Monday, June 30: Mamdani is fighting a new type of ghost candidate

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The news, in brief …

• Sen. Thom Tillis announces retirement

  The North Carolina Republican announced his plans to leave the Senate a day after President Donald Trump attacked him on social media. Trump threatened to primary Tillis after he voted against advancing the president’s “big, beautiful” bill.

• Rod Stewart tears into Trump, Musk

  The legendary singer called the ex-DOGE chief a “d**khead” and trashed the president’s handling of the war in Gaza in a new interview. Read more.

• Trump plans to squeeze journos to find source of Iran leak

  Still embarrassed by an internal report that suggested U.S. strikes on Iran did not destroy their nuclear program, Trump suggested leaning on reporters in the hopes of uncovering the source. Read more.

• Kneecap won’t bend

  The Irish rap trio have become conservative bugbears in the US and UK thanks to their outspoken support of anticolonial movements. Even terror charges and A BBC blackout couldn’t move them. Read more. 

• Trump threatens NYC funding if “communist” Mamdani wins

  The president floated the idea of pulling federal funding from New York City if democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani wins the mayoral race. Read more.

Make me smarter …

Zohran and democracy: Three days that shook the world

Is Zohran Mamdani good for the Democrats? It's the wrong question — he's good for the world. Read more.

Walking with a ghost

Zohran Mamdani’s decidedly old-school, flesh-pressing primary campaign was born of necessity.

The Democratic candidate for mayor of New York needed face-to-face time with New Yorkers to counteract the barrage of Andrew Cuomo ads, funded by millions of dollars in PAC cash that flooded the city’s primary.

He also needed to present as a real, living person, as his mayoral race rivals, national Republicans and members of his own party all built up a boogeyman that had little to do with Mamdani.

American political history is full of candidates whose campaigns were sunk with unfounded aspersions. That goes double for anyone who dared to run to the left of George Wallace. Mamdani’s case is unique, in that just about every corner of the American political landscape has asked him to reckon with positions he doesn’t hold and statements he’s never made.

Mamdani is a Muslim immigrant who became a naturalized citizen within the last decade. Anyone who lived through the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in the United States — as a young Mamdani did — can probably guess what sort of attacks have been thrown at him from a proudly racist contingent of MAGA and the online right.

Accusations that Mamdani will implement sharia law in New York, AI images of the Statue of Liberty in a niqab and other such racist drivel have flown freely since Mamdani’s poll numbers came within spitting distance of Cuomo. Following his win, Republican politicians have openly called for his deportation. This rhetoric being old hat doesn’t make it any less disgusting.

The novel part of the anti-Mamdani agitprop has come from typically liberal sectors. Mamdani supports equal rights for Palestinians in Israel and Gaza. That defensible and straightforward moral stance has led to a parade of media hit jobs and outright lies. Sensible support for the end of a war and a belief in international law has been warped into the idea that Mamdani is calling for the end of Israel. He’s been regularly labeled an antisemite and asked to answer for slogans like “From the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada,” mottos that Mamdani has never said publicly.

Those phrases have stuck to Mamdani so strongly that Democratic Party leader Hakeem Jeffries called on the candidate to denounce them on national television. After calling the phrases “unacceptable” during a stop by ABC’s “This Week,” the House minority leader said Mamdani needs to “clarify” a position he’s staked out more than once.

“Ghost candidate” is a term that grew out of the scandalous swamps of Florida, a term for a false political candidate stood up for the express purpose of pulling support from a popular rival. Mamdani is facing something like that in the campaign of Cuomo, a man who doesn’t live in New York City in any real sense and who hopes to wreck Mamdani’s chances via a split of the Democratic base.

In this unique race, where the democratic socialist Muslim man is forced to wade through a bog of negative press about a fabricated Salafist communist, Mamdani is facing a ghost candidate that happens to share his name.

What do you think? Will Mamdani be able to overcome the picture painted of him? Will the Democratic Party see the enthusiasm around him as an asset or a threat? Sound off in the comments. 

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Before you go …

Texas could soon execute a man before his appeal is heard — and set a dangerous national precedent

Advocates say Robert Roberson was wrongfully convicted. Texas AG demands the death penalty anyway. Read more.

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