group for adhering to a 'sincerely held religious belief' about marriage. A dozen of his Republican colleagues cosponsored the amendment. But a motley coalition of LGBTQ+ advocates and religious groups feared it would alienate Democrats and effectively tank the bill. Romney's coalition tried to engage with Lee, telling him their amendment would provide similar protections for religious groups, including religious universities' tax-exempt status, while maintaining broad support across coalitions. They noted the amendment explicitly called for 'proper respect' for 'reasonable and sincere' religious people. But Lee proved unwilling to negotiate at all — not with those fellow Republicans who had drawn up the other amendment, and not even with his own church which had signaled support. 'This bill pays lip service to protecting religious liberty, but does not even begin to address the most serious, egregious and likely threats,' Lee said in a floor speech. His amendment failed, while the other one — and the bill — passed. For the first time, the church had waded directly into a legislative issue Lee was working on — and had landed on the opposite side. The church felt Lee's amendment was unnecessary. 'As signed into law, the Respect for Marriage Act included valuable provisions to assure that no federal or state laws could be used to harm the religious or conscience rights of faith-based institutions or their members,' Oaks said. 'And it specifically provides that its own provisions cannot be used to violate anyone's rights to religious freedom.' To Lee, Oaks is more than a religious leader, the next in line to lead the global faith: He is a close family friend. Oaks recruited Lee's father to Chicago and taught him there. The two served together in volunteer church assignments. When Oaks, then president of Brigham Young University, spearheaded the formation of the J. Reuben Clark Law School, he hired Rex Lee as its first dean. In 1996, when cancer prematurely cut the elder Lee's life short, Oaks spoke at the funeral. 'Rex Lee sought first to build up the kingdom of God,' Oaks said in his eulogy. Mike Lee has told friends that there's 'probably not someone on earth that's more close to his father — in philosophy, in the way that he thinks — than President Oaks,' said McCoy, Lee's longtime friend. The relationship between Lee and Romney didn't get much better, either. The incident laid bare differences in legislative styles between Romney, a former executive, and Lee, a trained lawyer. 'Mitt looks for reasons to say yes to legislation,' one ex-Romney staffer noted. 'Mike looks for reasons to say no.' But Lee seemed to hold another grudge. A month earlier, he'd successfully defeated Evan McMullin, a former independent presidential candidate, in what was the most expensive Senate race in Utah history. Lee had run a careful, buttoned-up campaign, with multiple advisers greenlighting every social media post. Romney withheld an endorsement, claiming that both Lee and McMullin were his 'friends.' Lee's campaign cut their losses and decided not to push for Romney's backing. When Lee booked an interview on Fox News with Tucker Carlson weeks before the election, the campaign specifically asked Carlson's producers not to ask about Romney, the two former Lee advisors recalled. But Carlson, who has publicly signaled his distaste for Romney, 'couldn't help himself,' a former adviser said. Lee ended up taking the bait and begging for Romney's endorsement on live television — and for donations from each of Romney's five sons. (Carlson did not respond to a request for comment.) The stunt was more embarrassing for Lee than it was productive. Romney never endorsed, nor did his family donate. Lee seemed to maintain a grudge, and shortly after the election, his office notified Romney's that their joint constituent service agreement would end. 'We were determined to not let electoral politics get in the way of it,' recalled Liz Johnson, Romney's chief of staff at the time. Lee didn't seem to feel the same way: two former Romney staffers said they were notified the decision was made because Romney didn't endorse. Lee's office didn't respond to a request for comment on the decision, nor did Romney. In late April, Oaks returned to Brigham Young University for a campus-wide commencement ceremony. At 92 years old, Oaks has dedicated the final chapter of his life to the work of peacemaking and bridgebuilding. He is cognizant his work is not always popular — he and other church leaders are 'well aware that you can't just command people to believe something,' Rauch, the Brookings scholar, said in an interview — but that doesn't stop him from speaking of the Constitution's divine mandate for unity whenever possible. Dressed in his old Chicago doctoral gown, Oaks hobbled to the podium and offered a brief discourse. His comments were short, focused on the ceremony's honorary degree recipient. But he closed with an impassioned plea: to commit to 'the divinely inspired principles of the United States Constitution.' Lee was in attendance. It was his first public visit to BYU, the private religious institution, since Trump had retaken office. During the first three months of the Trump administration, Lee had been one of the chief cheerleaders, praising DOGE's overhaul of the federal government and Trump's efforts to strip Harvard University of federal funding. It was one of Lee's most frequent arguments in recent months: Any university that taught 'anti-God' and 'anti-American' ideology should be stripped of their tax-exempt status. BYU showed the courtesy of recognizing Lee, an alumnus, at the beginning of the service; Lee offered the courtesy of spending the duration of the ceremony glued to his phone. Sitting with his legs crossed, Lee sent out a flurry of tweets. Two were related to the speeches — praising a mention of families and jabbing liberal universities. Others were completely unrelated, denouncing ' leftist misinformation campaigns ' and retweeting CNN personality Scott Jennings. When Oaks arose to speak, Lee's face was illuminated by his phone's soft glow.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Mamdani's rise in NYC could open the door for an AOC presidential run
Everybody seems to be watching as Zohran Mamdani campaigns for New York City mayor. His win could open the floodgates for a socialist movement within the Democratic Party. As the Democrats continue to soul-search in the wake of President Donald Trump's recapture of the White House, certain members of the left view this as an opportunity to appropriate the party for their own means. Democrats are still searching for a path forward, and a socialist rebellion within the party could be it. We'll know if that is the case from the 2026 midterm elections, but the socialist left will have its first test this fall. New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani's fate in the November New York City mayoral race could be a forecast for the fate of far-left candidates in the 2026 and 2028 federal elections. Success by Mamdani, a democratic socialist, could then lead to the presidential campaign of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. His failure could end her run before it starts. Democrats will decide that in November. Socialists looking to expand foothold in Democratic Party Trump proved that a populist force could win by being disruptive, even if the party establishment is against them at the beginning. The very same can happen to Democrats as socialists and liberals work to respond to MAGA's takeover. A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that young adults actually slightly favor socialism over capitalism, and that 42% of young Democrats had favorable views of democratic socialist political leaders. As this group ages further into the electorate, the socialists already established see an opportunity to increase their presence, and those looking to break into positions of power are taking advantage of it. With Mamdani, Democrats flirt with full-tilt socialism. But his plan is alarming. | Opinion Mamdani's jump to the Democratic nominee for mayor is one such example. At the same time, America's most well-known (and perhaps most politically competent) young democratic socialist, AOC, has likely set much higher goals. The de facto leader of the democratic socialist movement, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, doesn't seem to be running for president a third time, but he has been helping AOC raise her national profile through their 'fighting oligarchy tour,' a speaking tour in which the pair spread their anti-elite message. AOC has not made an explicit indication of whether she would be gunning for the 2028 presidential nomination. Still, others have speculated she may pursue Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's seat in 2026, and polls indicate she may have a good opportunity to challenge that seat. The Democratic Party is lost in the wake of Trump's second presidential victory, and the longer the Democrats drift through the second Trump presidency without direction, the more opportunity radicals will have to capture that direction for themselves. Opinion: What can Republicans learn from a New York socialist? A great deal, actually. Socialists have their first major test of the cycle soon One of the reasons I have argued that Democrats need to begin finding their footing now is so that they don't get swept into the same populist trap that Republicans have had their party captured by since 2016. Success from candidates like Mamdani is evidence of this trend already beginning, and that liberal voters might be ready to speed things along. Mamdani won his primary just weeks ago, but he is already back on the campaign trail against several other candidates who are bickering over whom to coalesce support behind. A rejection of Mamdani in November would be a serious blow for the prospective AOC presidential campaign, as well as other socialists looking to make a political leap. AOC and her allies are likely to see the success of Mamdani as evidence of socialist viability, at least enough so in progressive cities to make the prospect of a presidential run enticing. While they should be careful against extrapolating success in New York to potential success at a statewide or national scale, Mamdani's victory still could be a good omen for socialists expanding their profile. Democrats face a dilemma: choosing between alienating parts of the left and integrating socialists into their movement, a challenge they also encountered when navigating Sanders' issues in the 2016 and 2020 presidential races. Democrats and Americans generally will learn a great deal more about the seriousness of this trend over the next several years. AOC will be watching and waiting. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Young Democrats have called for a rebrand. They're vying to replace the party's old guard
In southern Arizona on Tuesday, Foxx is one of several Democrats hoping to step into a deep blue seat left vacant by the death of Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a longtime political power broker in Tucson. He had become one of the most senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill over two decades in Congress. Grijalva's daughter, Adelita, is one of the contenders, and three Republicans are vying in the GOP primary. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up But the push for younger leaders won't end there. In next year's midterm elections, primary challengers have already begun to emerge in states like California and Indiana that will give Democratic voters choices between longtime lawmakers and younger candidates. Advertisement In Georgia, for example, 80-year-old Democratic Rep. David Scott's decades-long legacy could end with a primary he's expected to join. This has drawn challengers fed up with his refusal to step aside despite years of concern about his declining health and rare public appearances. The primary got crowded almost a year after former President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 election race amid similar scrutiny over his age. Advertisement Challenging well-connected candidates can be daunting, but progressive leaders say the moment calls for urgency. 'Passing of the torch implies the leaders are handing it off,' said Amanda Litman, head of a group called Run for Something that bolsters progressive young candidates. 'What we're seeing right now is, the new generation is taking the torch. They're not waiting for it to be passed.' Campaigning online Many Boomer and Gen Z candidates alike have largely abandoned the traditional playbook of spending millions on TV ads in favor of TikTok and social media. But it's a pivot that older political hands would recognize from an older playbook: meeting voters where they are. Foxx, a digital strategist, led influencer strategy for Kamala Harris' 2020 presidential campaign bid. On TikTok, she speaks to nearly 400,000 followers, saying she'd be the first woman of 'our' generation elected to Congress. In 2022, Florida voters elected the generation's first congressman — Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost. The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, which Frost co-chairs, has endorsed Adelita Grijalva. Foxx has leaned into popular Gen Z internet slang in branding her district tour 'Crashout or Congress.' 'Does the news make you feel like you're about to crash out? Be honest,' Foxx posted. Foxx said her campaign turned a corner after a primary debate in late May, when some clips of her performance drew the eyes of millions and helped spark a fundraising boost. If Scott seeks another term in his suburban Atlanta district, he'll face several candidates in the Democratic primary next May: microbiologist and state Rep. Jasmine Clark, 42; state Sen. Emanuel Jones, 66; and 33-year-old Everton Blair, former chair of the state's largest school district. Scott's campaign did not respond to requests for an interview. Advertisement Clark racked up 7,000 TikTok followers after a popular influencer reposted her. She occasionally pops in with solutions to people's problems on NextDoor and is sometimes recognized as a podcast host instead of a state representative. She says Republicans have done a better job at saturating social media with their messaging. 'Instead of looking at Republicans and wagging our fingers at them, we could take some lessons from them,' she said. Message or messenger? Voters have been crushed by high living costs, Clark said, but Republicans, not Democrats, have been the ones to tell people their pain is real — even though Democrats have better ideas for fixing things. Blair agreed that Democrats have better policy prescriptions for addressing voters' economic concerns, but he said too many longtime lawmakers have stifled the party's ability to get that message across. He said President Donald Trump is fattening the wallets of billionaires but cheating low- and middle-income voters 'out of the American dream.' 'We have an incumbent who is just not doing the job, and we need a better fighter,' Blair said. 'The stakes are just too high.' Young people have grown up in a political climate dominated by algorithms, said 21-year-old Akbar Ali, first vice chair of the Democratic Party in Gwinnett County, home to some of Scott's district. That gives them a built-in understanding of how information spreads today, he said, but doesn't replace on-the-ground outreach to voters of all ages. He said Scott's physical absence is palpable, both in the community and as a voice in Congress. 'A lot of people are upset on a national level because we can't hit back with enough vigor.' he said. Advertisement Adelita Grijalva carries a household name in Tucson and is regarded as the frontrunner. To Foxx, Grijalva benefits from her 'legacy' last name. Grijalva, who has received several endorsements, including from Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, has pushed back. She said she brings her own credentials to the table. Her father was progressive and antiestablishment, and she said she is, too. But Foxx, who benefited personally from some government programs the Trump administration has slashed or is looking to slash, said Democrats need to do more to reach new voters. 'We are bringing people into this party, into this democracy, who have felt left out — by and large young people and working-class folks,' Foxx said. A positive vision In New York City, 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani recently won the mayor's race with an upbeat campaign that leaned heavily on TikTok and emphasized finding new ways to make city life more affordable. In an era where so many young people doubt they'll ever be better off than their parents, they're increasingly willing to ditch pragmatism for bold policy platforms, said David Hogg. Hogg was removed from his leadership role with the Democratic National Committee, which said his election broke party rules. His decision not to run again followed his push to oust long-serving Democrats in safe congressional seats. He has not backed away from his vow to primary 'asleep-at-the-wheel' Democrats with fresher faces. People of all ages want a fighter who understands what's at stake as Trump cuts Medicaid and other programs that millions of Americans rely on, Hogg said. That's why his political action committee, Leaders We Deserve, endorsed Foxx. Young voters were key to Democratic wins in recent years, but some swung to the right as Trump made gains in 2024. Hogg said he's looking for candidates to 'win them back' by talking about how change happens. Advertisement Older candidates can do that too, he said, but for better or worse, young people aren't yet 'jaded' by politics. 'In this dark moment, we need people who can provide us a general sense of hope, as crazy that can feel sometimes,' Hogg said. 'To believe that maybe things won't be as screwed up as they are now forever.'
