the New Boss of New York Politics

Zohran Mamdani’s shocking victory on this yr’s Democratic mayoral major was greater than only a win for a younger socialist assemblyman from Queens. It was the clearest signal but {that a} new form of political boss now dominates Democratic politics in New York—one which makes use of the identical instruments because the outdated bosses however for extra rigidly ideological ends. The fashionable equal of Boss Tweed is the Working Households Occasion (WFP), which has leveraged state election legislation and different distinctive authorized benefits to wield main affect over Democratic politics within the Empire State.

Based in 1998 by a coalition of labor unions and progressive activists, the WFP was enabled by New York’s system of fusion voting. Not like most different states, New York permits one political celebration to cross-endorse a candidate of one other political celebration. The votes forged for a candidate on every of the celebration traces are aggregated, permitting minor events to be one thing greater than spoilers or gadflies.

For many years, this method benefited minor events just like the Conservative Occasion and the now-defunct Liberal Occasion, which wielded affect by lending or withholding their poll traces. However the Working Households Occasion has taken fusion politics to a brand new stage.

That’s partly because of a 2006 state court decision that struck down a New York legislation that had prohibited events from spending cash in different events’ primaries. With that restriction lifted, the WFP started to exert influence by funding, organizing, and working candidates in Democratic primaries throughout the state. It wasn’t simply endorsing anymore—it was utilizing its muscle to choose the winners of Democratic primaries.

The WFP additionally enjoys authorized benefits that make it particularly efficient. As a acknowledged political celebration underneath New York legislation, it could actually coordinate instantly with its candidates, one thing tremendous PACs can’t do. It will probably settle for contributions considerably bigger than these permitted for many particular person candidates—as much as $138,600 per donor. These funds could be spent in assist of WFP-backed candidates in major elections, giving the celebration an outsize presence in low-turnout races, the place only a few thousand votes can swing the end result.

The WFP deployed these instruments with precision in New York Metropolis’s 2025 mayoral major. Its marketing campaign centered not simply on boosting Mamdani but in addition on blocking his chief rival and the WFP’s longtime nemesis, Andrew Cuomo. The WFP inspired its supporters to rank anyone but Cuomo within the ranked-choice major election system.

The technique worked: Mamdani was ranked on almost 60 % of ballots, Cuomo on simply 45 %. Ranked-choice voting was bought to voters as a solution to help centrist candidates win primary elections; the WFP turned this idea on its head and used the system to ship a win to probably the most left-wing candidate within the major area.

The WFP’s energy additionally comes from its means to implement inside self-discipline, an necessary high quality for any political boss. In 2018, the celebration backed major challengers towards members of the State Senate’s Impartial Democratic Convention, a gaggle of reasonable Democrats who had damaged away from their fellow celebration members in Albany. Although the IDC had rejoined the mainline Democratic convention by the point of the first election, the Working Households Occasion nonetheless labored to defeat the senators, whom it deemed disloyal to the motion. When the votes had been tallied, all however two of the previous IDC members had gone right down to defeat.

The WFP continues to police its ranks. A former ally, State Senator Jessica Ramos, was as soon as a favorite of New York’s progressives. However after her personal mayoral bid stalled earlier this yr, she threw her support behind Cuomo’s candidacy. The WFP has already begun lining up a challenger—Assemblywoman Jessica González-Rojas—for a major struggle with Ramos in 2026.

The celebration might even broaden its formal authority over its members. Earlier than adjourning for the yr, the state legislature passed a bill giving the WFP’s state committee the ability to expel (or, because it’s recognized underneath New York legislation, disenroll) celebration members it believes aren’t in alignment with the celebration’s rules. Below present legislation, solely county celebration leaders can take away members for disloyalty. Not like the opposite acknowledged events, nevertheless, the WFP has no organized county committees. The brand new laws due to this fact lets the celebration train an influence that it beforehand lacked.

Few doubt that the laws was handed on the WFP’s urging. And few count on Governor Kathy Hochul, who desperately wants WFP assist for her personal reelection, to veto it. If the governor indicators it into legislation, the celebration will acquire a strong new weapon to implement ideological purity.

The WFP understands that machines aren’t constructed on message self-discipline alone—they require loyalists to occupy key positions. The outdated saying is true: personnel is coverage.

Since Mamdani’s major win, he has reshuffled his marketing campaign crew, appointing a longtime WFP apparatchik as his new campaign manager. The celebration’s former operatives now populate metropolis council workplaces, state legislative staffs, main unions, and influential nonprofits. Such a community would have impressed any Tammany Corridor ward heeler.

The Working Households Occasion speaks the language of social justice and grassroots democracy, however its strategies replicate an older, extra acquainted model of New York politics: grasp the foundations, management the levers of energy, and punish disloyalty. By adopting the techniques of town’s long-extinct political machines and updating them for twenty-first-century ideological warfare, the WFP has positioned itself as the brand new boss—one properly on its solution to dominating Democratic Occasion politics within the Empire State.

Picture by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu by way of Getty Photographs