A New York Post opinion column published Oct. 31 argues that establishment Democrats are ceding ground to the party’s left wing in the run-up to Election Day, pointing to recent comments from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Columnist Michael Goodwin writes that moderate Democrats have repeatedly failed to check the party’s left flank, allowing a small number of high-profile progressive candidates to shape the party’s direction. He cites Mamdani’s January inaugural address, in which the mayor said, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Goodwin notes that shortly afterward, 20 homeless New Yorkers died during a harsh winter on the city’s streets.
Pelosi, who is retiring after 20 terms in Congress, told the New York Times that far-left Democrats who criticize Israel “don’t represent the consensus of the party.” She named Mamdani and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, saying those who reject Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state are not just “concerning — it’s wrong.”
Despite those criticisms, Pelosi said she still wants both men to win. “This new person in Michigan, we’ll see if he gets elected to the Congress,” she said of El-Sayed. “But the mayor, bless his heart, I hope he succeeds as mayor. But I don’t agree with some of the things he has said.” On the broader stakes, she said, “We have to win big, so that doesn’t really matter.”
According to the Post, El-Sayed has campaigned at Michigan mosques where speakers called for the end of the Zionist state and the death of Jews. Schumer had initially endorsed El-Sayed’s primary opponent but backed El-Sayed once he won the nomination. Asked about the shift, Schumer said Democrats must be a “big tent party” and described his approach as “big tentism,” adding, “it’s how you build a majority.”
The column also quotes Hasan Piker, described as an ally of El-Sayed and a Twitch streamer, criticizing the campaign’s outreach in Jewish neighborhoods in Michigan. “This has got to be the wildest door-knocking operation of all time,” Piker said, calling it comparable to “going to that Klan KKK neighborhood for a black candidate who’s running to abolish anti-miscegenation laws.”
On New York’s governor’s race, the column points to Hochul’s political trajectory from a conservative-leaning upstate official — chosen as Andrew Cuomo’s running mate in 2014 and 2018 — to a governor who endorsed Mamdani and funded his spending and tax proposals after he won last year’s mayoral race. Hochul faces Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman on Tuesday; the column states polls favor her.
Goodwin’s column frames all of this as evidence that Democratic leaders including Pelosi, Schumer and Hochul have compromised their stated principles for political gain. The piece is an opinion column and reflects the author’s interpretation of these events and statements.
