President Donald Trump and most Republicans won in 2024 because they appealed to issues that ordinary working-class Americans cared about. They were willing to look past the multitude of red flags and chose to prioritize their ability to afford necessities to survive.

Democrats tend to be enforcers of propriety and spent too much time appealing to issues that didn’t increase voter turnout. Assemb. Zohran Mamdani is changing the narrative by focusing on issues affecting everyday Americans and directly impacting their quality of life [“Mamdani’s upset shakes the system,” News, June 26].

The Democratic Party is long overdue for a wave of fresh blood with new ideas that invigorate one of the most underrated voter populations, disenfranchised young people. Mamdani has shown that he can meet people where they are and knows how to use social media to his advantage. He knows what matters to the people he represents by supporting platform issues such as more affordable housing, no-cost child care, increasing minimum wage, and more. The wealthiest in our society need to contribute their fair share to support their fellow New Yorkers.

The city needs to champion this revolution, show courage where others won’t, and lead the nation in embracing the future of the Democratic Party.

As a New Yorker and a student of business and political science, I’ve been following Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic mayoral primary win, and his economic proposals are deeply concerning.

Freezing rents may sound like relief, but it discourages landlords from maintaining or even renting units. That reduces housing supply and worsens affordability. His expensive plan for public housing would be funded not just by wealthy taxpayers. High earners can — and will — leave. That leaves middle-class New Yorkers to carry the load.

Free bus service and government-run grocery stores aren’t innovative — they’re unsustainable. These ideas require constant taxpayer funding, risk pushing out small businesses, and expand inefficient city systems.

Policies like these may sound compassionate, but they ignore basic economics. There’s no such thing as free housing, free transit, or free groceries. Someone pays — and in New York, that someone is usually the working public.

Reform is needed, but Mamdani’s plan isn’t reform. It’s reckless.

You’d have to be an ostrich with its head in the sand not to hear the resounding cry rejecting corruption and business as usual that Zohran Mamdani’s win represents. We need to be thankful that young people are waking up and doing their civic duty by voting.

My generation helped bring an end to the Vietnam War with protests. These were protests that chilled the reigning generation, but eventually the objections of the young proved to be just and harbingers of a new morality in politics.

The generation of new voters has rejected corruption in government of the current city administration and the previous state administration.

I say to my older generation, yes, change is unnerving. Yes, a mayor who is 33 years would be inexperienced and unfamiliar with the ways of city politics, but how well have city politics been working?

Keep in mind that what politicians say to get elected is very different from what they say when in office. If elected, there would undoubtedly be revisions to some of Mamdani’s planned reforms. So let’s fasten our seat belts and usher in a new age.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino’s response to Zohran Mamdani’s political shocker is a classic example of the politics of distraction [“Blowback for Mamdani,” News, June 26].

Garbarino criticized Mamdani’s addressing food insecurity through public groceries by stating “government owned grocery stores didn’t work in Russia, and they sure as hell won’t work in New York City.”

The city already owns six public markets from the Bronx to Brooklyn. City public markets have operated for over 80 years since Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia revitalized them.

Garbarino allegedly slept through the House’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which passed 215-214. The bill proposes to reduce federal funding for Medicaid by roughly $700 billion and for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by about $300 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would increase the number of people without health insurance by about 10.9 million.

Perhaps Garbarino should focus more on saving Americans from the looming federal Medicaid and SNAP cuts than attacking innovative city policies to address food insecurity.

It’s disappointing to see leaders such as Rep. Laura Gillen parrot Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman by suggesting Zohran Mamdani’s comments are antisemitic. Mamdani, like many Americans, abhors the destructive war in Gaza being conducted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

I’m a Democrat who’s a senior and thrilled to see a true progressive, a democratic socialist like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, win the enthusiastic support of city voters.

Prominent Jewish New Yorkers such as city Comptroller Brad Lander and Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, support Mamdani’s success. Gillen, along with Nassau County Legis. Seth Koslow, should meet him and, hopefully, embrace his progressive platform. That is the way forward.

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