Republican strategist Karl Rove posited Tuesday that President Trump could stand to benefit from Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for New York City mayor, arguing the president could campaign against the 33-year-old Assembly member’s democratic socialism during the midterms.
“Trump is looking at it in a national picture and saying, ‘If New York has a democratic socialist mayor, and if you add one in Minneapolis, for example, we can run against them in the 2026 midterms,’” Rove said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom,” referencing Omar Fateh, a democratic socialist mayoral candidate who won the endorsement of Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor Party. “Say, ‘Look, here’s what the new Democratic Party is all about. It’s about free everything, democratic socialists, blah, blah, blah, blah.’”
Mamdani embarked on a five-borough tour this week campaigning against the president, attempting to link him to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who is running in the mayor’s race as an independent after losing handily to Mamdani in the Democratic primary. Rove noted the anti-Trump crusade could benefit Mamdani.
“Look, it works for him because he is the front-runner, and this allows him to eat up time,” Rove said. “It leaves his opponents trying to catch up with him.”
Rove added Cuomo and other Democrats opposing Mamdani needed to find a way to shake up the race.
“The way to shake it up is to find a way to say, ‘I’m the normal Democrat who can actually run this place, and that guy over there is extreme,’” he said.
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