The morning-after story of New York City’s dramatic mayoral primary rightly remained about former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Considering the onetime heavy-handed boss threatened with impeachment by his own party was pronounced politically dead only four years ago, Cuomo did quite well with 36.4% against Assemb. Zohran Mamdani’s 43.5% in election-night counting.

Name recognition, money, prominent backers, and experience couldn’t win back the necessary level of respect of the Democratic Party in which Cuomo grew up. His early polling lead collapsed. Graciously, but in minimalist fashion, the former governor conceded defeat on Tuesday.

"Tonight is his night. He deserved it. He won," said Cuomo, now 67. The prospect of Cuomo mounting an independent run in November against Mamdani, and against a party-scorned incumbent Eric Adams, and against previously failed GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa, is raw speculation at this point.

Suddenly at the doorway of vast municipal power is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, who put forward extravagant promises of free bus service, free child care, a freeze on rents, and city-run grocery stores. He never demonstrated how to arrange for the many billions it would all cost. Vowing new programs without accounting for them has become a growing scourge in successful campaigns. Cuomo said Mamdani hasn’t accomplished anything in his short career.

This primary race revealed a generation gap among voters more than a class conflict — at a moment when the age of our national leaders is widely perceived as a problem.

Mamdani, 33, a third-term assemblyman, took office in Albany a few months before Cuomo resigned. He’s an inexperienced novice in relevant ways. He’s a Muslim of Indian origin raised in Uganda before his parents brought him to the U.S. He’s a graduate of Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College where he majored in Africana studies, which his professor father, Mahmood, has taught at Columbia University.

City and state politics are so intertwined that Mamdani’s unexpected rise sends shock waves through the state and even the nation. In a moment of deep partisan alienations, the viral tabloid frenzy and denunciation of Mamdani’s unabashed anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian posture will be rhetorically useful to the reelection of GOP Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

The intraparty blowback began quickly. Rep. Laura Gillen distanced herself from Mamdani, calling him "too extreme," "the wrong choice for New York" and alleged "a deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable antisemitic comments."

President Donald Trump’s constant trashing of Democratic-run "sanctuary" cities had invited Mamdani's grandiose boast that his candidacy is the president’s "worst nightmare." Or could the nightmare be Gov. Kathy Hochul’s? She faces reelection next year, looking again to travel a tightrope between progressives and centrists — another opportunity for GOP challengers to link her to those they call party extremists.

Socialist or not, Mamdani’s fans in large part include the well-off and well-educated, of which he is one. His mother, for example, is a noted filmmaker, and Mamdani attended Bank Street, a prestigious private school, before Bronx Science.

Not everyone is convinced Mamdani is destined for the finish line despite capturing the dominant party nomination. Some remember how in 2021 Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown won a fifth term with a write-in campaign. He did this after losing the primary to India Walton, a Democratic Socialist whose win panicked the state party.

This week, there’s no denying that the mood, or ideology, or political sensibility of America’s largest city has shifted, a reaction that uniquely belongs to a tense time across the U.S.

Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.