Robert Hornak
Robert Hornak is a professional political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Director of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail. com and @roberthornak on X.
Since the 2024 election, Demo- crats have been struggling to define – or redefine – their identity. The left has been blaming their loss of the White House and Congress on the establishment Democrats who have run the party, with many ups and downs, for decades. The es- tablishment is blaming the left for pushing the party out of the main- stream and losing moderate swing voters across the country.
While there is surely plenty of blame to go around, this debate has taken hold in NYC in a much more concrete way, in the form of the recent and very divisive prima- ry for mayor.
Novice assemblyman Zohran Mamdani shocked the establish- ment by defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo, a second genera- tion veteran politician, in a race for Mayor of NYC that was sup- posed to have been an easy win for Cuomo.
A recent poll conducted by Democratic Super PAC Unite the Country had disturbing news for their leadership as they grappled with increasing their appeal to voters in the upcoming midterm and presidential elections. Unfor- tunately for their party, the poll showed that Democrats were of- ten perceived as out of touch and weak by voters.
And this has led to a deep divide
among NY Democrats and some serious soul searching on what the future of their party will look like, and it’s possible that this divide may not be overcome. Traditional Democrats embrace America and the American dream, recognize the capitalist system and free mar- kets as the mechanism that made America great, support our ally Israel, and reject much of the left- wing agenda.
The left is pushing a polar op- posite agenda. They find America to be an evil force in the world, they want to tear down our cur- rent economic system, they op- pose Israel and are pushing a radi- cal woke agenda that destroys all our cultural norms and is anath- ema to most Americans.
As the left wing grows in power, especially if Mamdani should be- come the next mayor of America’s biggest and most important city, this could lead to an unresolvable impasse. So, what happens then?
A permanent split becomes increasingly likely. One faction could split off and create a new political party in NY. And that’s likely to be the traditionalists, who are already in constant fear of a primary challenge.
After Mamdani’s primary win the Democratic Socialists an- nounced primary challenges next year to several sitting pro-Israel
Democrats who endorsed Cuomo in the primary. And those incum- bents are not taking this lightly, as they shouldn’t after looking at Mamdani’s numbers in their dis- tricts.
The radicals are winning the in- ternal fight and are taking control of the Democratic Party. While some Democratic leaders are tak- ing a stand and denouncing Mam- dani, many more are falling in line and rolling out the red carpet for the Democratic candidate.
The formation of a new, cen- trist party may be coming soon. While some may, it’s unlikely that most of these democrats will join the Republican Party. The other option is to create their own par- ty and take control of their own destiny. Democrats outnumber Republicans in NYC by almost 6 to 1 and statewide by 2 to 1, with independent voters significantly outnumbering Republicans both in the city and state.
A new party could conceivably attract more than half of the ex- isting Democrats and attract many independents as well, making it the largest party by registration and still the strongest party in NYC, while outside the city we might see an almost even three-way split. The remaining Democratic Party would become an extension of the Working Families Party and could
be controlled by the DSA.
While there has been talk for
decades about the possibility of a new third party, that time may finally have come and NY could lead the way. This could be a vi- able end to the traditional two- party system. Will this happen? It’s getting more likely as time goes on.
